This paper aims to explain the unwillingness to exchange export knowledge by members of exporters’ networks and provides potential solutions to this problem.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the unwillingness to exchange export knowledge by members of exporters’ networks and provides potential solutions to this problem.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses data from a survey of 301 members of a French exporter’s network to test a set of hypotheses with partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
Network participants’ export experience and age have a negative influence on their willingness to exchange knowledge. However, positive attitudes toward the network (perception of network quality, commitment) can mitigate those negative links.
Practical implications
Network members’ unwillingness to exchange knowledge represents a major challenge that threatens the existence of knowledge networks. The findings suggest solutions to this issue for network managers.
Originality/value
This study views knowledge exchange in a network as a risky behavior. It explains why members do not participate in networks. The model shows how contrary forces work and interact to deter or foster knowledge exchange.
Details
Keywords
Selma Kadic-Maglajlic, Irena Vida, Claude Obadia and Richard Plank
The purpose of this study is to explore the linkages among emotional intelligence, relational selling behavior and salesperson performance. Although existing research acknowledges…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the linkages among emotional intelligence, relational selling behavior and salesperson performance. Although existing research acknowledges the importance of emotional facets in business relationships, the role of emotional intelligence is poorly understood in the literature on salesperson performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Two data sets from business-to-business salespeople in various industrial and service sectors were analyzed with structural equation modeling. Mediation hypotheses were cross validated through a bootstrapping approach with bias-corrected confidence estimates.
Findings
The results suggest that two focal types of selling behaviors – namely, adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling – fully mediate the positive relationship between emotional intelligence and salesperson performance.
Practical implications
The study offers new insights to sales and marketing managers on how individual capabilities (such as emotional intelligence) can be transformed into high sales performance.
Originality/value
Drawing on the ability view of emotional intelligence and highlighting its conative facet, the current research posits that emotional intelligence affects salesperson performance through relational selling behaviors.
Details
Keywords
This study seeks to investigate the benefits that trigger exporters' attitudinal commitment and examines their effects by taking into account the temporal dynamics of cross‐border…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to investigate the benefits that trigger exporters' attitudinal commitment and examines their effects by taking into account the temporal dynamics of cross‐border interfirm relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative field study led to the generation of hypotheses that were subsequently tested with structural equations modeling using data collected during two consecutive surveys of exporters.
Findings
The economic benefits that foster exporter's commitment include importer's specific investments, importer role performance, and exporter economic performance.
Practical implications
Importers can secure their foreign suppliers' commitment by investing in their business relationships and improving their distributive performance. They also need to monitor exporters' economic performance. The study highlights the importance of exporters' perceptions in building their commitment. Thus, importers need to communicate intensively about their actions to promote exporters' brands.
Originality/value
Unlike previous research, which has focused mostly on behavioral antecedents of commitment, this study depicts the exporting context using the exporter perspective and highlights the importance of economic benefits in shaping their attitudes. A mixed design involving both qualitative and quantitative methodologies facilitates this approach. Relational exchange theory's temporal assumptions about business relationships are reflected by the use of longitudinal data.
Details
Keywords
Irena Vida, Tanja Dmitrović and Claude Obadia
In view of the increasingly dynamic ethnic composition of nation states in Europe and elsewhere, this paper aims to examine the effects of ethnic affiliation on ethnocentrism and…
Abstract
Purpose
In view of the increasingly dynamic ethnic composition of nation states in Europe and elsewhere, this paper aims to examine the effects of ethnic affiliation on ethnocentrism and domestic purchase bias, and to test a model of consumer ethnocentrism antecedents and outcomes in a multi‐ethnic transitional economy.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data were collected via personal interviews from 580 urban consumers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was, in the aftermath of violent ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, divided into two major sub‐regions inhabited by three clearly identifiable ethnic groups. A structural model with five first‐order reflective constructs was evaluated to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
The findings confirm that both national identity and nationalism are significant predictors of consumer ethnocentrism, and that ethnic affiliation has a direct effect on both consumer ethnocentrism and on domestic purchase bias. However, the antecedent nature of cultural openness in relation to consumer ethnocentrism was not confirmed.
Practical implications
While it has been suggested previously that, when consumers have dual allegiances, the construct of national identity may be of a lesser explanatory power, the results attest to the value of both nation‐state level constructs in the model as reliable predictors of consumer ethnocentrism. The findings also suggest that a differentiated marketing strategy may be warranted on entering multi‐ethnic markets.
Originality/value
Unlike most prior studies that tested ethnocentrism models across different countries with citizens of each country being addressed as a culturally/ethnically uniform group, this study does not limit in‐groups to a nation state, but examines groups based on ethnic affiliation.
Details
Keywords
This study aims to examine the antecedents and consequences of a cooperative norm in exporter‐importer relationships. Moreover, it seeks to investigates the impact of the past…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the antecedents and consequences of a cooperative norm in exporter‐importer relationships. Moreover, it seeks to investigates the impact of the past economic performance of the venture on the effectiveness of interfirm cooperation.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted among a sample of French exporters. Data on 283 exporter‐importer relationships were analyzed using structural equations modeling.
Findings
Trust and continuity expectations foster the development of a cooperative norm, which in turn enhances importers' distributive performance. The study also shows that the effectiveness of cooperation increases in a low‐performance context.
Practical implications
Exporters can improve the performance of their cross‐border business relationships by fostering the development of behavioral norms. The findings suggest that a norm of cooperation helps coordinate partners' behaviors in an international exchange. The effectiveness of such a norm increases in bad times, which supports the notion that cooperation can be viewed as a tool to turn around failing export ventures.
Originality/value
Unlike previous studies on exporter‐importer relationships, this study conceptualizes and operationalizes cooperation as a behavioral norm. This new conceptualization of cooperation makes it possible to assess its influence on the importer's distributive performance, which conditions the success of the export venture. Another distinguishing feature of this study is that it evaluates the effect of past performance on the effectiveness of cooperation. It is shown that cooperation can be used to improve failing business relationships. Thus, cooperation can be an alternative to costly formal governance mechanisms and time‐consuming searches for new foreign representatives to replace terminated ventures.
Details
Keywords
S. Mc_W Cheryl and Yannick Lemarchand
The purpose of this paper is to extend to accounting and accounting texts the arguments of Phillips which suggest that organisational analysis can be enriched by a greater…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend to accounting and accounting texts the arguments of Phillips which suggest that organisational analysis can be enriched by a greater interface with narrative fiction as a means to bring organisations to life. The paper also introduces the work of Bottin which argues that accounting manuals can be considered as source documents for economic history, more than simply being of purely pedagogical value. Both approaches inform the research into the specialised accounting manual, the Guide du Commerce of Gaignat de l'Aulnais.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses archival‐based historical methods to examine the Guide du Commerce and the social and economic milieu presented therein. It has developed its analysis through the examination of both primary and secondary sources to underscore the business and social networks of the milieu and to illustrate accounting as narrative.
Findings
In his manual, Gaignat recreates merchant activities and commercial relations of eighteenth century France. Gaignat does not content himself with re‐copying material at his disposal or with creating fictitious examples. Rather, through his in‐depth development of case studies and examples of actual accounting methods, he offers the reader insights into the strategic nature of the social and economic milieu in which commercial success might be achieved.
Practical implications
The research approach is transferable to other settings, motivating renewed interest in the history of accounting literature. The stories related in the Guide du Commerce point to the potential value of accounting manuals and other similar documents as historical sources when such sources no longer exist or are limited.
Originality/value
The research method is original in that the methodological approach is new to accounting history, but part of a debate within history more generally.