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This paper aims to highlight the importance of interdisciplinary services marketing research and identify basic prerequisites for inter-disciplinary work in the field of services marketing, and to offer directions to services marketing scholars regarding future interdisciplinary research work.

Building on the available literature, the authors argue for the importance of interdisciplinary research in services marketing. The authors also develop a framework featuring “the key challenges impeding interdisciplinarity”, which need to be addressed to shift the services marketing field towards more sensible interdisciplinarity. Further, based on literature synthesis from different disciplines, they provide a framework with “four future research avenues for interdisciplinary research in services marketing”.

The authors identify five challenges that can likely impede services marketing research from progressing into true interdisciplinary work: limited cross-pollination, limited paradoxical thinking, limited conceptual development, limited cross-disciplinary collaboration and “inside–out” focus. The authors also propose four future research avenues to drive interdisciplinary research in the services marketing field: integration of services marketing and information management; linguistic perspectives in services marketing research; the interface between services marketing and medicine; and consumer personality and values in services marketing.

The authors propose two novel frameworks. The first concerns the key challenges of interdisciplinarity in services marketing research and the second provides avenues to drive future interdisciplinary services marketing research.

This paper has a dual purpose. The first is to provide a thorough analysis of developments in international marketing in relation to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; the second is to capitalize on these developments to set an agenda for future research in the field of international marketing.

This paper zooms in on and reviews the 18 papers published in International Marketing Review’s (IMR) Special Issue on “Covid 19: advancing international marketing theory and guiding practice” (2023, volume 40, issue 5). It also integrates recent research at the intersection of international marketing and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper highlights five areas that embody significant contemporaneous changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and affect international marketing practice. These include (1) shifts in consumer behavior, (2) digitalization and artificial intelligence, (3) disruptions in supply chains, (4) communication and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and (5) international dynamic marketing capabilities. In order to advance international marketing theory in relation to pandemics and other external crises, the paper establishes research directions for each of these areas.

The paper provides a novel and comprehensive categorization of fundamental shifts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and lays out a research roadmap to advance research in the field of International Marketing (IM). Important implications for practice are also discussed.

Access to financing is a key success factor for start-ups. High failure rates, long payback periodse and asymmetries lead to conservative pricing and valuation discounts. The authors examine financial marketing and contingent factors, as enablers of a “patent premium” by private equity (PE) investors targeting start-ups in their growth and expansion stages.

Drawing from the contingency, innovation and signaling theories, the authors collect patent records for Italian start-ups in which a higher than 30% stake was acquired by PE investors during the period 2014–2020. The authors apply a generalized linear model with a logit link and robust clustered error to test the key relationships and control for endogeneity with a Heckman two-stage selection model.

Findings indicate start-ups’ access to financing is significantly impacted by marketing constructs adopted in the operation. Innovation alone does not suffice to determine a valuation premium, unless contingent on the promotion of its product, the placement -investors targeted-of the equity, brand equity levers of previous ownership and marketing competence backing the deal.

The authors provide new insights in the marketing-finance interface, highlighting levers that reassure investors and enable monetizing innovation in start-ups that are still privately held. The authors bridge a gap in literature that has mainly focused on venture capital and innovation financing in the open market, as well as a significant gap regarding the marketing design of private equity placements.

The purpose of this study is to systematically collate and scrutinize the state of the art on consumer cosmopolitanism (CCOS) from an international marketing perspective and to provide a foundation for future research on the subject matter to proliferate and prosper.

A systematic review of the extant literature was conducted focusing on peer-reviewed journal articles published in major marketing, international business and management journals.

A systematic analysis of 44 journal articles shows that CCOS research is a rapidly growing research stream in the international marketing field. However, at the same time, the results reveal a lack of coherent and consistent conceptual underpinning, conflicting empirical findings regarding the profile and behavior of cosmopolitan consumers, persisting knowledge gaps, as well as methodological and contextual weaknesses.

This paper is the first to consolidate the pertinent literature on CCOS. In doing so, it provides a roadmap for future research with reference to theory, context and methodology based on the research inconsistencies and knowledge gaps identified, contributing toward the development of this research area.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model that focuses on the cultural drivers and trust outcomes of consumer perceptions on issues pertaining to the unethical marketing behavior of firms. It specifically investigates: the role of cultural orientation in forming consumer ethical ideology; the link between the consumer's ethical ideology and his/her perceptions regarding the unethical marketing behavior of firms; the effect of perceived unethical marketing behavior on trust in firms; and the moderating role of gender, age, and education of the consumer.

The article is based on a quantitative survey conducted among 387 Cypriot consumers aged 18 and above, using stratified random sampling procedures. The items comprising the constructs used were derived from multiple literature sources and these were measured on a seven‐point Likert scale. Data were gathered through personal, face‐to‐face interviews conducted at central locations in all major towns of Cyprus. To test the hypothesized relationships among the constructs of the model, structural equation modeling was employed.

The study confirmed that both power distance and uncertainty avoidance are important in forming idealistic attitudes, while both individualism and masculinity lead to an egoistic attitude. Idealism was observed to have a positive association with perceived marketing unethicality, while egoism was found to negatively affect consumer perceptions of unethical marketing behavior by firms. It was also revealed that perceived unethical marketing behavior decreases consumer trust. The study also revealed that the link between idealism and perceived marketing unethicality is stronger among male and older individuals, while consumer's level of education had no moderating impact on this link. Finally, none of the consumer demographics examined (i.e. gender, age, and education) moderated the association between egoism and perceived unethical marketing behavior.

The originality of the study lies in the fact that: it puts together in a single model both antecedents and outcomes of the marketing unethicality of firms, as this is perceived by the individual consumer; concurrently examines the role of cultural orientation and ethical ideology of the consumer in forming ethical attitudes and responses; focuses on the instrumental role of cultural characteristics on consumer ethical perceptions from the perspective of the individual, rather than the society as a whole; places emphasis on unethical issues taking place across all elements of the marketing mix; and provides useful examination of the effects of unethical marketing practices on consumer trust.