Global Supply Chain Management: Is Sustainability A Priority?

Agrigalore[1] is an international agribusiness headquartered in the U. S. Midwest. Increased competition in the soybean sector has spurred Agrigalore to consider producing in Brazil, yet concerns over destruction of the rainforest and sustainability need to be factored into management’s decision. [1] company and characters are fictitiou

Co-Branding Internationally: Everyone Wins?

Co-branding is an increasingly popular technique used primarily in domestic markets to transfer the positive associations of the partner brands to a newly formed co-brand.  This exploratory study investigates the relative impact of the brand equity of the constituent brands on co-branding efforts internationally using a sample of 1,203 Philippine housewives.  Findings indicate the co-branding of two high-equity brands was mutually beneficial, but the co-branding of high-equity and low-equity brands can be potentially dangerous for the high equity partner

A Pan-European Approach to Customer Satisfaction: An Optimal Strategy?

This study investigated the viability of using a Pan-European approach for professional service offerings in Europe by first establishing measurement equivalence and then exploring the influence of culture on service quality and customer satisfaction. Utilizing scenarios involving a dental office visit, respondents from Portugal, France, and Germany participated in a 2X2 factorial experiment in which the researchers manipulated both expectations (low/high) and service performance (low/high). Respondents from France and Portugal expressed similar levels of customer satisfaction and perceived service quality, which were significantly different from those of the German respondents except when both expectations and performance were low

Service quality and satisfaction: an international comparison of professional services perceptions

Purpose – This study aims to examine the applicability of key measures of service quality and customer satisfaction in a cross-cultural setting, first establishing measurement equivalence and then investigating the impact of culture on these measures. Design/methodology/approach – Using scenarios involving a visit to the dentist's office, respondents from Germany, Japan, and the USA participated in a 2 × 2 factorial experiment in which the authors manipulated both expectations (low/high) and service performance (low/high). Findings – Regardless of expectations, when performance was low, the low-context respondents (USA and Germany) perceived lower quality than did the respondents from the high-context country (Japan), but gave higher quality ratings than did the Japanese respondents when the performance was high. Practical implications – The findings of this study highlight the necessity of considering culture when interpreting customer satisfaction ratings. Originality/value – This research adds credence to the paramount role culture plays in consumers' ratings of perceived service quality and customer satisfaction

COBRA framework to evaluate e-government services: A citizen-centric perspective

E-government services involve many stakeholders who have different objectives that can have an impact on success. Among these stakeholders, citizens are the primary stakeholders of government activities. Accordingly, their satisfaction plays an important role in e-government success. Although several models have been proposed to assess the success of e-government services through measuring users' satisfaction levels, they fail to provide a comprehensive evaluation model. This study provides an insight and critical analysis of the extant literature to identify the most critical factors and their manifested variables for user satisfaction in the provision of e-government services. The various manifested variables are then grouped into a new quantitative analysis framework consisting of four main constructs: cost; benefit; risk and opportunity (COBRA) by analogy to the well-known SWOT qualitative analysis framework. The COBRA measurement scale is developed, tested, refined and validated on a sample group of e-government service users in Turkey. A structured equation model is used to establish relationships among the identified constructs, associated variables and users' satisfaction. The results confirm that COBRA framework is a useful approach for evaluating the success of e-government services from citizens' perspective and it can be generalised to other perspectives and measurement contexts. Crown Copyright © 2014.PIAP-GA-2008-230658) from the European Union Framework Program and another grant (NPRP 09-1023-5-158) from the Qatar National Research Fund (amember of Qatar Foundation

Consumer perceptions of co-branding alliances: Organizational dissimilarity signals and brand fit

This study explores how consumers evaluate co-branding alliances between dissimilar partner firms. Customers are well aware that different firms are behind a co-branded product and observe the partner firms’ characteristics. Drawing on signaling theory, we assert that consumers use organizational characteristics as signals in their assessment of brand fit and for their purchasing decisions. Some organizational signals are beyond the control of the co-branding partners or at least they cannot alter them on short notice. We use a quasi-experimental design and test how co-branding partner dissimilarity affects brand fit perception. The results show that co-branding partner dissimilarity in terms of firm size, industry scope, and country-of-origin image negatively affects brand fit perception. Firm age dissimilarity does not exert significant influence. Because brand fit generally fosters a benevolent consumer attitude towards a co-branding alliance, the findings suggest that high partner dissimilarity may reduce overall co-branding alliance performance

The relationship between consumer ethnocentrism, cosmopolitanism and product country image among younger generation consumers: the moderating role of country development status

Although the differences between developed and developing countries have been extensively studied in the context of globalization strategies, few studies have so far been conducted on the relationship between country development status and the possession by countries of a favorable (or unfavorable) product country image (PCI). Moreover, the results of such studies to date have been inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of country developmental status on PCI coupled with two antecedents of PCI, namely consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism. The paper also distinguishes between the PCI of the home and foreign country images of respondents. We test a new model that incorporates these constructs with a sample of 2655 younger generation consumers. The results show that country development status moderates some relationships but does not moderate others. These findings have significant implications for international companies from both developed and developing countries when developing global strategy

A review of literature on the use of clickers in the business and management discipline

YesClassroom response systems (clickers), in their various forms, are widely used across disciplines, demonstrating effectiveness across a range of different educational settings. However, only a few literature reviews on this technology have been undertaken in general, and no review has yet been performed on this topic in the business and management context. Realising the existing research gap, this article reviews 33 clicker-related studies from the business and management discipline that are largely focused on student perceptions and outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical and balanced review of articles from the business and management discipline on various themes such as learner's engagement, performance, learning, participation, satisfaction, feedback, attendance, enjoyability, motivation, and interactivity, to name a few. The review also provides a brief account of lessons learned from the literature published in other disciplines and recommendations provided by studies from the business and management discipline

Customer satisfaction and competitiveness in the Chinese E-retailing: structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to identify the role of quality factors

This paper attempts to study the impact of customer satisfaction and the Chinese electronic retailers (E-retailers) competitiveness using quality factors. Two conceptual models based on asset-process-performance (APP) competitive theoretical framework have been proposed. The proposed models include E-retailers strategic factors such as logistics, quality and customer satisfaction equivalent to asset, process and performance entities of the APP framework. Using an empirical survey from a young population, this study, with the support of structural equation modeling (SEM) identifies reliability in service quality and purchasing experience in e-service quality as dominant customer satisfaction factors. This study uses both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and suggests that to be competitive Chinese E-retailers have to focus more on the delivery of products (logistics) compared to other intangible service quality factors. On theoretical front, this study is a novel attempt to validate the APP framework for E-retailers’ competitiveness. On the practical front, the outcome of the study would be highly beneficial to the Chinese E-retailers to fine tune their strategy to satisfy the growing demand. Furthermore, this study can supplement government policy makers to regulate the growing volatile market