Editorial

Citation

Whitelock, J. (2007), "Editorial", International Marketing Review, Vol. 24 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/imr.2007.03624baa.001

Editorial

This issue of IMR includes papers on a range of topics within the international marketing field. Our first paper by Dolnicar and Grun, examines the existence of variable response styles represents, suggesting they pose a major threat to the correct interpretation of market research findings. Their paper extends research into cross-cultural response styles by studying full response patterns instead of extreme values and goes on to quantify the extent of the potential mistake of not accounting for cross-cultural differences in response behaviour, and presents a simple way of testing whether or not data sets from various cultural backgrounds can be used without correcting for cross-cultural response styles. The findings from their study of Asian and Australian respondents show that differences in cross-cultural response patterns account for up to 6 percent of the variance in the data, thus representing a significant potential source for misinterpretation in cross-cultural studies.

Our second paper by Racela et al., aims to investigate and uncover the potential effect of exporters' market orientation upon international business relationships with particular emphases on cooperation, dependence, and relationship distance. This study thus extends the domain of market orientation in international contexts by illustrating and empirically testing how exporters' market orientation serves as an antecedent to the development of business-to-business relationships, which ultimately enhances export performance. Their findings suggest that exporters' market orientation enhances cooperation between the exporters and their major overseas distributor while minimizing their dependence and relationship distance. In addition, export performance is higher with greater exporter cooperation and lower relationship distance. However, the influence of exporter dependence on export performance varied among industry groups. Market orientation plays a crucial role in developing and nurturing cooperative efforts with overseas distributors. As a result, exporters and their overseas distributors are recommended to not only form cooperative norms that are critical to joint marketing decisions and actions, but also to aim to establish and maintain mutual dependence for to achieve superior performance.

Our next two papers, both address Hofstede's much cited cultural dimensions framework. Ng et al. propose an alternative basis for calculating cultural distance scores using Schwartz's cultural values. They calculated scores for 23 countries, based on the two most common measures of cultural difference (Hofstede's (1980) four cultural dimensions and Schwartz's (1994) culture level values) and assessed the congruency between these two bases of cultural distance. Findings indicate that inter-country distances between the 23 countries suggest that the two bases of cultural distance were not congruent. Further, cultural distance based on Schwartz's values was significantly related to international trade and it would appear that, at least in a trade context, Schwartz's values may play a more significant role than do Hofstede's dimensions.

In contrast, An and Kim examined cross-cultural differences in gender role portrayals in web ads in Korea and the USA on the basis of Hofstede's masculinity dimension. A quantitative content analysis was employed to obtain a numerically based summary of different themes and roles portrayed by women and men. The results appear to validate the use of Hofstede's taxonomy, supporting the application of the “masculinity” framework into the determination of appropriate advertising appeals related to gender roles and indicate that international advertisers might benefit by locating a target country's position on Hofstede's masculinity index, using it as a guideline for creating visual images. This study thus adds a new contribution to knowledge of international web advertising through an understanding of contemporary gender role portrayals.

The objective of our final paper by Sakarya et al., is to present a tool composed of four criteria specific to the preliminary assessment of emerging markets as international expansion opportunities. Based on the literature pointing out the limitations of international market selection models and the need for a specialized approach, additional criteria are introduced to assess emerging market potential. Using secondary data and primary data, the proposed criteria are applied to the assessment of an emerging market for US apparel specialty retailers. Assessment of the emerging market using these criteria revealed growth and sourcing opportunities that might otherwise have been overlooked. Hence, the findings illustrate the need to improve and supplement traditional assessment criteria for analysis of emerging markets, developing the body of knowledge in relation to international market selection and expanding on prior studies on emerging market potential.

Each of these papers supports our aims in offering new insights into aspects of international marketing from scholars based around the world.

Jeryl Whitelock