Editorial

Citation

Whitelock, J. (2012), "Editorial", International Marketing Review, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/imr.2012.03629aaa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Marketing Review, Volume 29, Issue 1.

Welcome to volume 29. We have had another excellent year at IMR, and are delighted that our readership, downloads and impact factor (reaching 1,438 in June 2011) all continue to improve. John and I were delighted to be recognized as Leading Editors by Emerald in 2011 Awards for Excellence. This is not the first time IMR has been recognized in this way (I received Leading Editor Awards in 1999 and 2002 before John joined me as Co-Editor, as well as Emerald's Editor of the Year Award in 2001, the year IMR was accepted into the Thomson Reuters (ISI) database), but it is very heartening and encouraging to continue to see our efforts recognized.

In 2011, IMR again sponsored best paper prizes at key international conferences in marketing and international business:

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  Best Paper in International Marketing – Academy of International Business (AIB)

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  Best Paper in International Marketing – European International Business Academy (EIBA)

We will be delighted to repeat these awards in 2012, together with our Best Paper with an International Focus traditionally arranged with ANZMAC. During 2012, we also plan to expand our plans at AIB (Washington) and EMAC (Lisbon), and will be hosting meetings for our Editorial Board during those conferences. Next year, 2013, marks the 30th birthday of IMR and we look forward to hearing your ideas as to how IMR can best develop and progress into its next 30 years.

As to this issue, we include four regular papers and one more “controversial” “Viewpoint” piece and offer something of an “export” flavour in three of the five papers. The four “regular” papers cover social capital in Western-Japanese alliances; the effect of response scale type on cross-cultural context measures; a contingency approach to international marketing strategy and decision making in exporting firms; the impact of firm location on export performance of SMEs; and levels of analysis in exporting research studies.

Our first paper, by Slater and Robson, explains the culture-driven role and effects of social capital in Japanese-Western alliances, moving beyond narrow conceptualizations of relationship bonding (i.e. positive socio-psychological aspects such as trust and commitment) to explore the broader role of social capital (e.g. in destructive act recovery processes) in such alliances. Adopting a theory development approach, the paper advances a process model and propositions that explain the way social capital networks and processes influence relationship-based contracting and performance outcomes in alliances with the Japanese. The study is novel in addressing the issue of how to implement relational bonding mechanisms in complex cultural situations in a context where cultural erosion presents different types of partner, eroded vs traditional, which may require different alliance screening and management strategies.

In our second paper, Reardon and Miller argue that, while methodological advances in cross-cultural scale development have addressed many concerns regarding the development of valid scales, several issues remain to be examined – including the potential problems of using language to measure communication phenomena using self-reported studies and addressing the effect of response scale type on the validity of resultant measures. The purpose of their paper is to expand the cross-cultural measurement paradigm by comprehensively examining these issues and suggesting a new response scale type that may potentially produce more valid cross-cultural measures of communication-based phenomena. Measures of Hall's concept of context were developed using three types of response scales – Likert, Semantic Differential and the newly developed Conceptual Metaphoric. Overall all three response scale types adequately measured the construct of context, with the Conceptual Metaphoric scale performed marginally better on most comparative metrics. The new response scale type may provide slightly better measures to more accurately reflect communication-based constructs – many of which are central to marketing – and may overcome some existing biases inherent in standard response scale types.

Our third paper by Chung, Wang and Huang utilizes contingency theory to uncover the moderation factors for the strategy-structure-performance paradigm in the export sector. Focussing on four strategy/structure combinations along the standardization/centralization continuum, the interactive effect of the four approaches and a set of contingent factors are examined among exporting firms in varying sectors operating in the EU contact.

In our fourth paper Freeman, Styles and Lawley once more consider the export context and explore how location – regional vs metropolitan – impacts an SME's access to firm resources and capabilities and in turn its export performance. Using qualitative data from an expert panel of government trade advisors, as well as managers of SME exporters in regional and metropolitan areas, the study provides support for the propositions that location impacts SME exporters’ access to networks and export-related infrastructure/services, and in turn export performance. Firms in metropolitan areas have an advantage over those in regional areas. However, contrary to expectations, the relatively lower level of competition in regional areas did not appear to have a negative impact on the export performance of firms located in these areas.

Finally, our “Viewpoint” piece by Oliveira, Cadogan and Souchon examines the issue of level of analysis in models where export performance is a dependent variable, pinpointing the potential pitfalls of measuring export performance at the incorrect level of analysis. The paper argues that many studies use the incorrect “unit of analysis” thus potentially biasing findings and provides recommendations for researchers on the appropriate level of analysis to be used depending on the research objectives. While considered within the context of exporting research studies, the ideas expressed here extend to other contexts within international marketing, and echo similar concerns expressed in relation to the importance of identifying the “correct” point of reference in conducting international research studies in the marketing field highlighted by Fastoso and Whitelock (2010).

We hope you will enjoy reading these varied, interesting and robust papers.

Jeryl Whitelock

Reference

Fastoso, F. and Whitelock, J. (2010), “Regionalization vs globalization in advertising research: insights from five decades of academic study”, Journal of International Management, Vol. 16, pp. 32-42