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The objective of this paper is to understand the perspectives of the chief executive officer (CEO), chairman and managing director of Sasken Technologies Limited, Shri. Rajiv C. Mody who co-founded this high-technology firm, which has survived three decades of turbulence in technology and the market. This is an interview-based study focused on South Asian CEOs, with the goal of better understanding the cultural elements of strategic leadership and organizational values and its influence on organizational competitiveness and survival.

The paper uses primary data from one in-depth interview and supplements the analyses with secondary sources of data. The literature on the cultural dimension of long-term orientation (LTO) is discussed for understanding its possible linkage with strategic leadership, organizational values and thereby organizational competitiveness and survival.

This study found that the national cultural dimension of LTO of the South Asian leadership, as embedded, nurtured and practiced in the organization's values by the strategic leadership, plays an important role in explaining the organizational competitiveness and survival of South Asian firms while facing challenges and opportunities in a turbulent global business context.

This paper offers the perspective of a chairman and CEO of a high-technology firm with global experience and with a South Asian base of operations. His experiences in managing the organization add value to the discussion on managing business in South Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of the organizational changes related to the production‐planning process that facilitate application of form postponement (FP), an increasingly popular operations‐design principle meant to alleviate the negative impact of product variety and customization on operational performance.

To achieve the theory‐building objective, a multiple‐case study involving four cases in the machinery industry was designed. In the inductive theory‐building process, the authors borrowed from the information‐processing theory to further corroborate the internal validity and generalizability of the findings.

The theory proposed by the author indicates that greater utilization of lateral relations in the production‐planning process, higher production‐planning frequency, greater degree of self‐containment of the production‐planning task, and simplification of the production planning‐related environment favor application of FP.

The level of analysis of the theory is the production‐planning process of a product family within a company. Future research could extend inquiry of the organizational antecedents of FP at both higher and lower levels of analysis, such as the organization as a whole or the individuals participating in the production‐planning process.

The theory supports managerial decision making by suggesting how to redesign the organization part involved in the production‐planning process of a product family in order to apply FP. The difficulty and cost of this organizational redesign effort should be taken into account when companies consider FP implementation.

Past research has focused on changes to product design and to the manufacturing and supply chain process that enable FP. This paper augments the understanding of FP enablers by developing the first model of organizational antecedents of FP. It also responds to calls for more research integrating insights from organization theory and operations/supply chain management.

The purpose of this study is to expand the notion of differentiation by developing and testing a typology of brand benefit differentiation.

Brand concept maps were used to identify three types of differentiation. The effects of the types of differentiation on benefit evaluation and brand attachment were tested in two follow-up studies using path analysis.

A comparison of the association maps of four international brands showed instances of all three types of benefit differentiation – categorical, graded and structural benefit differentiation. The tests of effects revealed that categorical benefit differentiation had negative effects, whereas structural and graded differentiation had positive effects on benefit evaluation and brand attachment, respectively.

The findings suggest that other types of benefit differentiation are more important than uniqueness. Future research should test the relevance and usefulness of the typology for other brands and consumer segments.

The new typology opens new opportunities for the differentiation of brands. Brand managers should avoid a myopic focus on uniqueness. Rather, they should analyze networks of benefit associations in detail for all three types of differentiation identified in this research and strengthen the level of structural and/or graded differentiation.

This research demonstrates, for the first time, the importance of two types of differentiation other than uniqueness. It also supports previous studies showing the negative effects of uniqueness on variables related to brand equity.

The purposes of this study are to introduce the concept of service quality (SQ) in E-Supply chain management (E-SCM) and its impact on increasing customer satisfaction (CS) and provide insightful enhancements to the literature. In addition, the paper also examines the influence of SQ of E-SCM on CS in online shopping.

After a comprehensive literature review, four key factors for measuring the E-Supply chain (process control, interaction with supplier, management support and focus on customers), four key factors for measuring CS (informing customers, attention to customers’ needs, staff performance accuracy and easy access to services) and four factors for measuring the quality of identification services (assurance, accountability, tangibility and reliability) were selected. The proposed conceptual model was then presented. This model was validated by data collected through a survey of 150 respondents to identify CS, including that of customers of online websites in Iran. The sample data was analyzed using SPSS21, after which the interrelationships between the model and factors were examined based on the partial least square-structural. Model fit indices were then calculated for the data set. The proposed model was validated by using factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques.

The results indicated that E-SCM has a direct impact on CS. The effect of SQ was also confirmed. A positive and significant relationship was identified between E-SCM and CS, E-SCM and SQ, as well as SQ and CS (P> 0.05).

The first limitation was to convince respondents to cooperate with the researchers. The second one was the lack of research-related background due to the subject being relatively new.

This study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first empirical analysis on the CS assessment of SQ of E-Supply Chain in online shopping. This important link to online shopping has rarely been explored. It is expected that by filling this gap, this study will help in strengthening online shopping, which needs a change in the marketing area.

Mergers and acquisition are a very common part of business strategy. However, it is not clear if and how these processes affect customers. This study aims to assess banking M&A from the marketing perspective, by analyzing its impact on the customer loyalty.

The study employed a purposive sampling method for collecting data from 232 respondents using a self-administered questionnaire. Variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for testing the proposed structural model.

Results show that M&A integration does influence customers' perception of key variables like customer–company relationship, and their loyalty after the M&A. Findings highlight the relative importance of these variables and the potential influence of some moderators (customer orientation, speed of integration and communication). The most important antecedent of loyalty in a M&A situation is service quality followed by company image, products and prices, sales channels and sales force.

This paper explores the impact of M&A on clients by using customer survey data, an area that is still an under-explored field, in relation with the total number of articles on M&A that are published each year.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of underwriter reputation on the valuation of Malaysian initial public offerings (IPOs).

This study employed cross-sectional multiple regression models to analyse the relationship between underwriter reputation and IPO valuation that included 466 IPOs listed on Bursa Malaysia from 2000 to 2017.

The results revealed that underwriter reputation had a significant negative association with IPO valuation. Firms that engaged the services of reputable underwriters had their IPO offer prices set lower than the intrinsic values during the listing. After incorporating firms' size, this study found a positive relationship between underwriter reputation and IPO valuation. Big firms (high quality) hired reputable underwriters for certification purposes as issuers were aware that the cost of hiring a reputable underwriter would be justified by increased transparency after listing. Therefore, firms that engaged reputable underwriters had approximately fair values since issuers assumed that the price would be close to the intrinsic value following enhanced transparency post-listing.

Future studies should focus on other non-financial factors, such as auditor reputation.

The present study provides new insights into the certification role of underwriters in valuing IPOs in the Malaysian market.

Modular product design is a practice manufacturers frequently adopt to develop new products. Some literature has reported the importance of the modular product design and its effect on supply chain management. However, until now, very few empirical researches have examined the relationship of product modularisation and supply chain design and coordination. Furthermore, the exploration on how manufacturers capitalize upon product modularization with supply chain design and coordination is rarely reported. This paper addresses this gap.

This paper conducted a case study to review the experience of an Audio Consumer Electronics Manufacturer (ACEM) in Hong Kong and China. This company has successfully integrated modular product design with supply chain design and coordination for more than five years.

Results indicate that product modularization affects supply chain design, whereas product innovation influences on supply chain coordination.

This study explores new relationships between supply chain and modular product design into three propositions for further studies. The first proposition shows that supply chain for modular product design has one more level than integrated product design in multiple‐tier supply chain. The second proposition shows that, regardless of either a modular or integrated product, an innovative product requires closer supply chain coordination than a conventional product in new product development. The final proposition shows that product modularization with close supply chain design and coordination brings down the inventory level, improve the quality of conformance and reduce development lead time.

This paper builds a theoretical argument of how the Internet increases the scope for disintermediation and analyzes the changes in the structure of transaction costs in the case of retailing. The paper treats the Internet as a low‐cost selling technology that needs substantial customers acceptance and a specific business model in order to be a viable alternative to traditional retailing. The proposed model predicts that different types of traditional retailers follow different strategies with respect to e‐commerce depending on their pre‐Internet market positioning. These conclusions are supported by empirical evidence from the adoption strategies, followed by a sample of well‐established U.S.‐based retailers. This study shows that retailers whose traditional selling technology is best approximated by e‐commerce are more likely to be among the first to reap the benefits of low‐cost online distribution.

The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed.

A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language attitude is used as covariate.

Results reveal shorter brand names, and those with semantic relevance to English are perceived as more memorable. It was also found that pronounceability of the brand name does influence brand name preference in terms of their meaningfulness, memorability and likeability.

This exploratory paper is limited to Americans’ perceptions of the English version of Chinese automobile brand names.

Chinese companies should therefore carefully consider the brand name characteristics in terms of string length and semantic relevance, as well as their ease of pronunciation when choosing and introducing their brand name in the USA.

This is the first paper which assesses Western consumers’ perception of brand names from Chinese automobile companies in terms of their brand meaningfulness, brand memorability and brand likeability.

This research paper aims to examine the relationships among the factors associated with changing shopping environment, consumer knowledge and reference price.

A self administered online survey was used to collect data (final sample size was 265). After checking for non‐response bias, data was factor analyzed and checked for reliability and validity. Hypotheses were tested using structural Equation Modeling procedure.

Product search opportunity is associated with product and price knowledge. Price volatility is negatively associated with internal reference price. Further, consumers' price comparison propensity and price knowledge positively influence external reference price. Finally, price volatility has a significant negative influence on consumer knowledge and IRP orientation.

The sampling frame is a major limitation, in addition to not including variables such as product type and other measures of price volatility. Future research should expand the sampling frame and include other variables as well as other aspects of price volatility.

These findings provide insights into advertised price claims in the information rich internet age. Managers also benefit from the finding that the internet, particularly price comparison, influences external reference price. Consequently, managers must be cautious with their advertised price claims and not exaggerate the value of offerings or cost savings too much.

This topic is important because retailers extensively use reference price or price comparison to increase consumers' perception of the product value. However, not much research attention has been given to this topic.