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This paper aims to evaluate the effect of commitment misperception on channel conflict. It highlights the importance of trust and transaction-specific investments for business marketing strategies.

This paper develops a concept framework to understand how the direction (overestimated vs underestimated) and extent of commitment misperception influence channel conflict. The model is tested using dyadic data from 212 distributors and manufacturers across several industries in China.

The results show that the direction of commitment misperception affects trust, transaction-specific investments and channel conflict. Overestimated commitment induces positive illusion and enhances trust and transaction-specific investments and reduces channel conflict, whereas underestimated commitment induces negative illusion and reduces trust and transaction-specific investments and enhances channel conflict. Trust and transaction-specific investments mediate the impact of the direction of commitment misperception on channel conflict. The extent of commitment misperception plays the moderating influence on the direction of commitment misperception.

This study reveals the mechanisms and boundary conditions by exploring the mediating influence of trust and transaction-specific investments and the moderating effects of the extent of commitment misperception.

Cross-channel integration improves the operations of multi-channel and omnichannel marketing and increase firms' overall performance. By addressing the extant gaps in current literature, this configurational analysis aims to test the combined effects of organizational, channel and environmental factors on cross-channel integration.

Data were collected from a sample of 180 manufacturers. Necessary condition analysis (NCA) was used to test whether two organizational factors (firm size and IT capability), one environmental factor (environmental dynamism) and two channel factors (channel diversity and proportion of direct channels) were necessary or unnecessary conditions for high cross-channel integration. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was applied to analyze the configurational factors of high vs low cross-channel integration.

First, firm size and IT capability are non-linear and substitute for each other in affecting cross-channel integration in a diversified channel system with a high proportion of direct channels. Second, in a dynamic environment, firms with large size and IT advantage could achieve high cross-channel integration by diversifying channel types or increasing the proportion of direct channels. Third, the effect of channel diversity and proportion of direct channels on cross-channel integration is asymmetric depending on other antecedent conditions.

The authors tested a configurational framework developed from multiple theoretical perspectives. The authors' empirical findings contribute to the literature by providing insights into the mechanisms underlying the formation of high and low cross-channel integration. The results suggest multiple ways for firms to promote cross-channel integration by adjusting channel factors based on configurational conditions.

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of how information technology (IT) resources influence a firm’s channel power development. Specifically, this study hypothesizes that two types of IT resources (i.e. IT infrastructure resources and IT human resources) are key antecedents to channel power and that information management capability is a key mediator between IT resources and channel power.

The hypotheses are tested using survey data gathered from a sample of Chinese companies. The analyses are performed using partial least squares technique.

The results suggest that both of the two IT resources play key roles in enhancing a firm’s channel power, but they do so in different ways. Specifically, while IT human resources can enhance a firm’s channel power by strengthening both information acquisition and dissemination capabilities, IT infrastructure resources can influence channel power only by enhancing a firm’s information acquisition capability.

The measurement of IT resources might potentially be influenced by subjective divergence. In addition, information management contains many sub-processes, and this study only examines two of them: information acquisition and information dissemination.

The findings suggest that managers should develop/improve both IT infrastructure and human resources to enhance channel power by building stronger information management capability. More importantly, the findings reveal that IT human resource can provide more benefits as it strengthens both information acquisition and dissemination capabilities.

This study extends the existing literature by investigating how a firm’s IT resources affect its channel power. The results of this study provide insightful guidance for managers and researchers in how to better manage IT resources to improve channel governance performance.

Based on social network theory and the literature of contract governance, the purpose of this study is to explore how distributors’ “banding together” (network intensity) affects contract governance (detailed contracts), which, in turn, influences channel conflict and simultaneously tests the moderating effect of network centrality.

The authors collect the data from the side of 288 manufacturers.

This study finds that, first, distributors’ network intensity positively affects detailed contracts between manufacturers and distributors; second, detailed contracts, in turn, declines channel conflict; and third, network centrality will weaken the positive influence of network density on detailed contracts. In addition, an ex post analysis finds that detailed contracts play a negative mediating role between distributors’ network density and channel conflict and this negative mediating effect would be weakened by distributors’ network centrality.

The current study not only helps to make up for the shortcomings of using the dyadic analysis paradigm to analyze channel behavior but also helps manufacturers to understand and respond to the phenomenon of distributors’ “banding together” comprehensively and deeply.

Despite the relatively long research continuum on IT capability and performance, the “IT capability-performance” link has remained hazy especially related to the mediating role of IT-based communication and networking overall. Therefore, this study investigates how IT capability affects Internet interactive practice and how it further affects marketing effectiveness and firm success.

The authors collected the survey data from 504 manufacturers in China, and structural equation modeling is used to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that (1) IT capability has positive effects on both interorganizational systems (IOS)-enabled and social media (SM)-enabled interactive practice; (2) IOS-enabled interactive practice has a significant positive effect on both marketing and financial performance while SM-enabled interactive practice has a positive effect on marketing performance but no effect on financial performance; (3) IOS-enabled interactive practice mediates the effect of IT capability on marketing and financial performance while SM-enabled interactive practice only mediates the effect of IT capability on marketing performance; (4) marketing performance mediates the impact of IOS-enabled and SM-enabled interactive practice on financial performance.

This study has highlighted the role of social media practice in the relationship between IT capability and firm performance, which makes certain theoretical contributions to the existing research.

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of how relational embeddedness offers marketing channel partners both benefits and hazards. The nonlinear effect of relational embeddedness on channel opportunism is investigated. Influence strategies (i.e. coercive and noncoercive influence) are also examined as mediators of this nonlinear effect.

Survey data are gathered from a sample of 149 manufacturers in China. The hypotheses are tested through regression analysis.

The results support the hypothesis that relational embeddedness has a U-shaped effect on opportunism, and that this relationship can be mediated through noncoercive influence strategies. The results also indicate that coercive influence has an inverted U-shaped effect and noncoercive influence has a U-shaped effect on opportunism.

This research serves as a launching point for further investigations into the “black box” of the double-edged effects of relational embeddedness. Other channel behavior constructs can be explored in future studies.

Firms should be aware of the benefits and pitfalls associated with relational embeddedness in marketing channels. They should be alert to using influence strategies when managing channel opportunism.

This study addresses the dilemma of embeddedness in marketing channel relationships and reveals its causes and mechanisms by exploring the mediating effects of influence strategies.

This paper compares the shopping behavior of Chilean consumers with those in China. Both Chinese and Chilean mall visits are driven, first and foremost, by purchase; however, consumers in Chile tend to be less single minded than their Chinese counterparts. Differences also exist between the two populations in their way of selecting the mall, shopping characteristics, and purchase patterns. Most importantly, Chinese shoppers relied more on their mall visits than Chileans in searching for information and finalizing their purchase decisions; at the same time, they were much more cautious in committing themselves to a purchase.

The purpose of this study investigates the asymmetric effects of brand origin confusion (BOC) on consumer preference and the purchase of local versus foreign brands in China. Drawing on the general country‐of‐origin (COO) literature and recent developments in brand‐origin studies and the emerging market phenomenon globally, it proposes and test a model of the asymmetric effects of BOC on consumer preference and the purchase of local versus foreign brands in China. This study intends to help to explain from a new angle the decreasing competitiveness of foreign brands in emerging markets, such as China.

The study pretest on nationally distributed brands across seven product categories resulted in a final set of 67 brands: 35 foreign and 32 local. Four hundred respondents evaluated measures related to brand origin, brand awareness, brand value, brand preference, and brand purchases in the previous six months. Hierarchical regression analysis was used in data analysis.

The hypotheses on the asymmetric effects of BOC between local and foreign brands in China were mostly supported. Specifically, the results showed that local brands are likely to be in an advantageous position when there is a high level of BOC. However, as the brand knowledge of consumers increases, the effects of BOC decrease.

This study provides evidence of the asymmetric effects of BOC between local and foreign brands and the moderating role of brand knowledge for local brands in China. It fills a gap in the international branding and marketing communication literature, and offers meaningful managerial insights for both local and international companies to formulate effective branding and marketing communication strategies in China and possibly in other emerging markets.

To investigate the impact of situational factors on mall shoppers' buying decisions.

Based on Belk's framework on situational factors in a sales situation, the study employed a dataset of mall shoppers in the USA, China and Hong Kong and logistic regression for analysis.

It is found that, whether in the combined sample or in the individual samples, nine of the 13 situational factors considered significantly affected shoppers' purchases of food or non‐food products. However, situational influences on purchases varied according to the types of products bought. More importantly, the findings on the impact of some factors were consistent across three or two samples, suggesting that their external validity may be extended to certain conditions.

The study had a limitation in the selection of the malls where the interviews were conducted, so some of the findings may be mall‐specific rather than representative of the general population of shoppers in the nations or regions.

The information disclosed here may help the practitioners to better understand shoppers' (especially Chinese shoppers') behaviour in malls and, as a consequence, to undertake more efficient marketing strategies in malls (especially in the malls in China).

The distinguished feature of this paper is that it simultaneously examined the impacts of 13 situational factors on mall shoppers' purchase decisions with multinational data. This allowed researchers to check both the internal validity and the external validity of the observed impacts of the situational factors.

This study compares the mall shopping behavior of Chinese and US consumers. Marked differences wee found between the two populations in their shopping motives, criteria for selecting the mall, and shopping behaviors. Unlike US shoppers, who visited the mall with diverse reasons, Chinese mall visits were driven, first and foremost, by purchase. However, Chinese shoppers were cautious about spending and less likely to make purchases during their shopping trip. More importantly, they were more immune to situational factors in their purchase decisions than their US counterparts. The paper also discusses marketing implications of these findings and future research directions.