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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not EU enlargement would cause companies to standardise their brand portfolios and the brands they offer, between Eastern and Western Europe. Design/ methodology/ approach: The issue of standardisation versus localisation, and the impact of EU enlargement upon standardisation are examined based on the existing literature. The paper looks at whether fostering more member states within the EU would encourage standardisation. It also explores whether barriers for standardisation still exist. The research employs a case study methodology to set scenarios of possible outcomes. Findings: The research findings imply that external factors, which are market-based and product-based elements, seem to encourage standardisation. The effect is brought about by the benefits standardisation offers in terms of efficiency. There are still some minor national barriers that impede standardisation. However, the main obstacles are endogenous to corporations and pertain to company structure, strategy and historic resistance to standardisation. Research limitations/ implications: Standardisation of the marketing mix has been practised by managers as a way to combine customers' needs with cost-effectiveness. The paper offers scope for further research into the application of various portfolio assessment tools to examine brands which will help managers to observe these relationships, and develop customised branding strategies. Originality/ value: The paper contributes to the marketing literature on branding and standardisation and supports the strategy of standardisation of brands for better performance.
Globally, policymakers have overlooked the challenges faced by international migrants in host countries during the Covid‐19 pandemic. The policies and support systems designed by host governments highlight the lack of social justice and raise concerns for scholarly attention. Considering the experiences of international migrants living in the UK during the Covid‐19 lockdown from the theoretical perspective of coping, this interpretivist study investigates international migrants' coping strategies adopted during the first UK national lockdown. Data collected from 60 Chinese, Italian and Iranian migrants using semi‐structured interviews during the lockdown period were analysed thematically using NVivo. The findings show that migrants adopted multi‐layered and multi‐phase coping strategies. To cope with the anxiety and uncertainties caused by the pandemic, they initiated new practices informed by both home and host institution logics. Nevertheless, the hostile context's responses provoked unexpected new worries and triggered the adoption of additional and compromising practices. The paper illustrates how coping became paradoxical because migrants had to cope with the hostile reactions that their initial coping strategies provoked in the host environment. By introducing the new concept of coping with coping, this paper extends previous theoretical debate and leads to several managerial implications for governments and policymakers.
This paper examines the effect of home country characteristics on the internationalization of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Drawing on the institution-based view (IBV), we argue that institutional, political, and social characteristics will positively relate to the internationalization of EMNEs. Further, drawing on the knowledge-based view (KBV), we also argue that a firm's knowledge stock (KS) will positively moderate the aforementioned relationship. Our research setting involves the incorporation of primary data collected from Iranian multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in the food and beverage industry. The results provide support for the hypotheses that home country characteristics positively impact the international growth of EMNEs but this does not lead to their further expansion. Also, supported was the hypothesis that EMNEs' knowledge stock positively moderates the relationship between home country characteristics and their international growth. These findings not only contribute to current knowledge about the drivers of EMNE's internationalization but also stress the idiosyncratic role of home country institutions and the impact of knowledge-specific capabilities on the internationalization of EMNEs, their international growth, and expansion.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society, I3E 2022, which took place Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, in September 2022. The 37 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 72 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Artificial intelligence; Data and Analytics; Careers and ICT; Digital Innovation and Transformation; Electronic Services; Health and Wellbeing; Pandemic; Privacy, Trust and Security.
