Determinants of the international performance of services: a conceptual model

Countless determinants of export success that are supposed to help managers reduce the failure rates of export ventures have been identified. Despite this abundance of studies, however, little is known about the determinants of the internationalization success of services. In this paper, based on prior studies focusing primarily on manufactured goods and the key characteristics distinguishing services from goods, a comprehensive conceptual model for the successful internationalization of services is developed. --Services,export performance,internationalization,success factors

Determinants of the international performance of services a conceptual model

Countless determinants of export success that are supposed to help managers reduce the failure rates of export ventures have been identified. Despite this abundance of studies, however, little is known about the determinants of the internationalization success of services. In this paper, based on prior studies focusing primarily on manufactured goods and the key characteristics distinguishing services from goods, a comprehensive conceptual model for the successful internationalization of services is developed

The Global/Local Product Attribute: Decomposition, Trivialization and Price Tradeoffs in Emerging and Developed Markets

Accelerating anti-globalization challenges previously undisputed assumptions about the importance of a product’s globalness/localness in purchase decisions. Putting these assumptions to test, we conceptualize globalness/localness as a distinct product attribute and decompose its utility into weight and preference components. Subsequently, we offer an equity-theory-based prediction of the attribute’s declining relevance and quantify its tradeoffs with other attributes by calculating global/local price premiums. Conjoint experiments in two countries (Austria-India) reveal that (1) emerging (developed) market consumers exhibit relative preference for global (local) products, (2) emerging market consumers perceive higher preference inequity between global and local products than developed market consumers, and (3) the corresponding inequity triggers consumers’ cognitive inequity regulation (manifested through attribute trivialization in developed markets) and behavioral inequity regulation (manifested through asymmetrical willingness to pay for global/local products across developed/emerging markets). We also find that attribute trivialization and price premium tolerance are moderated by consumers’ spatial identities and price segment. The findings contribute to the theoretical debate on the relevance of product globalness/localness in de-globalizing times and inform competitive strategy, segmentation-targeting-positioning, and international pricing decisions

Attributions of service quality: immigrant customers' perspective

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether and how strongly cultural (mis)matches influence immigrant customers’ satisfaction, as well as if this relationship is mediated by cultural or service employee performance attributions. In addition, the authors test whether attributions differ depending on the service delivery outcome (success vs failure). Design/methodology/approach The 2 (origin of service employee: Austria or Turkey) × 2 (service delivery outcome: success or failure) scenario-based experiment includes 120 Turkish immigrant customers in Austria. Findings Contrary to previous research, the results indicate that in an immigrant customer context, cultural (mis)match does not influence customer satisfaction. The service delivery outcome is a boundary condition. With a positive service delivery outcome, immigrant customers attribute the results to the cultural background of the employee if it is the same as their own, but they attribute success to employees’ performance if they belong to the immigration destination culture. For negative service delivery outcomes, neither cultural nor performance attributions arise. Originality/value This study is the first to focus specifically on immigrant customer behavior in a high-involvement service context. The results challenge the predictions of social identity theory and the similarity-attraction paradigm and highlight that the immigrant context is unique. In this context, attributions play a key role in determining customer satisfaction

The impact of perceived brand globalness on consumers' willingness to pay

This research replicates the study of Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden (2003) on perceived brand globalness (PBG) and provides a stringent test of their documented effects through (a) considering the impact of PBG on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP), and (b) experimentally manipulating brand globalness. Across four studies, the results suggest that consumers are willing to pay more for global brands as long as their globalness leads to a more favorable brand attitude. Testing a comprehensive set of consumer characteristics as moderators, we find that the increased tolerance towards global brand price premiums is robust across consumer segments