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This study aims to summarize the important contextual influences East Asian philosophy may have on marketing strategy and consumerism.

A qualitative approach is used to deconstruct (1) the literature on marketing as a contextual discipline, (2) East Asian philosophical underpinnings and their personal and institutional manifestations in East Asian marketing contexts, and (3) the implications for non-East Asian marketers. This essay includes a brief introduction to the manuscripts in this special issue.

Ancient philosophical wisdom shared by East Asian societies can shed light on how marketing activities and consumer behavior intertwine within East Asia and beyond. Three ancient philosophies (i.e. Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism) heavily influence East Asian societies through personal and institutional-level cultural manifestations in marketing contexts.

Although the three discussed East Asian philosophical schools are not exhaustive, they lay a foundation for future discussions about how alternative marketing-related theories and frameworks may complement ones grounded in western historical and cultural contexts.

This essay initiates an overdue academic discussion about relying on non-western historical and cultural contexts to globalize the marketing discipline further.

From an environmental psychology perspective, we aim to uncover the role that app discoverability facilitators play in enabling the various perceived values (e.g. social, information and hedonic) necessary for app adoption.

A survey study was conducted and data was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Results show that certain consumer review elements (i.e. review quality, review quantity and app ranking), peer influence and app developers' reputation — to varying degrees — influence the three perceived values, which subsequently affect users' app adoption intention. The three perceived values mediate the relationship between app discoverability facilitators and users' app adoption intention.

App store managers and developers should make a greater effort to effectively optimize discoverability and product differentiation.

Guided by environmental psychology, we confirm the importance of app discoverability facilitators regarding their influence on users' general perceptions of an app (e.g. the three perceived values). We also uncover the differentiated effect of the three perceived values on app adoption intention.

This study aims to explore the overall relationship between a boundary spanner and a partner firm, i.e. boundary spanner closeness to partner firm. Drawing on consumer-service provider relationship literature and the tripartite model of affect-behavior-cognition, the authors identify three key dimensions of such closeness, namely, boundary spanners’ relational ties, customer-specific capabilities and accommodative behaviors, and examine their effects on exchange outcomes in turbulent versus stable environments.

The paper examines the effects of three dimensions of boundary spanner closeness on various exchange outcomes (i.e. retailers’ cooperation, satisfaction and willingness for investment) using two industries as exemplars, characterized by distinct levels of environmental turbulence – the retailing networks of a major cell phone company and a petroleum company in China.

The results indicate that the three dimensions individually and jointly affect exchange outcomes and the interplay of customer-specific capabilities and relational ties affect exchange outcomes differently across industry turbulence.

The existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the function of boundary spanners, which serve as a key relational interorganizational governance component. By identifying three key dimensions of boundary spanner closeness and examining their effectiveness in promoting exchange outcomes, this study advances the understanding of the role of boundary spanners in interorganizational governance.

With the popularity of paid apps and increasing concerns about privacy hazards, this paper aims to investigate the impact of mobile services’ fee-charging models on consumers’ privacy concerns, and generate insights for app developers’ fee-charging strategies.

Three experimental studies including 550 participants were conducted. All studies were between-subjects designs and based on the context of financial mobile services. The implementations of fee-charging models were manipulated by both visualized and test-based stimuli.

The results reveal that consumers are less concerned about potential privacy violations when using subscription-based (vs. purchase-based) financial mobile services (study 1). This effect is mediated by consumers’ perceptions that app developers that charge subscription fees (vs. one-off prices) are more likely to be consumer-serving motivated (study 2 and 3).

This paper advances the current understanding of consumer response toward paid apps, by proposing and testing a novel attribution-based mechanism to explain why the implementation of a subscription-based versus purchase-based fee-charging model can result in more favorable consumer reactions. Furthermore, this paper identifies the implementation of contrasting fee-charging models as a market-related factor that affects the extent to which consumers are concerned about potential privacy violations, extending extant literature on consumer privacy concern.

How to determine the appropriate contractual structure for an outsourcing relationship has been a major theme in the business process outsourcing (BPO) literature. Drawing on transaction cost economics, this study aims to examine how anticipated coordination and adaptation costs in a BPO relationship affect the choice of contract types. Specifically, this research categorizes contracts types (fixed-price, time and materials and hybrid contracts) based on levels of contract design comprehensiveness and flexibility to change.

The research setting is the BPO for a focal firm, involving a contractor. Data from 153 US companies are collected using a structured questionnaire on senior executives of functional areas of marketing, IT and finance. Hypotheses were tested using ordered probit model.

The results show that maturity is negatively associated with anticipated adaptation costs, while modularity and IT detachability are negatively related to anticipated coordination costs. Furthermore, adaptation costs have a direct impact on the choice, whereas the anticipated coordination costs do not have a significant direct impact on contract choice. The strength of adaptation costs' impact, however, is significantly reduced when coordination costs are high.

This study explicitly examines the role of anticipated coordination and adaptation costs in shaping the strategic choice of contract types in the BPO market. By differentiating the two types of anticipated transaction costs, this research enables a better understanding of the dynamics between transaction characteristics, anticipated transaction costs and contract types in complicated relationships such as BPO relationships.

The purpose of this study is to determine the dimensions of cultural differences, which are theoretically most relevant to contract functions in international marketing. Moreover, the contradiction between contract governance and opportunism is reconciled by exploring the boundary conditions of specific cultural differences.

The authors obtained 235 bilateral data provided by Chinese exporters and overseas distributors. The authors matched a secondary data set with the questionnaire data, which were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis and a hierarchical moderation model.

The results demonstrate that while contract specificity is less successful in this area, contingency adaptability is useful in reducing opportunism. Moreover, as the national cultural differences regarding uncertainty avoidance, power distance or individualism-collectivism become more pronounced. One contractual dimension will be more effective at curbing opportunism, while the other will be less effective.

Despite sample limitations, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to theoretically identify the effect of cultural difference dimensions in contract governance, unlike past studies taking cultural differences as an aggregated variable. Furthermore, by exploring the boundary conditions of cultural differences, this paper effectively reconciles the conflicting findings on the relationship between contract governance and opportunism in various cultural context.

Exporters’ managers can design contingency adaptability to complement the limitations of contract specificity and consider cultural differences’ contingency effects.

First, the authors identify cultural differences dimensions related to contract governance, refining and emphasizing the research context. Second, comparing the efficacy of contract specificity and contingency adaptability in specific cultural context can show which contract is better at preventing opportunism.

What are the performance implications of peer monitoring in a multiple-supplier context? Grounded in agency and social exchange theories, this study aims to examine how, when, and why peer monitoring works as a crucial control mechanism to reduce opportunism among suppliers.

A conceptual model and research hypotheses are tested using survey data from 246 respondents in 82 supplier groups.

Results suggest that peer monitoring is related positively to perceived deterrence (as mediator) and negatively to opportunism, whereas the mediated relationship is moderated negatively by generalized reciprocity and positively by balanced reciprocity and negative reciprocity.

This study introduces the application of peer monitoring into business-to-business research and shows how it reduces opportunism. Its findings have implications for manufacturers on how to use peer monitoring to control opportunism among multiple suppliers.

Existing empirical studies emphasize the role of customer preference measurement accuracy (CPMA) on customized product quality while neglecting the role of manufacturing flexibility. However, the rise of web-based technology has highlighted consumer-manufacturer interaction in mass customization (MC). This paper explores the relationships between CPMA, manufacturing flexibility, customer participation and customized product quality, inspired by module decomposition and integration theory.

The study carried out a questionnaire survey of 241 directors who are specifically responsible for MC in the apparel industry in China and tested hypotheses with structural equation modeling (SEM).

CPMA has a direct positive influence on customized product quality and an indirect positive effect through manufacturing flexibility. Also, customer participation after placing an order (CPAPO) has a negative moderating effect on the linkage between CPMA and manufacturing flexibility.

A more dynamic relationship between CPMA and MF can be explored in the future, and the findings can be tested in other industries with more abundant data.

Manufacturing flexibility should be improved along with CPMA in MC. Also, disruptions caused by customer participation in the post-design stage should be noticed. In this context, better consumer service in the early design stage may be one possible solution.

First, the essential but unexplored mediating role of manufacturing flexibility is identified, adding knowledge to the consumer–manufacturer interaction literature in MC production. Second, module decomposition and integration are applied to unify consumers and manufacturers into one empirical model, enriched theoretical research on modular theory. Third, this study opens new discussions on the moderating role of customer participation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the performance of service innovation (PSI), and the mediating effect of knowledge acquisition.

Drawing on social exchange and knowledge management theories, this paper establishes a relevant conceptual model and adopts a hierarchical regression analysis to examine the model with a data set of 298 firms from China.

CSR positively affects the PSI; however, the effects vary when firms take responsibility for different stakeholders. CSR for the same group of stakeholders influences differently the short-term financial and long-term non-financial PSI, whereas knowledge acquisition mediates the impact of employee and customer CSR on PSI, but not the impact of community CSR on PSI.

Managers could improve the PSI of the firm by strategically assuming CSR and by managing corporate knowledge acquisition activities.

This study contributes to the service innovation literature by identifying the influence of particular types of CSR on PSI, and by highlighting the influencing mechanism of knowledge acquisition. It extends scholarly understanding of the antecedents of PSI as well as the business returns to CSR.