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Reports on an analysis of the relative importance of various marketing mix strategies and consumer ethnocentric tendencies in the decision to purchase imports undertaken via a nationwide mail survey of personal computer owners in the USA. The results indicate that ethnocentric tendencies are able to explain a much greater amount of variation in purchase behaviour than marketing mix variables. Concludes that the inclusion of ethnocentric tendencies into future studies on origin bias appears to be warranted given their substantial impact on import purchase behaviour.

Argues that salesforce research has typically been conducted in the USA, and that US researchers have developed the theories, designed the research, and interpreted the results. Notes that the majority of subjects and respondents in studies designed to test the US theories have been sales personnel in the USA. Assesses the appropriateness of administering personal selling measures to sales personnel outside the country/culture where the measures were developed. Investigates two paradigms of measurement transport: emic (culture specific) and etic (global). Evaluates the psychometric properties of two popular personal selling measures, SOCO and ADAPTS, in a cross‐national context, revealing mixed support for the etic approach.

Confirms the empirical test of Hunt and Vitell’s general theory of marketing ethics by Mayo and Marks across four cultures. Uses path analysis to show the core relationships of the general theory of marketing ethics were successfully replicated using over 1,500 students from seven universities in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, and Australia. States that tomorrow’s managers appeared to use a more deontological approach to making ethical judgements about personal selling. Extends its original research by confirming the positive relationship between the probability and the desirability of consequences. Concludes that, although the model was originally intended to explain management ethical decision making, the study shows that it may be possible to generalize as to how individuals make ethical life decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible moderating role of organisational characteristics (organisational structure, management style and decision-making style) in the relationship between strategy and organisational performance among large construction organisations in South Africa.

The study adopted a quantitative research approach using a questionnaire survey to obtain data from 72 large construction organisations in South Africa. Using hierarchical multiple regression, the paper examines the relationship between the constructs discussed in the study.

The internal characteristics of the organisation form the vital basis for achieving optimal performance. The results obtained from the analysis revealed that decision-making style directly influences the measure of organisational effectiveness, while it could also be inferred that organisational characteristics partly moderate the relationship between competitive strategy and organisational performance. The findings indicate that internal characteristics is one of the means through which organisational strategic factors and contextual aspects are organised to achieve greater organisational performance levels.

The findings have theoretical implications for strategic management literature in construction as it extends the scope of research on strategic management from assessing a set of individual management practices to evaluating a complex mechanism that connects internal characteristics and competitive advantage. It is believed that this study will contribute positively to the role of organisational characteristics in the competitive strategy-performance relationships in large construction organisations in South Africa and to the ongoing discussion on emerging strategic management issues in construction.