Tor Korneliussen

The effects of personal ties and reciprocity on the performance of small firms in horizontal strategic alliances

As competition across national borders intensifies, collaboration between competing companies is becoming an important strategic option for many small and medium-sized European firms. This paper examines the relationship between personal ties and reciprocity in the governance of strategic alliances between competing firms, and shows how this leads to improved company performance.

The effect of ad value, ad placement and ad execution on the perceived intrusiveness of web advertisements

This study addresses factors in advertising that lead to interstitial ads being perceived as intrusive. Eight theory-driven hypotheses were derived and tested. The results indicate that the perception of intrusiveness of ads can be controlled by aspects of ad value, ad placement and ad execution.

Quality perceptions in international distribution: an empirical investigation in a complete distribution chain

Three theory‐based hypotheses related to distribution chains and quality perceptions are advanced and examined empirically. The reported findings show that upstream channel members place more emphasis on distribution quality, while downstream channel members place more emphasis on product quality. A systematic change in quality perceptions is observed across national borders. In addition, more similar quality perceptions are observed among adjacent chain stages than those chain stages that are further apart.

The dimensionality of trade show performance in an emerging market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying dimensions of trade show performance in an emerging market context. Firms in industrial and emerging markets typically differ in terms of access to firm level resource endowments. Such differences make attempts to generalize the trade show performance dimensions proposed for industrialized country exhibitors to emerging market exhibitors problematic. This motivates the need for understanding the dimensionality of trade show performance in an emerging market context.Design/methodology/approach – Data obtained from firms that partake in an emerging market trade show that takes place in an emerging market are used to investigate the dimensionality of trade show performance. By subjecting several trade show performance items into principal component analysis, a multidimensional performance construct, applicable to emerging market exhibitors, is introduced.Findings – The empirical findings show that trade show performance, in an emerging mark...

SMBs in search of international strategic alliances: Perceived importance of personal information sources

Abstract This study addresses the issue of how small- and medium-sized companies seek information about potential international partners for cooperation. In particular, we focus on two sources of information: direct personal information (DIRPI) and indirect personal information (INPI). We argue that the use of these sources is related to how closely related the planned alliance is to the strategic core of the company, the degree of dissimilarity among potential partners, the degree of expected opportunism from potential partners and prior experience with cooperation. Our hypotheses were tested on a sample of small- and medium-sized companies. The results indicate that the planned alliances closeness to the strategic core of the company and partner dissimilarity are important predictors for how managers seek information about potential partners.

Examining the effect of using multiple media tools on the marketing performance of organizations in a trade campaign environment

The idea that integrated marketing communications (IMC) can lead to higher levels of marketing performance has gained widespread recognition in the marketing communication literature. Despite this, concrete empirical evidences demonstrating the contribution of implementing IMC to organization- and campaign-level marketing performance are still limited. In an effort to make a contribution to this area, this paper examines whether using multiple media tools, at multiple customer touch points, leads to higher levels of marketing performance in a trade show campaign environment. Data were collected using questionnaire from organizations that exhibited at a large international trade show. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the propositions of the study. Consistent with our expectation, the regression results indicated that using multiple media tools for the trade show campaign purposes led to higher levels of marketing performance. Based on the results, a host of practical insights for marketing campaign strategists are developed.

Importance Performance Analysis as a Trade Show Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking Tool

The purpose of this study is to introduce importance performance analysis as a trade show performance evaluation and benchmarking tool. Importance performance analysis considers exhibitors’ performance expectation and perceived performance in unison to evaluate and benchmark trade show performance. The present study uses data obtained from exhibitors of an international trade show to demonstrate how importance performance analysis can be used to evaluate and benchmark trade show performance. The study discusses the normative and the theoretical implications of the proposed method.

Managing Trade Show Campaigns: Why Managerial Responsibilities Matter?

This article examined the relationship between managerial responsibilities for important trade show tasks and the marketing performance of exhibiting firms. Drawing theoretical insights from the functionalist perspective of managerial roles and organizational role theory, this article proposed and validated theory based, multiple, task-managerial responsibility linkages using a large international b2b trade show as a context. The empirical results indicated that the marketing performance of exhibiting firms was enhanced when (a) middle managers were assigned the trade show objective setting task, (b) lower and middle managers were involved in the trade show selection decision and (c) lower managers executed the booth management task. The paper concluded by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.