Magnus Hultman

Export Product Strategy Fit and Performance: An Empirical Investigation

This study investigates the issue of balancing the benefits gained through standardized strategies with those achievable when adapting to local conditions. Building on previous work that has explored the role of contingency theory and the concept of strategic fit in international marketing strategy, the authors posit that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the export product strategy adaptation decision. Using a sample of Swedish exporters, they find support for the hypothesis that an array of forces from the macro-, micro-, and internal environments drives product adaptation, which affects the nature of product strategy fit and its performance outcomes. In terms of the performance relevance of product strategy fit, sociocultural environment, technological environment, marketing infrastructure, stage of product life cycle, scope of exporting experience, and duration of exporting experience all matter. However, the pattern of significant and nonsignificant findings cautions against excessive aggregation of environmental variables in conceptualizing environment–product strategy fit to performance linkages. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications of the findings for theory building and management practice.

Evaluating the green advertising practices of international firms: a trend analysis

Purpose – Consumer scepticism about the credibility of green advertising around the world is growing. The article aims to provide a comprehensive assessment and trend analysis of green advertising practices of international firms over a 20‐year period.Design/methodology/approach – The study identifies 473 international green advertisements during the 1988‐2007 period and content‐analyses them on five major axes: advertiser profile, targeting features, message aspects, copy characteristics, and situation points.Findings – The content analysis reveals significant trends in all major areas examined and identifies important interaction effects between certain dimensions of green advertisements.Research limitations/implications – The findings could be augmented by combining them with changes in the external environment, input from consumers about advertising effectiveness, the views of advertisers and advertising agencies, and secondary data referring to the performance of the specific company/product advertis...

Export Promotion Strategy and Performance: The Role of International Experience

This study examines how international experience shapes managerial judgment in the formation of effective export promotion strategies. Drawing from contingency theory and the organizational learning perspective, the authors develop and test a model of the effects of different forms of international experience—duration, scope, and intensity—on the performance outcomes of promotion adaptation. Using data from 336 export ventures, the authors find that promotion adaptation relates positively to performance when duration is short and intensity is low, but there is a nonsignificant moderating effect for scope. However, the subsequent analysis suggests that scope, together with sociocultural distance and promotion adaptation, exerts a complex three-way effect on export performance, highlighting the need for more research attention in this area.

Electronic supply chain management applications by Swedish SMEs

The Internet has become an integral part of business activities of most corporations today. Electronic supply chain management (SCM) can improve the operational efficiency of the firm by streamlining processes between the company and its suppliers, business partners, and customers. This research explores the extent and the degree of Internet application in Swedish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The analyses of the data show that the Swedish SMEs use the Internet in their supply chain activities to a large degree. The study establishes some differences between smaller and larger organizations as well as between manufacturing and service companies.

Positioning in market space : the evaluation of Swedish universities' online brand personalities

ABSTRACT The paper extends Aakers previous empirical work on brand personality by exploring whether Swedish Universities communicate distinctive brand personalities in cyberspace. Employing a multistage methodology, data are drawn from the English Web sites of 17 Swedish universities and analyzed by using a combination of computerized content and correspondence analyses. Results indicate that some universities appear to have clear brand personalities, others take on a new face with regard to the obvious personality one would have initially associated them with, while others fail to communicate their brand personalities in any distinct manner. While illustrating a powerful but simple and relatively inexpensive way for institutions for higher education and brand researchers to study communicated brand personalities, this study also highlights the growing importance of brand positioning issues in internationalization and globalization of higher educational institutions.

Private label competition : the perspective of Swedish branded goods manufacturers

Purpose – This paper aims to gain a better understanding of how Swedish branded goods manufacturers (BGMs) deal with the increased usage of private labels.Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of answering the three research questions of this study: how private labels are viewed by BGMs on the Swedish market; how Swedish BGMs strategically respond to the increases in private labels; and how the benefits and drawbacks of these strategic responses are perceived by Swedish BGMs. A contrasting multiple case study of four Swedish companies in the fast‐moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry was used.Findings – The perceived advantages of private labels are connected to their overall control of the market in which they operate, whereas the advantages of BGMs are seen to be linked to product development and superior brand reputation. BGMs respond to private labels by taking them seriously and striving to increase the perceived distance of their brands from private labels in the eyes of the consumers. The overall benefit of these strategies is perceived to be preparedness for increased private label competition, while the drawbacks vary between companies.Research limitations/implications – In addition to empirical testing based on previous research on private label competition in a new setting, the study also presents suggestions for future research and the implications of the findings for managers.Practical implications – Findings indicate that BGMs should take the emergence of private labels seriously, while at the same time striving to maintain good business relationships with the retailers.Originality/value – The study provides insights into the competitive situation between private labels and the manufacturer brands in the Swedish FMCG market.

Adoption of enterprise systems and radio frequency identification among service firms

A promising technology for optimizing supply-chain processes is radio frequency identification (RFID). By adding functionality to previous enterprise systems, the aim is to increase transparency of information throughout the supply chain. In this paper, we present a survey of RFID implementation in Swedish service firms. The findings show that although the great majority of firms are actively working with integrated information systems, only a very small fraction have adopted RFID.

International entrepreneurial orientation and regional expansion

Abstract This study examines how behavioral elements of international entrepreneurial orientation (i.e. product innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy) increase variability in scope of regional market expansion, and the international marketing channel management conditions under which this occurs. Results from an empirical study in a developing market show that not all behavioral elements of international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) increase scope of regional expansion. The study specifically finds that scope of regional expansion is fostered when high levels of product innovation intensity, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomous behaviors are aligned with a stronger channel management capability. Conversely, the regional expansion values of product innovation novelty and proactiveness are cancelled out when channel management capability levels are high.

Pricing Capabilities: Drivers and Effects on Performance

Pricing is the element of the marketing mix that is often overlooked in export marketing (Sousa and Bradley, 2009). However, the ability of an exporting firm to understand the value of its offering as perceived by foreign customers and set prices accordingly, is critical to its survival and success, given that the additional ramifications of the export setting (as compared to the domestic one) may challenge its ability to identify, address, and anticipate customers’ requirements and preferences (Morgan et al., 2004). This study draws on the resource-based, dynamic capabilities, and organisation learning literatures to develop and test a model that investigates how export customer orientation (the core component of market orientation) influences marketing exploitation and exploration, which in turn, give rise to superior pricing capabilities in export markets. Pricing capabilities are posited as a key determinant of export performance. The contribution of this study is threefold: (1) the examination of the drivers and outcomes of marketing exploration and exploitation; (2) the investigation of the antecedents and performance implications of pricings capabilities; and (3) the study of the role of customer orientation, marketing exploration and exploitation, pricing capabilities, and performance within the particularly relevant, but understudied, context of exporting. The findings suggest that customer orientation promotes both marketing exploration and exploitation. Marketing exploration and exploitation result in superior pricing capabilities, which in turn enhance export performance. In terms of theory development, this study adds to the resource-based view (Barney, 1991) and its dynamic capabilities extension (Vorhies and Morgan, 2005) by suggesting that resources (i.e., customer orientation) lay the foundation for higher-order capabilities (i.e., marketing exploitation and exploration), which give rise to specialized capabilities (i.e., pricing), resulting in superior performance outcomes. The key managerial implication of this study is that exporting firms need to routinely perform marketing exploitation and exploration activities in order to set prices that fit with their positioning, customers, and with evolving export market conditions.

Managerial Decisions on International Price Adaptation: An Abstract

The study investigates how international pricing decisions are made. Specifically, how and under what conditions psychic distance affects managers’ export pricing adaptation/standardization decisions. Based on construal-level theory, we develop a model that suggests managerial promotion orientation and firm culture as the boundary conditions and construal-level mindset as the underlying mechanism of the psychic distance–price adaptation decision. Using a scenario-based experiment, with export managers in Greece and Taiwan, we find that psychic distance has a significant positive effect on price adaptation, but this effect is becoming nonsignificant for firms located in Asia. Moreover, for firms located in Europe, the positive effect of psychic distance becomes weaker when managers are characterized by higher promotion orientation. Results also confirm that construal-level mindset mediates the perceived psychic distance effect on price adaptation decisions. The article contributes in the export marketing literature by uncovering boundary conditions and an underlying mechanism for the effects of psychic distance and provides value-adding managerial implications.