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Exporting is a popular foreign market entry mode, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The success of SME exporters depends on their ability to establish and maintain profitable long-term relationships with foreign customers. This study aims to propose that the development of an effective export sales strategy can contribute greatly toward this aim. The study also demonstrates that export market intelligence generation and export market intelligence dissemination activities are important drivers of export sales strategy. Export sales strategy comprises three dimensions, which are expected to have a positive influence on export performance.

The study uses survey data obtained from 168 exporting firms based in Greece, to test a set of research hypotheses. Structural equation modeling procedures are used.

Findings indicate that export market intelligence generation and dissemination activities support and facilitate the development of effective export sales strategies, tailored to serve individual foreign accounts. Furthermore, all strategic dimensions of export sales strategy demonstrate significant positive effects on export performance.

The research underlines the importance of incorporating export sales strategy in studies that aim to investigate the drivers of export performance.

The findings also indicate that exporting firms must actively engage in market intelligence activities to reinforce their strategic decision-making process.

The study emphasizes the crucial importance of export sales strategy in achieving superior export performance. The study provides a theory-driven conceptualization and operationalization of export sales strategy and offers an empirical assessment of a comprehensive model that includes the key antecedents and performance outcomes of export sales strategy.

Export marketing research over the last four decades has covered a number of theoretical and practical issues such as standardisation and customisation, export development processes, barriers to exporting, export performance, etc. Rapid technological, institutional, legislative, economic and attitudinal changes across the globe pose challenges for the future development of export marketing research. The emergence of turbulent and hypercompetitive business environments calls for exporters to reconsider the bases and sustainability of their competitive advantage to overseas markets. In particular, future research should focus on the identification of the right export marketing capabilities that firms should develop or acquire, the ability to leverage or transfer them across markets, and the ability to constantly upgrade them using proper organisational learning routines. Of critical importance are the processes used to develop capability‐based strategies and to manage relationships with international customers. This double issue comprises ten articles that deal with some of the main challenges posed to export marketing.

Whilst previous chapters have considered the nature and benefits of open education (OE) initiatives, a fundamental question remains as to the sustainability and viability of such practices over the medium to long term.

The existing literature suggests a considerable diversity of models of OE in organisational and funding terms, and there is the need to gain a better understanding of the distinctive pathways to sustainability that are linked to specific organising and funding logics.

However, this very diversity and the insufficiently developed notion of sustainability in this context hamper the efforts aimed at categorising and comparing different models, and this chapter considers these questions in more depth.

To this aim, we analyse and categorise the main funding arrangements by first identifying the key components of each distinctive OE system in the Section ‘System Elements’, whilst reflecting in parallel on the notion of sustainability.

In the Section ‘System Configurations’, we offer a detailed description and analysis of the most prominent funding models of OE to illustrate the diversity of funding arrangements and distinctive organisational logics underpinning them. We explore the logic of these business models by unpacking each distinctive form of organising around four key aspects: customer offer, value chain configuration, funding and profit formula, and strategic positioning.

In the Section ‘Sustainability’, we seek to refine our understanding of the concept of sustainability in the context of OE, giving due consideration to non-economic definitions of this concept and to some of the core objectives attached to OE. We suggest that sustainability can be ultimately apprehended and defined through a number of key variables.

The section ‘Open Education: Motives and Implications’ examines the motives behind the OE movement, its wide-ranging implications, and considers how OE fits in with the trends in the higher education (HE) sector as a whole. We discuss the future for this radical innovation, emphasising the central role of communities of practice and the need for institutional support. We argue that the development of sustainable communities is the fundamental basis of any OE model and that reflexivity is required in order to ensure the sustainability of this innovative practice. Similarly, the systematic development of collaborative practices and networks between the main actors at community, institutional and national levels is considered key to the development and embedding of OE initiatives within the overall educational sector.

The concluding section brings together the various strands of our argument on the nature and characteristics of the various OE business models, their sustainability and the way forward.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental and organizational factors that influence the intensity of electronic business adoption by contemporary organizations, and provide evidence regarding the relationship between e‐business adoption and organizational performance.

The study develops an integrative conceptual model of the antecedents and performance outcomes of e‐business adoption. The research model is subsequently tested empirically using data collected from 154 hotel companies. Structural equation modeling procedures were used to assess the psychometric properties of measurement scales and test research hypotheses.

The study findings indicate that customer power has the greatest impact on the intensity of e‐business adoption, followed by organizational learning ability, adhocracy culture, and top management emphasis. The results also suggest that companies that use the internet more extensively to perform a range of value‐chain activities achieve superior e‐business performance, and e‐business performance has a significant positive effect on organizational performance.

E‐business adoption can provide substantial benefits to companies including increased revenues, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and relationship development. A thorough understanding of the factors that facilitate (or inhibit) e‐business adoption, and the provision of clear evidence regarding its potential impact on business performance, is critically important for firms that should invest significant financial and human resources in order to successfully implement these innovative technologies. The present study adds to the limited empirical work done in this area by simultaneously investigating the antecedents and outcomes of e‐business adoption, within the context of a highly competitive and rapidly evolving industry.

This paper aims to advance the international marketing debate by presenting the results of a structured literature review (SLR) focusing on Big Data implementation in customer relationship management (CRM) strategizing. It outlines past and present literature and frames a future research agenda.

The research analyzes papers published in journals from 2013 to 2020, deriving significant insights about Big Data applications in CRM. A sample of 48 articles indexed at Scopus was preliminarily submitted for bibliometric analysis. Finally, 46 papers were analyzed with content and a bibliometric analysis to identify areas of thematic specializations.

The paper presents a conceptual multilevel framework demonstrating areas of specialization emerging from the literature. The framework is built around four coordinated sequences of actions relevant to “why,” “what,” “who” and “how” Big Data is implemented in CRM strategies, thus supporting the conception and implementation of an internationalization marketing strategy.

Implications for the development of the future research agenda on international marketing arise from the comprehension of Big Data in CRM strategy.

The paper provides a comprehensive SLR of the articles dealing with models and processes of Big Data for CRM from an international marketing perspective. Despite these issues' relevance and the increasing literature focused on them, research in this area is still fragmented and underexplored, requiring more systematic and holistic studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between marketing effectiveness, marketing capabilities, export market orientation and export performance.

The research analyses whether export market orientation, marketing effectiveness and marketing capabilities are antecedents of export performance with structural equation modelling. Data to test the model were obtained through a structured survey of 443 export companies operating in the Aegean region of Turkey. After explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis, the structural model was tested.

The findings suggest that export market orientation has a significant impact on marketing capabilities and marketing effectiveness, and that marketing effectiveness has a significant impact on export performance. This indicates that export market orientation is central to the development of marketing capabilities, while marketing effectiveness contributes to explaining export performance.

There are several limitations of the research. The first significant limitation is that the variables had various sub-dimensions. The second limitation is about sampling of the research that it is not specific to a particular sector.

This paper provides useful insights to exporters on market orientation, focal dimensions of marketing effectiveness and marketing capabilities that would help them enhance their export performance.

Using the resource-based view, this paper contributes to the explanation for export performance by assessing the role of export market orientation behaviour on marketing capabilities and marketing effectiveness.