Dear all
The latest issue of International Marketing Review has published - I'm delighted to share the table of contents and full editorial with you (below).
All good wishes
Martyn
Dr Martyn Lawrence
Senior Publisher
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Article Title: The importance of trust vis-à-vis reliance in business relationships: some international findings
Authors: Zhizhong Jiang, Stephan C. Henneberg, Peter Naudé
Article Type: Research paper
Keywords: Business relationships, International business, Reliance, Trust
Article Title: Network intermediaries in the internationalisation of new firms in peripheral regions
Authors: Colm O'Gorman, Natasha Evers
Article Type: Research paper
Keywords: Export promotion organizations, Globalization, International new ventures, Ireland, Networks
Article Title: Reciprocal transfer effects for brand extensions of global or local origin: evidence from Norway
Authors: Nina M. Iversen, Leif E. Hem
Article Type: Research paper
Keywords: Brand extensions, Brand globalness, Brand origin, Meaning transfer, Norway, Product origin
Article Title: The effect of culture on the context of ad pictures and ad persuasion: The role of context-dependent and context-independent thinking
Authors: Beichen Liang, Rodney C. Runyan, Wei Fu
Article Type: Research paper
Keywords: Ad attitudes, Advertising, China, Context, Context-dependent thinking, Context-independent thinking, Culture, United States of America
Article Title: Why is so little marketing research on Latin America published in high quality journals and what can we do about it?
Authors: Fernando Fastoso, Jeryl Whitelock
Article Type: Research paper
Keywords: Delphi method, Journals, Latin America, Marketing research
EDITORIAL
Welcome to the fourth issue of Volume 28. The five papers we have selected to include in this issue of the International Marketing Review all make exciting and very different contributions to the field.
In their study on “The importance of trust vis-a`-vis reliance in business relationships: some international findings”, Jiang and colleagues compare the importance of reliance (an organisational-level construct) and the individual-level trust construct
in business-to-business relationships. They report on 501 responses collected from four countries, namely the UK, India, Pakistan, and Poland. Having undertaken measure invariance testing, they reveal that a combination of both reliance and trust contribute
significantly to building sustainable long-term relationships. Interestingly, however, while business relationships can also successfully be anchored in reliance, they are seldom exclusively based on trust. In other words, lasting business relationships can
develop in the absence of trust as long as both organisations rely on each other. Also of particular interest is the fact that levels of reliance and trust appear to be culture-bound (or at least country-specific).
In the second paper, titled “Network intermediaries in the internationalisation of new firms in peripheral regions”, O'Gorman and Evers examine how an Irish government-funded export promotion organisation (EPO) influenced the internationalisation strategies
of three new firms from a peripheral region. Unusually in export assistance research, and because of the conflicting nature of past research in this area, they approach their study from a qualitative perspective, seeking in-depth insights into the issue at
hand. They also contribute to theory by anchoring their study in the network perspective. They identify a set of conditions that may determine the capability of EPOs to identify foreign opportunities and customers, facilitate introductions to international
customers, and provide foreign market knowledge. These conditions include “the strength of the EPO's international market networks, and the strength of its relationship with local firms”.
Meanwhile, Iversen and Hem report on the “Reciprocal transfer effects for brand extensions of global or local origin: evidence from Norway”. They examine how a brand's perceived global and/or local origin impacts on evaluations of brand extensions and
creates transfer effects of brand meaning. They specifically test the nature and extent of spillover effects of origin associations across multiple parent brands and extensions via a consumer survey and structural equation modelling. This paper makes a substantial
contribution to the global branding literature by revealing for the first time that distinct origin associations can initiate spillover effects across parent brands and extensions.
In our fourth paper on “The effect of culture on the context of ad pictures and ad persuasion: the role of context-dependent and context-independent thinking”, Liang and colleagues examine whether the context of ad pictures differs between Chinese and
US ads, and whether this context can influence consumers' ad attitudes. These authors contribute to the literature on the effect of context on ad attitudes, which is surprisingly under-researched. The effect of culture on ad context is also an area in its infancy.
Via an ad content analysis and a laboratory experiment involving 17 magazine categories, they find that contextualised ads appear more frequently (and are preferred) in China vs the USA. Furthermore, the effect of culture on advertising was found to be moderated
by product class (goods vs service), product category, and magazine category, and the effect of culture on ad attitudes was moderated by ad involvement.
Last but not least, Fastoso and Whitelock address the question “Why is so little marketing research on Latin America published in high quality journals?”. Research on emerging markets is surprisingly scarce with most published papers reporting on US or
European studies, and its importance is under-estimated. First, theories and empirical generalisations derived from data gathered in the developed world are not necessarily applicable to emerging markets. Second, over three quarters of world consumers now live
in those markets. The Latin America sector is particularly overlooked. Fastoso and Whitelock therefore set out to assess the challenges involved in, and propose strategies for, conducting and publishing marketing research based on Latin American data.
