Editorial
The diversity of subject matter within this issue aims to provide researchers, academics, and practitioners with a better understanding of the ever-changing field of marketing and logistic practices in the region. There are three empirical and two conceptual papers with researchers from Australia,Bangladesh, China, India, Singapore, and the USA.
This issue begins with an empirical research by Kwok, Uncles, and Huang on country of origin effects on brand preferences and choices among urban Chinese consumers. The Chinese market remains an ongoing interest for researchers. One of the strongest appeals of this paper is the use of "real consumers"through a consumer panel. This provides ecological validity as student samples have been criticized as a major shortcoming in previous country of origin studies. The findings reveal that while consumers indicated the preference of local Chinese brands of grocery products, it was not reflected in the actual purchase. There may be a number of underlying issues and untapped factors that need further research. However, the argument that Chinese consumers are not specifically looking for foreign brands provides a good opportunity for Chinese marketers to promote and re-position domestic brands.
Similarly, culture remains a common and important topic for research in Asia Pacific markets. In this conceptual paper, the focus is on national culture dimensions and its influence on a business-to-business market setting. Terawatanavong and Quazi propose a number of relationships involving trust,power, and cooperation with culture as a potential moderator. Generally, the effect of trust and coercive power on B2B cooperation is hypothesized to be stronger in collectivist cultures than in the individualist cultures.
There are two cross-national studies in this issue. The first investigates how virtual communities in Bangladesh differ from those of the USA through a comparison of technical, marketing, and cultural aspects of the messages. Talukder and Yeow found significant differences between the countries in the use of graphics and images, theamount of advertisement and promotional messages,the choices of language, the inclusion of religious content, the frequency of message concerning group welfare, equality, and loyalty, and the number of structured messages. The study also found some similarities in navigational efficiency and online product information. Several implications of the study will interest practitioners and policy makers, especially those who are dependent on the Internet as the focal means for communication.
The research team comprising Xia, Ahmed, Ghingold, Ng, Tan, and Teo on the other hand compares spousal influences in different cultural environments by comparing family purchase decision-making process in Singapore to that of the USA. Differences in marital values between Singaporean husbands and wives were found to be associated with differences in perceived patterns of influence throughout the family decision-making process. It is found that there is a positive relationship between Egalitarianism and higher levels of education,income, and spousal joint decisions. The paper also discusses how these findings differ from those of the spouses in the USA.
The final paper, a research note by Varma, Wadhwa, and Deshmukh, explores how issues pertaining to logistics, outsourcing, partnerships, and environment can be more effectively managed in the supply chain. The proposed framework provides a schematic representation of the several pertinent stages needed in the process. It will allow practitioners to devise their own strategies for handling such supply chain management implementation in a firm.
I am grateful to the editorial advisory board and the ad hoc reviewers for reviewing the manuscripts in a timely manner. Our pool of ad hocreviewers is growing quickly in tandem with the number of submissions to the APJML. Your feedback and comments are always greatly appreciated.
Ian Phau
