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This meta-analysis aims to aggregate empirical findings from extant inter-firm opportunism literature.

First, a quantitative summary on the bivariate relationships between the antecedents and the consequences of opportunism is offered. Second, a multivariate analysis is employed to identify significant antecedents of opportunism and the process variables that mediate the relationship between inter-firm opportunism and organizational performance.

Results reveal that goal congruence has the largest influence on inter-firm opportunism, followed by cultural sensitivity, communication, and environmental volatility, norms, governance emphasis, and relative dependence. These important antecedents represent significant research directions for inter-firm opportunism. In addition, inter-firm opportunism affects organizational performance through a mediating process including commitment, functional conflict, overall satisfaction, and trust. Commitment is found to act as a major moderating construct between inter-firm opportunism and its other significant consequences in the revised model.

This study widens the horizon on inter-firm opportunism research by examining a much greater number of effect sizes and by employing a more complex framework of the mechanism mediating the inter-firm opportunism-organizational performance relationship and does so more effectively than any individual research work.

This study aims to investigate the relationships among corporate-brand credibility, product-brand personality, and purchase intention, specifically in China's auto industry. A large-scale survey was conducted in four major Chinese Mainland cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. A total of 800 questionnaires were distributed for the study. Ultimately, 477 usable cases were collected for a 60 percent response rate. Results reveal that corporate-brand credibility and product-brand personality have direct positive effects on purchase intention. Furthermore, corporate-brand credibility acts as a positive moderator in the relationship between product-brand personality and purchase intention. This chapter offers new theoretical insights into the influential factors affecting consumers' purchase intentions by testing the moderating effect of corporate-brand credibility in the relationship between product-brand personality and purchase intention. It further provides useful suggestions to companies on brand credibility and personality issues.

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.

Effect size is an important determinant of statistical power. However, very few experimental studies in international marketing (IM) report effect sizes and no meta‐analysis work in this regard has been done. The main objective of this paper, therefore, is to quantitatively document effect sizes of experiments in IM and to provide directions for further methodological improvement.

All articles published in the top three marketing journals and the top six IM‐related journals during the period 1992‐2005 were screened; this yielded 35 experiment‐based papers within the domain of IM. For each study, ten methodological characteristics relevant to IM experimental designs were coded.

The 35 studies reported 68 experiments, which produced a total of 1, 074 observations. Results reveal that, on average, for experiments in international business marketing, about 2.89 percent of the variance in a dependent variable (DV) is accounted for by experimental treatments, and a variance of 3.61 percent is shared by the independent and DV for experiments in international consumer marketing. Sampling method, type of subjects, type of design and number of countries are found to have significant influences on effect sizes.

This paper provides a quantitative, state‐of‐the‐art review of effect sizes in IM experiments, points out problems such as inappropriate reliance on an overall effect size index, and further offers useful suggestions on how to report and improve effect sizes.

This study aims to investigate the effects of inconsistent word‐of‐mouth on service quality perception and purchase intention during the service encounter.

A pilot study and a subsequent formal experiment with six scenarios were designed to test the inconsistent word‐of‐mouth effect. Participants were recruited from a major university located in Southern China.

The results revealed that service quality perception and purchase intention were influenced more by the final word‐of‐mouth event than by the initial one and were more favorable with more positive word‐of‐mouth events.

Further research should study more factors such as source effect of word‐of‐mouth and knowledge about the service in investigating the inconsistent word‐of‐mouth effect on service quality perception and purchase intention.

Consumers' service quality judgment and purchase intention seem to be highly driven by the most recent word‐of‐mouth activities. Thus, to stimulate consumption levels, companies can use creative and innovative promotion tools for consumers to talk about their service and elicit consumers' purchase interest. Other tools such as involving consumers in delivering the service and developing referral incentive schemes are also beneficial to establish positive word‐of‐mouth.

This paper adds value to the word‐of‐mouth literature by studying the inconsistent word‐of‐mouth effect on consumers' perceptions of service quality and purchase intention towards the service, which lacks strong conceptual and empirical evidence.

Reputational beliefs influence online purchase intentions but are difficult to establish in settings in which counterfeit products are common, especially in emerging economies. Drawing upon signalling theory, this work decomposes reputational beliefs into: an ability belief, as represented by web site investment, and a truthfulness belief, as signalled by a statement about the existence of a physical store, and investigates their differential effects on online purchase intentions. This work aims to further investigate the moderating effects of searchers' personality type on the relationships between reputational beliefs and online purchase intentions.

Three experiments using various samples (students versus non-students) and products (cell phone versus camera) were conducted.

The results reveal that two significant market signals, web site investment and a statement about physical store existence, influence reputation beliefs, and, thus online purchase intentions. Moreover, aggressive searchers' online purchase intentions depend on their ability belief rather than their truthfulness belief, whereas non-aggressive searchers' intentions rely on their truthfulness belief rather than their ability belief.

This work provides new theoretical insights into factors influencing consumers' online purchase decision making by decomposing reputational beliefs and incorporating the moderating effect of personality type. It contributes to signaling literature by examining the effects of two market signals – web site investment and statement about the existence of a physical store – on two major components of reputational beliefs and online purchase intentions. This article is the first to empirically test the effects of reputational beliefs from the perspective of end-users in an online context.

The purpose of this paper aims to investigate the relationship between brand personality, country‐of‐origin (COO) image and purchase intention. Specifically, it is suggested that COO image exerts both main and interaction impact on purchase intention.

A cross‐city survey of China's auto industry for the Sino‐German Joint Venture's auto brand of Bora was conducted to test hypotheses, predicted on a sample of 1,200 respondents. Another sample for Japan and the Sino‐Japanese Joint Venture's Honda auto brand was used for validation.

Results reveal that both brand personality and COO image exert significant positive main effects on purchase intention. Furthermore, COO image is found to be a positive moderator in the relationship between brand personality and purchase intention. Specifically, a positive COO image could enhance brand personality's positive impact on purchase intention, whereas a negative COO image could significantly decrease the positive brand personality effect on purchase intention. Companies with both weak brand personality and a negative COO image achieve a higher purchase intention than those with weak brand personality, yet a positive COO image.

This study provides new theoretical insights into factors influencing consumers' purchase decision making by incorporating COO image as a moderator in the relationship between brand personality and purchase intention. It also offers joint ventures useful advice on whether to emphasize brand origin. If a company is weak in both brand personality and COO image, it is better not to emphasize brand origin.

The topic of brand personality (BP) has received extensive research attention in the last 2 decades, with a particular focus on examining its antecedents and consequences. This study, therefore, systematically reviews and synthesizes extant research on antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products.

A systematic review approach is used to identify and analyze relevant studies from five major databases and a search engine. This review identified 62 articles from 43 journals published during 1997–2018. The relevant literature germane to the research objectives is extracted from these articles.

This study identifies and classifies antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products, along with key mediators and moderators underlying these relationships. Additionally, the study reveals pertinent characteristics of BP literature, including conceptualizations, measurements, methods, theories and research settings. Finally, this study develops an integrative conceptual model and presents avenues for future research.

This study provides insight to practitioners that create and develop brand personalities. The study would inform managers concerning the outcomes of BP.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first systematic review that synthesizes existing empirical research on antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products.