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The purpose of this study is to use multiple consumer research methods to examine perceptions of theme lines for media campaigns to promote awareness of Medicare information sources.

Participants were senior Medicare beneficiaries, their informal family caregivers, and coming‐of‐agers who will shortly be eligible for Medicare. To permit comparisons among methods, both qualitative focus groups data and quantitative Q‐sort data were collected, and the Q‐sort data were analyzed using both a tailored software package and a major software package.

The two most preferred lines were “answers to your health care questions” and “helping you help yourself”. Relative preference for those two lines varied across five identified information audience groups with different age and income profiles.

Future investigations to identify theme lines for various communication information audiences within this population should also examine disabled non‐senior Medicare beneficiaries, that is, those eligible due to disability rather than age. More broadly, future research should explore the use of Q‐sort data to conduct similar analyses with other populations and for other sorts of marketing communication campaigns.

The major practical implication is the demonstration of the collection and analysis of Q‐sort data, using a major software package, to identify theme lines to target different information audiences for advertising and marketing communication campaigns.

This study demonstrated the feasibility and efficiency of using Q‐sort methodology to identify theme lines and of analyzing the data using a major software package.

Motivated by the severe impact of global supply chain disruptions and the lack of understanding of supply chain resilience from an SME exporter perspective in the international marketing literature, this paper sets out to explore how SME exporters achieve resilience through strategic choices related to sourcing and manufacturing during global disruptions.

The study adopts a qualitative, multiple-case-studies approach to identify the key strategic drivers and contextual factors influencing SME exporters’ supply chain resilience. Our study adopted an SME exporter perspective and featured an unprecedented global supply chain disruption context. New Zealand (NZ) was chosen as the key home country context for the participants of this study. Five NZ SME exporters were selected for our case studies.

This study redefines buffering, bridging and a mixed strategy for an SME exporter facing global supply chain disruptions. SME exporters with high situational control are likely to pursue a buffering strategy that reduces their resource dependence on foreign suppliers and their reliance on information support from these suppliers. In contrast, when the firm perceives little control over the supply chain, it will decide upon a bridging strategy that aims to build solid relationships with supply chain partners. Exporters opt for a mixed strategy when they do not see themselves clearly in high or low situational control.

As global disruptions arise and evolve, supply chain uncertainty and exporters’ sense of situational control manifest differently across industries, product lines, markets and sourcing countries. It is essential to understand that firms can choose a mixed strategy based on these supply chain conditions. While our study was fortuitously timed, conducting multi-country studies could provide more comparative insights that transcend national borders. Additionally, our study did not examine organizational and capability-based factors. Future research may benefit from exploring how an SME exporter develops strategic capabilities to achieve resilience over its lifetime.

Businesses see survival as the most pivotal concern during a global supply chain disruption. Many companies have had to make on-the-spot decisions about whether they should shift or redesign their supply chains in the middle of a global disruption. There is no “best strategy” for an SME exporter to take. Rather, managers should make strategic decisions based on how much control or influence they have over a particular part of their supply chain. The level of control is determined by the SME exporter’s overall resource dependencies and information needs in particular parts of their supply chain.

We adopt resource dependence theory and information processing theory to guide our study and place exporters' situational control in the centre of drivers to firms' strategic choices during global disruptions. We make a novel attempt to incorporate the contextual conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic into the theorization of supply chain resilience. We make managerial recommendations to help SME exporters navigate global supply chain disruption challenges.