Introduction to the Special Issue

Introduction to the Special Issue

Article Type: Editorial From: International Marketing Review, Volume 32, Issue 2.

Many marketplaces the world over host natives, residents, and visitors from many nationalities and cultures. Breaking out of their own geographies, these marketplaces are becoming more like one another across national boundaries than like other, more homogeneous parts of the countries in which they are located. If one considers the market actors, the products, services, and practices that are available, and the general consumption environments, Sydney, New York City, Cairo, London, Manchester, Moscow, Dubai, Shanghai, or Toronto have more in common with one another than with the more culturally homogeneous marketplaces within their geographical environment and national boundaries. Besides, many virtual marketplaces are �born multicultural�. In a world where the top 100 cities account for close to 950 million inhabitants (Brinkhoff, 2012) and rising, these multicultural marketplaces have a large economic impact. Recent practitioner advice (Dobbs et al., 2012) recommends that companies focus their strategies, in emerging markets, on cities rather than countries or regions, citing the benefits of dis-aggregating marketplaces for strategic advantage.

Yet, the literature on international marketing and cross-cultural consumer research has for the most part assumed culturally homogeneous national or regional markets, focusing instead on comparisons and differences between cultures separated by borders. Such approaches have enabled marketers to sharpen their approach by tailoring strategies to the characteristics of particular markets, but they are insufficient to understand the phenomena that take place in multicultural marketplaces and identify the strategies best suited to these marketplaces. Similar concerns about a lack of conceptualisation of multicultural work- and business places have been raised in the management literature (e.g. McSweeney, 2009; Tung, 2008; Witte, 2012).

A stream of marketing literature has begun to consider the cultural and market transformations caused by the flows of people, ideas, media, finance, and technologies (Appadurai, 1990) in such marketplaces, and their implications on firm behaviour. Several scholars (Briley, 2009; Cadogan et al., 2006; Craig and Douglas, 2006; Leung et al., 2005; Nakata, 2009; Yaprak, 2008) have called for more research in this area. Of particular note is the work by Samuel Craig and Susan Douglas in the pages of this journal (Craig and Douglas, 2006; Douglas and Craig, 2011), that called for closer consideration of the impact of contextual factors on consumption behaviour and research into the consequences of new cultural dynamics taking place in societies where the boundaries between cultures are becoming increasingly porous. This Special Issue aims to further establish a stream of literature that deals with the new consumption and marketing dynamics emerging in multicultural marketplaces.

Contents of the Special Issue

This Special Issue is dedicated to the memory of Susan P. Douglas, whose pioneering work on multicultural dynamics in international marketing has inspired many other scholars including this issue�s guest editors, to develop further research in this area. In two commentaries in this issue, C. Samuel Craig, her closest research colleague, places her research journey within the broader context of her career, and discusses the issues which Susan considered as most important, while Gilles Laurent shows the founding role she played in the development of a European marketing community.

The emergence of multicultural marketplaces as a new focal research lens is articulated in a conceptual paper by Demangeot, Broderick, and Craig. The paper develops a conceptualisation of multicultural marketplaces, demonstrating why they constitute new conceptual territory, before specifying five key areas for research development, each with a different research focus, around identity, national integration policies, intergroup relations, networks, and competences, respectively.

Indicative of the actuality of the issue�s theme, the call for papers generated 36 submissions that dealt with a broad spectrum of topics, and a broad range of geographically dispersed multicultural marketplaces: the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, and the World Wide Web. The papers which made it to publication contribute insights into some of the research avenues outlined in Demangeot et al.�s conceptual paper.

In a situated, interpretive account of the New Zealand luxury market, Seo, Buchanan-Oliver, and Cruz�s study contributes valuable insights into the phenomenon of increasing cultural identity complexity. It finds that within a single marketplace, luxury brand consumption is concurrently shaped by local and foreign cultural beliefs. In particular, the authors show that consumers behave as contextual cultural shifters between two distinct cultural beliefs: the (local) Kiwi �tall poppy syndrome�, and the (foreign) �face saving� orientation. Demonstrating the salience of foreign rather than just global or local cultural influences, the paper provides insights into how consumers manage contrasting sets of beliefs in different situations.

Within the stream of intergroup conviviality in the multicultural marketplace, Sarpong and Maclean tackle the practice of service nepotism, and use a practice theory approach to unravel the mentalities and motivations surrounding the phenomenon from the perspective of service employees. The study, conducted among west African migrants working as service personnel in a UK multicultural city, reveals the existence of four different activities, which they label marginal revolution, reciprocal altruism, pandering for recognition, and horizontal comradeship. The study addresses the issue of marketers having to deal with contrasting values underpinning nepotism in some of the service personnel�s cultures, and those prevalent in the national context of the marketplace. Such contrast in values is also present among the customers of those service organisations. The authors suggest a number of strategies for organisations to deal with such conflict of values-driven service expectations.

Within the lens of transnational networks among mobile actors, Rojas Gaviria and Emontspool report an ethnographic study of the cultural dynamics of expatriate amateur theater in Brussels, as a contributor to multicultural marketplace development in global cities. They find that in a process of cultural experimentation, expatriates alternate between hybridisation (tending towards homogeneity) and pluralisation (tending towards diversification). Besides showing the role of the arts in contributing to the fluid evolution of a multicultural city, the paper also illustrates the relevance of the global city as a strategic focal lens to study multicultural production and consumption practices.

Contributing to the multicultural adaptiveness stream, Elliot, Xiao, and Wilson explore how Chinese entrepreneurs develop a process to use metaphors (visual and verbal) towards the development of cognitive social capital in the USA, via an ethnographic study which involved interviews with both Chinese entrepreneurs and their American customers or business associates. Cultural metaphors are complex forms of communication which, in multicultural marketplaces, can constitute an obstacle to the building of social connections for migrant entrepreneurs. The study describes the process of �cross-cultural frame shifting� which explains how cultural metaphors are converted into deep metaphors (metaphors which can be shared by people from different cultures), the authors noting that deep metaphors are �a manifestation of the multicultural�. The study also contributes a novel perspective by focusing on entrepreneurs from a developing economy who have migrated to the multicultural marketplace of a developed economy, a context which has been researched more rarely than its reverse.

Finally, Garry and Hall�s study contributes to the issue of consumer mobility by considering identity shifts among �lifestyle migrants�. The study considers the decisions of UK citizens to migrate to New Zealand and examines their meaning reconstructions through the lens of their Christmas rituals. It contributes insights into more reflexive practices to construct self- and social identity in a new marketplace, which go beyond the simple acceptance or rejection of their host culture. The study offers a valuable counterpoint to traditional acculturation theory, which assumes that migration has economic, rather than sociocultural, motivations.

Acknowledgements

Jeryl Whitelock and John W. Cadogan, past and present Editors-in-Chief of International Marketing Review, enthusiastically agreed to provide a home to this Special Issue, and we are very grateful for their trust. The Emerald team assisted us throughout the submission, reviewing and production process. The Guest Editors would like to thank the authors of the articles, for their contribution to the theme of the issue; finally, the Guest Editors are grateful to the reviewers for sharing their expertise with the guest editors and the authors, and helping craft important contributions to the theme. Their names and affiliations follow.

Asmat-Nizam Abdul-Talib, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia

Jos� Abrantes, Instituto Polit�cnico de Viseu, Portugal

Natalie Adkins, Drake University, USA

James Agarwal, University of Calgary, Canada

Robert Aitken, University of Otago, New Zealand

Constantine Andriopoulos, Cardiff University, UK

Daniel Baack, University of Denver, USA

Paul Brewer, University of Queensland, Australia

Steven Burgess, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa

Marylyn Carrigan, Coventry University, UK

Antonella Caru, Bocconi University, Italy

Sergio Carvalho, Dalhousie University, Canada

Julien Cayla, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Chien-Wei Chen, National ChengChi University, Taiwan

Rongwei Chu, Fudan University, China

Edward Chung, Elizabethtown College, USA

David Crick, Victoria University, New Zealand

Charles Cui, The University of Manchester, UK

Barbara Czarnecka, University of Bedfordshire, UK

Salvador del Barrio-Garcia, University of Granada, Spain

Christian Dianoux, University of Metz, France

George Dutschke, Universidade Atlantica, Portugal

Akon Ekpo, Western Michigan University, USA

Bayram Zafer Erdogan, Anadolu University, Turkey

Cristina Etayo, University of Navarra, Spain

Rosellina Ferraro, University of Maryland, USA

John Ford, Old Dominion University, USA

Brendan Gray, University of Otago, New Zealand

Joan Henderson, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Ahmad Jamal, Cardiff University, UK

Chanaka Jayawardhena, Hull University, UK

Guillaume Johnson, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

Eva Kipnis, Coventry University, UK

Thomas Kramer, University of South Carolina, USA

Anvita Kumar, Coventry University, UK

Hsiang-Ming Lee, Chien Hsin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Dawn Lerman, Fordham University, USA

Eric Li, University of British Columbia, Canada

Andrew Lindridge, The Open University Business School, UK

Matthew Liu, University of Macau, China

Vinh Lu, The Australian National University, Australia

Meriem Maazoul, University of Tunis, Tunisia

Peter Magnusson, Florida International University, USA

Maria Pilar Martinez-Ruiz, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Damien Mather, University of Otago, New Zealand

Lien Monkhouse, University of Sheffield, UK

Rene Mueller , College and University of Charleston, USA

Michelle Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Lisa O Malley, University of Limerick, Ireland

Shintaro Okazaki, Universidad Aut�noma de Madrid, Spain

Nacima Ourahmoune, NEOMA Business School, France

Mathew Parackal, University of Otago, New Zealand

Michael Polonsky, Deakin University, Australia

Efthimios Poulis, University of East London, UK

Mahdi Rajabi, Antwerp University, Belgium

Nina Reynolds, University of Wollongong, Australia

Petra Riefler, University of Vienna, Austria

Matthew Robson, University of Leeds, UK

Jos� Rojas-M�ndez, Carleton University, Canada

Mark Rosenbaum, Northern Illinois University, USA

Abhijit Roy, University of Scranton, USA

Salvador Ruiz, University of Murcia, Spain

Paurav Shukla, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK

Geoffrey Soutar, University of Western Australia, Australia

Katja Soyez, TU Dresden, Germany

Jaana T�htinen, University of Oulu, Finland

Charles Taylor, Villanova University School of Business, USA

Alastair Tombs, University of Queensland, Australia

Ekant Veer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Ela Veresiu, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany

Luca Visconti, ESCP Europe, France

David Waller, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Stanford Westjohn, University of Toledo, Spain

Markus Wohlfeil, University of East Anglia, UK

Attila Yaprak, Wayne State University, USA

Debra Zahay-Blatz, Aurora University, USA

Jingyun Zhang, Ohio Northern University, USA.

Dr Catherine Demangeot - IESEG School of Management, LEM-CNRS (UMR 9221), Paris, FranceIESEG School of Management, LEM-CNRS (UMR 9221), Paris, France

Professor Amanda J. Broderick - Salford Business School, University of Salford, Salford, UK, and

Professor C. Samuel Craig - Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York, USA

References

Appadurai, A. (1990), �Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy�, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 7 Nos 2/3, pp. 295-310

Briley, D.A. (2009), �Cultural influence on consumer motivations: a dynamic view�, in Nakata, C. (Ed.), Beyond Hofstede: Culture Frameworks for Global Marketing and Management, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, pp. 189-200

Brinkhoff, T. (2012), �The principal agglomerations of the world�, available at: mailto:www.citypopulation.de(accessed 27 May 2012)

Cadogan, J.W., Cui, C.C., Morgan, R.E. and Story, V.M. (2006), �Factors facilitating and impeding the development of export market-oriented behavior: a study of Hong Kong manufacturing exporters�, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 634-647

Craig, C.S. and Douglas, S.P. (2006), �Beyond national culture: implications of cultural dynamics for consumer research�, International Marketing Review, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 322-342

Dobbs, R., Remes, J. and Schaer, F. (2012), �Unlocking the potential of emerging-market cities�, McKinsey Quarterly, Vol. 209, September, pp. 53-57, available at: mailto:www.mckinseyquarterly.comUnlocking_the_potential_of_emergingmarket_cities_3015(accessed 20 october 2012).

Douglas, S.P. and Craig, C.S. (2011), �The role of context in assessing international marketing opportunities�, International Marketing Review, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 150-162

Leung, K., Bhagat, R.S., Buchan, N.R., Erez, M. and Gibson, C.B. (2005), �Culture and international business: recent advances and their implications for future research�, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 357-378

McSweeney, B. (2009), �Dynamic diversity: variety and variation within countries�, Organization Studies, Vol. 30 No. 9, pp. 933-957

Nakata, C. (2009), Beyond Hofstede: Culture Frameworks for Global Marketing and Management, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY

Tung, R.L. (2008), �The cross-cultural research imperative: the need to balance cross-national and intra-national diversity�, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 39 No. 1, pp. 41-46

Witte, A.E. (2012), �Making the case for a postnational cultural analysis of organizations�, Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 141-159

Yaprak, A. (2008), �Culture study in international marketing: a critical review and suggestions for future research�, International Marketing Review, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 215-229

About the Guest Editors

Dr Catherine Demangeot is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the IESEG School of Management. She received a PhD in Marketing from the Aston Business School, UK. Her research interests lie in the area of consumers� interactions with multicultural or virtual environments, as well as the strategies they may deploy and the competences they may acquire in the process. Her research has been published in the Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Management and other international publications. Her work has been recognised by a number of accolades, including the British Academy of Management�s 2008 Tony Beasley Award in recognition of outstanding work derived from doctoral research. Catherine spent her �first life� in print and web publishing, in London and Dubai. Dr Catherine Demangeot is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: mailto:c.demangeot@ieseg.fr

Professor Amanda J. Broderick is a Pro-Vice Chancellor (International Priorities), an Executive Dean, and the Chair in Marketing at the Salford Business School, University of Salford. Amanda�s research expertise lies in the field of marketing, psychology and strategic communications, with particular application to the digital and international marketplaces and substantive focus on transformational consumer research. An award-winning researcher, her research has appeared in many leading business journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, and she authors two seminal texts in her field. She has successfully generated over �3 million in research funding with awarding bodies from governmental (e.g. ESRC, SCRIF, HEFCE), professional and commercial (e.g. Proctor & Gamble, IBM) sources. She also consults widely for business, commerce, and public policy and is a representative on a variety of national and international bodies and committees.

C. Samuel Craig is the Catherine and Peter Kellner Professor of Marketing and International Business and the Director of the Entertainment Media and Technology Program at the New York University�s Stern School of Business. He co-authored Global Marketing Strategy and International Marketing Research, third edition with Susan Douglas. In addition he and Susan Douglas co-authored over 50 articles and technical papers which have appeared in leading journals. His current research focuses on global marketing strategy, cross-cultural marketing issues, methodological issues in conducting multi-country research, and issues facing the entertainment industry. He received his PhD from the Ohio State University. He has taught marketing for executive programs in the USA as well as France, the UK, Thailand, India, Singapore, Greece, and Slovenia.