Luxury retail brands and their consumers in emerging markets: developing mobile marketing and sustaining the brand value

Understanding an individual’s self-interests remains a challenging task for consumer marketing because brands have no direct access to individual’s inner mind in order to satisfy his or her consumption-related wants, needs and expectations. In the case of luxury brands, customer service experts only seek to maintain close relationships with wealthy and elite customers, and they cannot extend the same individualized services to mass-market consumers. Among the new middle classes in emerging markets, consumers do not have strong brand attachments, but they do have high purchasing power with regard to luxuries. To bridge this gap, mobile technology could be an ideal interface through which luxury brands could enhance interactive communication and engagement with consumers. Nevertheless, research findings have revealed major discrepancies in the adoption of technology. While luxury brands have been ‘slow’ in their adoption of such technologies, consumers have adopted mobile devices as extensions of themselves in the digital world, which greatly enrich their lifestyles. Therefore, a medium should be developed to bridge this gap. The Gearbox of Exchange is proposed to help integrate the consumer’s self-interests with those of luxury brands. Through conditional access with a mutually agreed-upon exchange value to balance privacy concerns and financial risks, the consumer might be willing to share customized information with the brands with which they trust to engage. The luxury brands will benefit from the sharing of this customized information, as they can better predict an individual’s preferences and choices. This virtual engagement will revitalize customization to activate personalized services for every individual. These mutually agreed-upon interactions will develop into a mutual interdependence, a B2B2C relationship. This bond will protect brands from severe competition. More importantly, their knowledge of customized information, which is provided through their direct access to consumers’ self-interests, will fill the black box of radical behaviourism and enhance these brands’ abilities to predict individual choices. Therefore, the knowledge generated from the Gearbox of Exchange will not be meaningless to transform consumer analysis into micro marketing

Collaborative Decision Making as a Tool for Improving Decision-Making Processes in the Multicultural Environment of a Multinational Joint Venture

Abstract Collaborative Decision Making as a Tool for Improving Decision-Making Processes in the Multicultural Environment of a Multinational Joint Venture The importance of collaborative and collective behaviours, operations, and processes in human social interactions is clear and unquestionable. It has been evident at every stage of human development and lies at the roots of the very progress of mankind. Today, with distant cultures mingling and interacting with each other more than ever, the significance and impact of collaborative and cooperative behaviours and practices on successful business operations of international joint ventures (IJVs) is unquestionable. An important factor in the ever-changing landscape of business, is the exclusion of African organisations from most academic considerations (Zoogah et al., 2014) and that gap I strived to fill. I posit that changes in decision-making patterns, from a strict chain of command to more collaborative practices are necessary for successful navigation of national culture induced differences between stakeholders. This study shows that Nigerian and European employees—as nationally diverse decision-makers inhabiting very diverse perspectives— were unaware of the ambiguity experienced by other parties, despite being very willing to collaborate towards the company’s common goals and visions, at least at the beginning of the project. The inability to understand and adapt to each other’s perspectives gradually caused the development of mutual distrust or disrespect, as well as the misunderstanding of individual approaches, intentions, and attitudes. In addition, foreign partners often did not understand the fundamental mechanics of local institutions, which have a considerable impact on the performance of the IJV. The study was conducted over a period of approximately three years, using a mixed research methodology underpinned by strong pragmatism. I found that collaborative decision-making is indeed possible in a multinational IJV, despite the challenges faced in its achievement. Indeed, once established, such decision-making practices become an excellent tool for improving the quality of decisions. I also note that collaborative practices help multicultural organisations, particularly by harnessing differences between diverse national cultures, to create a unified corporate vision. A distinct organisational culture resulting from the merging of the diverse cultures of collaborating stakeholders can therefore emerge by building on differences rather than allowing them to be divisive. As the final conclusions of this research, I can posit that if IJVs with culturally diverse stakeholders follow the proposed approach, they can become more democratic, inclusive, and adaptive, attaining a competitive advantage through such emergent flexibility, resilience and collaboratively making good-quality decisions