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Product failures can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative brand attitudes and a loss of brand equity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether extended warranties offer a mechanism to mitigate the negative effects of product failure and the mediating role of positive and negative self-directed emotions.

The hypotheses are tested using two 2 × 2 between-subjects experiments with product failure and warranty purchase as the two factors, attitude toward the brand as the dependent variable, positive and negative self-directed emotions as mediating variables and attitude toward warranties as a covariate.

It is found that the decline in attitude toward the brand due to product failure is greater among customers purchasing an extended warranty, than among those who do not. Moreover, positive and negative self-directed emotions mediate this relationship.

Manufacturers are for the most part not involved in distribution or administration of extended warranties, which are mainly sold through retailers and administered by companies that specialize in extended warranties. The study findings indicate that contrary to industry practice, consumer-durable manufacturers should consider more active management and promotion of extended warranties to protect their brand’s equity from the negative effects of product failure.

Firms use design capability across the globe to compete and increase sales, e.g. Apple. However, the payoff from design know-how has been overlooked thus far. Academic research lags in this space despite the intersection of sales, technology and design in practice. This paper provides researchers and managers with implications of the interplay between design capability and technological market conditions to enhance a firm's sales.

Firms' capability design, and sales impact have been studied in this paper across different technological market conditions. Primary technological conditions of the industry under which firms operate are captured, which are technological intensity (TI), technological competitive intensity (TCI) and technological maturity (TM). Their interplay has been studied using panel data analysis, examining fixed and random effects.

Design is an important, interesting and non-imitable capacity that yields positive firm execution results. It provides an urgent differentiator and improves deal development. This study found that all four hypotheses are generally supported. The main finding is that, provided underlying technology is good, design significantly improves sales, but design alone cannot substitute for poor technology.

The results of this study link the three technological environment conditions, namely, TI, TCI and TM with sales growth. The authors find that design can and does add to superior performance, provided technological excellence exists prior. But, in the absence of good technology, design alone will hinder performance.

This paper examines the effect of firm design capability on sales growth. The paper finds a positive moderating effect of TCI and TM but a negative moderating effect of TI. The researchers believe these aspects of the design have not been studied before.

States that in the present era of global marketing, as more companies enter international markets, ethical problems are likely to increase. As companies and their managers deal with their counterparts in different countries, there is a need to understand the latter’s ethical decision‐making processes. Divergence in ethical behavior and attitudes of marketing professionals across cultures can be explained by, among other variables, differences in perceptions regarding the importance of ethics and social responsibility in achieving organizational effectiveness. This study investigates the variation in those perceptions among marketing professionals from Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, and the USA. The variation is explained by country differences (cultural differences, differences in the economic environment, and differences in legal/political environment), organizational ethical climate, and selected demographic characteristics of the marketer (gender and age).

A model is presented that explains how importers' perceptions of five aspects of their relationship with an exporter (trust, dependence, cooperation, satisfaction, and commitment) are related at any point in time. The structure‐conduct‐outcomes and relationship marketing literature in distribution channels provides the theoretical background for the model. Specifically, this study investigates whether a model based on studies carried out mainly in the US and in a Western setting applies in the Eastern setting of Korea. Further, whether differences exist in the relationship structures of importers when the exporters are from a similar cultures as opposed to dissimilar cultures is investigated. Results based on data from 198 Korean importers indicate that the model is supported. However, there are no differences in the relationship structures between exporters from similar and dissimilar cultures. Managerial implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are also offered.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of servicer and cross‐seller functional performance on salesperson perception of cross‐functional conflict.

Frontline employees often specialize in selling, servicing, or cross‐selling to customers. Two studies separately examine the effect of servicer and cross‐seller functional performance on salesperson perception of cross‐functional conflict.

In Study 1, salesperson conflict with frontline specialists who do not directly sell, called servicers, is examined and it is found that salespeople perceive less cross‐functional conflict when servicers perform well. Group cohesion decreases conflict directly. The effect of servicer performance on conflict is less pronounced as cross‐functional training increases. In Study 2, salesperson conflict with employees who cross‐sell additional goods and/or services to customers, called cross‐sellers, is evaluated and it is found that salespeople perceive more cross‐functional conflict when cross‐sellers perform well. Cross‐functional training decreases conflict directly. The effect of cross‐seller performance on conflict is less pronounced as group cohesion increases.

The research was carried out in a single setting, automobile dealerships, and only two controls, one formal and one informal, were examined.

The results indicate that salespeople view the performance of each type of specialist differently depending on the specialists' goals. Based on this finding, the paper provides guidelines for which formal and informal controls are likely to be effective for reducing conflict between different frontline functions.

The paper shows that salespeople view servicer performance positively and cross‐seller performance negatively. Thus, the research adds to the understanding of cross‐functional relationships among specialized frontline employees.

A recent article pointed out that “past research has paid relatively little attention to the sources of individuals’ moral philosophies from either a conceptual or an empirical standpoint” and investigated the determinants of idealism and relativism among American marketers. A literature review indicates that there is even less theoretical and empirical cross‐cultural investigation of moral philosophies. As more and more companies are expanding into foreign markets, problems related to cross‐national ethics and social responsibility are becoming increasingly prevalent. Therefore, this study proposes a framework explaining the differences in the idealism and relativism of American, Malaysian, and Australian marketers based on: country differences (cultural differences and differences in economic and legal/political environment); corporate ethical values; and gender and age of the marketer. Results indicate that there are differences in the level of idealism and relativism exhibited by marketers from the three countries. Irrespective of country, corporate ethical values are positively related to the idealism and negatively related to the relativism of marketers. Also, irrespective of country, women are more idealistic than men, and relativism increases with age. Implications are offered and avenues for future research suggested.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges and opportunities of the luxury market in Iran as an Islamic country. The focus is on religion as a factor that can make some challenges for luxury products, and then to find opportunities or similarities in Muslim markets due to the luxury consumption.

As it is a literature review article, the authors used past research works and compared different perspectives that exist about the topic.

It was concluded that although implementing a market-oriented culture is central to the marketers’ success, it is not right to just focus on religion as a separating factor that can isolate the Muslim’s market. It was suggested to change one's viewpoint and analyze the market with a broader vision that can bring innovative ideas and also find similarities and differentiations between Islamic luxury markets with non-Islamic luxury markets.

Muslim consumers have a huge purchasing power in countries such as Egypt, Iran, India, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. However, there is limited academic literature addressing luxury products in the context of these markets. Luxury purchase motivation is predominantly based on Western thoughts and markets. As Iran as a Muslim country can be an appropriate target market of luxury goods, analyzing the challenges and opportunities can be a useful guide to be successful in this market.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of religion on the effectiveness of product packages in attracting customers’ attention, and forming their attitudes, preferences, and buying decisions. In other words, the study aims at finding out how do Muslims respond to product packages including elements believed to disagree with the Islamic values, in this study referred to as “contentious packages.”

To test the five hypotheses, the study recruited 300 young Muslims in Bahrain, chosen from the population of 14,000 students of the University of Bahrain aged between 20 and 25, 26 percent male and 74 percent female. The primary data were collected through personal interviews with the selected sample, using a specially designed questionnaire. The questionnaire included ten questions covering two personal questions for age and gender and eight other questions attempting to find out Muslims’ responses to contentious packages in terms of attention, attitudes, buying intention, company image, and word-of-mouth.

Findings indicate that use of contentious packaging runs a high risk of tarnishing a company’s reputation and appeal. Muslims who live by Shari’a and the dictates of the Kuran will consider such companies to be promoters of fornication, and will therefore boycott such companies in order to prevent them from corrupting the purity and piety of the community. If advertising firms continue to fail in recognizing the profundity of these beliefs within Muslim communities, both their fiscal success and reputation run the risk of suffering substantial damage.

The findings of this study send six important messages to multinational companies doing business in Islamic countries. First, Islam governs all aspects of Muslim life, including consumer behavior. Second, to prosper in Islamic countries, choose packaging that does not contradict or offend the principles and values of Islam. Third, recognize that much packaging that has proven to be effective in Western countries will not be successful in Islamic countries due to vastly different cultural environments. Fourth, a contentious package may result in a steep drop in the sales. Fifth, using contentious packages may damage the reputation. Sixth, you can attract more Muslims by using non-contentious packages.

This paper is of great value to companies who wish to expand their practice in Muslim countries. Its findings promise to improve advertising standards and to increase both company profits and customer satisfaction.

Background: Human resource management (HRM) is the tactical method for a business enterprise’s optimistic and systemic administration. This study aims to identify the common and major triggering attributes and the knowledge gap between HRM and an organisation’s employee attrition rate.

Method: The employee Attrition Case Study Dataset used is an anecdotal data set that tries to figure out relevant variables that determine employee behavioural aspects towards attrition. This study investigates why attrition occurs, the major triggering attributes for employee turnover, and how it might be anticipated to employ artificial intelligence (AI) to avert corporate losses.

Results: Employees’ monthly income, age, average monthly hours, distance from home, total working years, years at the company, per cent of salary hike, number of companies worked, stock options level, job role and other factors are taken into consideration. A feature importance extraction framework was devised to investigate the various dormant factors. The findings also show feasible hypotheses that help enhance employee engagement, reinvent the worker dynamic, and higher levels of risk decrease attrition rate.

Implications: Employees’ monthly income, age, average monthly hours, distance from home, etc., are all major variables in employee attrition in the Indian IT business. This research adds to the theory development of behavioural elements in people analytics based on AI.

Purpose: Can we predict employee attrition through employee behavioural patterns advancement using AI tools.