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The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese consumer attitude mediates factors that influence their purchase intention toward low-displacement vehicles.

This study utilizes online survey data in China, multiple regression and recursive regression models.

Consumers’ environmental concern, perceived effectiveness belief and functional value positively affect their attitude toward such products. Consumer attitude positively affects purchase intention. Consumer attitude fully mediates the influence of environmental concern, and partly mediates the effect of perceived effectiveness belief, and functional value on purchase intention. Consumers’ awareness of government policy is not associated with attitude or purchase intention.

This is a first empirical study to systematically examine Chinese consumer attitude's mediation effect on factors influencing their purchase intent toward low-displacement vehicles in China.

China’s economy is transforming at a brisk pace. A partially dismantled command economy and introduction of competition have fueled consumer demand for a greater selection of innovative new products in the retail market. The challenge for retail buyers is to adjust their procurement processes to respond to consumer needs in an efficient and effective manner. This study examines factors influencing buyer‐supplier relationships in a transition economy. We present a model to explain the factors driving retail buyer dependence on suppliers. We find that retailer evaluation of supplier credibility mediates the relationship between retailer perceptions of a supplier ability to add value to its business and the ability to achieve its desired goals. In part, this is due to the supplier’s market orientation. Interestingly, guanxi ties have no impact on the retailer perceptions of the supplier credibility, but have a positive affect on retailer dependence on its supplier partners.

Three types of industrial buyer-seller relational process models are available: joining theory, stage theory, and state theory. However, historically, these models have developed based on the knowledge and cultural context of the Western world. Several researchers note that national culture may have an impact on international industrial buyer-seller relationships. Including culture in the models is highly important, especially as the business environment is increasingly more global and different countries have different business cultures. The goal of this paper is to define the most suitable industrial buyer-seller relational process models for describing relationships in various contexts. The paper includes a through literature review and a single case study in order to reach this objective. A new state theory model evolved during the research. It consists of two beginning states: searching and starting; four purely middles states: constant/static, decline, growth, and troubled; and a purely end state: termination. The state of dormant/inert is both a middle state and an end state, that is, when the relational actors are not in contact does not mean that the relationship has ended, but instead, for example, new legislation may have been implemented, which requires the actors to evaluate their relationship and its future. A relationship goes through the two beginning states in the order mentioned above, but after that, any state may occur.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of the ways in which food companies can work with branding to perform better in the market. The authors achieve this purpose by comparing how different managers of food brands prioritise and evaluate their brands, in relation to a theoretical ideal framework.

A survey of 77 managers of domestic and international brands.

Beliefs and priorities are similar between managers. What differs is how they measure and monitor their brands. Managers of high performing brands, for example, in general measure brand equity to a greater extent than other managers, and they focus significantly more on monitoring typical brand equity elements such as brand awareness, uniqueness, and feelings. Also managers of international brands measure and monitor more intensively than those of domestic brands.

Weaker and domestic brands could learn from the better-performing brands, by becoming more oriented towards key brand equity elements when performing monitoring, rather than focusing mainly on perceived quality.

A comparative and systematic method that suggests an alternative and analytical approach to strengthening domestic and weaker brands

The purpose of this study is to enhance the comprehensive understanding of the roles of resource investments, explicit contracts and three components of guanxi (i.e. renqing, ganqing and mianzi) in asymmetric research and development (R&D) partnerships. Treating dependence asymmetry as a multidimensional construct, this study examines the moderating effects of these elements on the relationships between resources and information asymmetry and opportunism.

The study was executed by issuing questionnaires to R&D managers participating in R&D projects and collaborations in the Shanghai and Jiangsu provinces via e-mail and face to face surveys. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical test generally supported the conceptual model and produced the following findings: first, resources and information asymmetry significantly and positively affect opportunism. Second, the partner’s resource investments can weaken the effect of resources and information asymmetry on the partner’s opportunism. Third, explicit contracts can reduce the impact of information asymmetry on the partner’s opportunism. Fourth, renqing and ganqing but not mianzi can weaken the influence of information asymmetry on the partner’s opportunism.

This study provides a comprehensive and clear understanding of how opportunism can be curbed by jointly considering resource investments, explicit contracts and guanxi in asymmetric R&D cooperative relationships. Moreover, dependence asymmetry and guanxi are measured as a multidimensional construct and reveal their underlying structure, which expands previous understandings of risk management in R&D collaborations.

This study aims to examine the relationship between renqing and purchase intentions and the mechanism of its impact in the Chinese business-to-business (B2B) context.

Renqing in China has played an important role in business relationships and has been receiving increased attention in both practice and theory. However, little is known about whether it can influence purchase intentions in a rational B2B condition. This research aims to examine the relationship between renqing and purchase intentions and the mechanism of its impact in the Chinese B2B context. Based on a survey of 1,010 industry buyers from 468 Chinese downstream buyer companies, the empirical findings indicate a positive relationship between renqing and purchase intentions and the mediating role of long-term orientation (LTO) for increasing purchase intentions. In addition, this study also finds that product involvement (PI) has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between renqing and purchase intentions, which means that renqing has a big positive effect on purchase intentions in low PI conditions. The results highlight several implications for B2B companies that sell products to Chinese enterprises.

The empirical findings indicate a positive relationship between renqing and purchase intentions and the mediating role of LTO for increasing purchase intentions. In addition, this study also finds that PI has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between renqing and purchase intentions, which means that renqing has a big positive effect on purchase intentions in low PI conditions.

First of all, by answering the research question, this study shows that renqing has a positive effect on purchase intentions in Chinese B2B context. Second, this study elucidates the influence mechanism of renqing on purchase intention and identifies the mediating effect of LTO and the moderating effect of PI.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact and effect of renqing in Chinese business relationships. The research focused on a multinational organisation that is based in China.

As the research was exploratory, a qualitative approach was adopted. The researcher was based in the organisation for a six-month period, and interviews were undertaken with purchasing managers.

The findings show that the Chinese concept of renqing comprises favours and opportunities.

The research is exploratory and further research is required to confirm the wider applicability of the findings.

The findings illustrate the importance of understanding the use of both favours and opportunities in business relationship in China. The findings also indicate the importance of being sensitive to cultural factors in business relationships.

This exploratory research indicates that previous conceptualisation of Renqing was limited, as the aspects it encompasses, favours and opportunities, were not identified. This research identifies the importance of opportunities in Chinese business relationships.

Guanxi is the foundation of business success in Chinese and other Eastern cultures, but little is known about the extent to which guanxi influences brand outcomes in channel relationships. The purpose of this study is to propose a novel theoretical framework of interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi relationships in a sales channel context and how these relationships influence brand outcomes.

The authors conceptualize, develop and validate new scales measuring interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi and test the proposed model with a field study to validate the effects of guanxi on brand loyalty. The causal relationships between interpersonal guanxi and brand attitudes and affect are confirmed in a separate field experiment.

Findings show that interpersonal guanxi is antecedent to interorganizational guanxi, and these two constructs have significant and differential direct and indirect effects on brand attitudes, brand affect and brand loyalty.

New multidimensional scales measuring both interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi were developed. Both interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi are conceptualized as second-order reflective constructs measured by the reflective first-order guanxi elements of personal and firm trust, personal and firm long-term orientation, xinyong (integrity), reciprocity, interaction and face.

This study aims to examine the double-edged effects of guanxi on opportunism and the moderating effects of legal enforceability and partner asset specificity. It thus differs from the current literature, which primarily focuses on the benevolent effects of guanxi.

Based on matched data collected from 268 sales manager and salesperson dyads, this study tested hypotheses using hierarchical regressions.

The empirical test supports the conceptual model and demonstrates two findings. First, guanxi between boundary spanners follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with inter-firm opportunism. Second, both the benefits and drawbacks of guanxi are stronger under the condition of low legal enforceability and high partner asset specificity.

The study did not untangle guanxi into different dimensions and did not investigate how firms should make trade-offs between the benefits and drawbacks of guanxi. Therefore, future research could further explore this question by using a multidimensional approach.

The study alerts managers that guanxi is a double-edged sword, so they should complement it with formal control mechanisms, particularly when they are operating in legally inefficient regions or when their partner firm’s asset specificity is high.

The study offers a more balanced view of guanxi by showing both its positive and negative effects on opportunism. It also uncovers legal enforceability and partner asset specificity as two boundary conditions that influence the curvilinear effects of guanxi on opportunism.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of online service quality on swift guanxi that influences customer repurchase intention and the moderating role of gender in the relationship between online service quality and swift guanxi.

Based on survey data obtained from 274 college students, structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results show that the dimensions of online service quality (i.e. perceived control, convenience and customer service) are positively related to buyer-seller swift guanxi, which influences repurchase intention. Additionally, men are driven mainly by perceived control and service convenience when establishing swift guanxi, whereas women care more about customer service.

Online service quality is the key factor underlying customer repurchase intention. In addition, gender differences exist in many aspects of online shopping including information processing, perceived service, and perceived risk. This is one of the first empirical studies that empirically examine the effects of three dimensions of online service quality on swift guanxi and take gender differences into consideration. Based on the conceptual and empirical evidence, this study provides the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.