European Journal of Marketing

This paper is a practical attempt to contribute to the ongoing reappraisal of the dichotomies and categories that have become prevalent throughout marketing research.

The paper reviews current literature on incommensurability and undertakes a comparative re‐examination of two studies.

How the authors view their research is constituted in retrospective terms through a marketing and consumption logic based on the principles of division, distinction and difference. Re‐examination of some empirical case material suggests that in practice the perceived duality separating research traditions is unsound. A misplaced reading of paradigm incommensurability has resulted in research practices appearing oppositional and static when they are essentially undifferentiated and dynamic. An over‐socialised research epistemology has raised the tangible outcomes of research activities to be dominant in directing research practice.

The comparative analysis is illustrative rather than representative.

The paper offers an applied exposition of theoretical debates in marketing research concerning paradigm incommensurability.

Current conceptualisations of strategic flexibility and its antecedents are theory‐driven, which has resulted in a lack of consensus. To summarise this domain the paper aims to develop and present an a priori conceptual model of the antecedents and outcomes of strategic flexibility. Discussion and insights into the conceptual model, and the relationships specified, are made through a novel qualitative empirical approach. The implications for further research and a framework for further theoretical development are presented.

An exploratory qualitative research design is used applying multiple data collection techniques in a branch network of a large regional retailer in the UK. The development of strategic options and the complex relationship to strategic flexibility is investigated.

The number and type of strategic options developed by managers impact on the degree of strategic flexibility and also on the ability of the firm to achieve competitive differentiation. Additionally, the type of strategic option implemented by managers is dependent on the competitive situation faced at a local level. Evidence of managers' limited perception of competition was identified based on their spatial embeddedness.

A single, in‐depth case study was used. The data gathered is rich and appropriate for the exploratory approach adopted here. However, generalisability of the findings is limited.

Strategic flexibility is rooted in the ability of front‐line mangers to develop and implement strategic options; this in turn facilitates competitive differentiation.

The research presented is unique in this domain on two accounts. First, theory is developed by presenting an a priori conceptual model, and testing through in‐depth qualitative data gathering. Second, insights into strategic flexibility are presented through an examination of managerial cognition, resources and strategic option generation using cognitive mapping and laddering technique.

The aim of this article is to explore children's understanding of television advertising intent.

A different perspective on advertising intent is offered in this paper, as evidenced in an interpretive study of Irish children, aged between seven and nine years. A qualitative approach was employed, involving a series of focus group discussions and in‐depth interviews with 52 children.

The findings indicate that the participating children view advertising as serving interests including, but not limited to, the advertiser. The existence of other interested parties is suggested by the children, namely the agendas of viewers and television channels. The authors assert that these children view advertising as being larger and more complex than the advertiser's perspective, which has been the traditional focus in the extant research.

Adopting an advertising literacy perspective, the authors seek to explore children's “reading” and understanding of advertising. Advertising literacy is an approach to understanding advertising that has not received substantial attention in the child‐advertising literature. The literature to date has tended to focus on the following question – do children understand the persuasive intent of advertising? This question is suggestive of a “yes/no” answer. In contrast, the authors view the concept of understanding as being more complex and multi‐faceted, and accordingly, seek to develop this concept by way of a classification that suggests four different levels of understanding that children may exhibit towards advertising

The main purpose of this research is to gain a clearer understanding of several key determinants and consequences of the ethical behaviour of salespeople.

Questionnaires were administered during regularly scheduled meetings to a total of 280 financial services salespeople. The salespeople questioned were mainly specializing in selling high‐involvement financial products (e.g. mortgages, life insurance) to final consumers.

Results suggest that method of compensation and control system (CS) are important determinants of ethical behaviour. Age (AGE) also proves to be a significant antecedent of ethical behaviour. However, education (EDU) is not significantly related to ethical behaviour. Additionally, a salesperson's ethical behaviour leads to lower levels of role conflict‐intersender and higher levels of job satisfaction, but not higher performance.

To improve generalization of the findings, future research should broaden the sample by including a variety of industries. Likewise, the use of longitudinal data could provide new insights into the antecedents and consequences of ethical behaviour of salespeople and in particular the relationship with performance. Continuing research is needed to further analyse the relationship between ethical behaviour and other relevant behaviours that may take place during the interaction with the customer (e.g. organisational citizenship behaviours and customer orientation).

This research is, to our knowledge, the first study that simultaneously identifies and analyses several key antecedents and consequences of the ethical behaviour of salespeople.

This study adds to the literature by reducing the existing gap and showing companies insights into how to foster ethical sales behaviour and the positive consequences that this behaviour has on their salespeople.

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived fit, brand type and country's culture on the consumers' attitude towards brand extensions and on the parent brand equity.

Data were collected in three European countries: Spain, UK, and Norway. A series of analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Brand extensions with high fit receive more favourable consumer evaluations and decrease the negative feedback effects of extensions on parent brand equity. Results also reveal that parent brand equity dilution is higher when the brand used to launch the extension has high equity. Finally, findings indicate different consumers' responses to extensions and effects on parent brand equity across countries.

Important directions for future research would be to include other countries and carry out a more in‐depth analysis to understand the effect of culture.

Managers should launch extensions with high perceived fit. In addition, greater effort is needed to extend high equity brands, due to their greater dilution. Finally, managers need to understand that consumer evaluations and feedback effects of the same brand extensions can vary due to cultural differences between consumers. Therefore, standardised brand extension strategies should be carefully considered.

The study focuses, not only on consumer evaluations of extensions, but also on the effects of extensions on the parent brand equity. Furthermore, this paper is one of the first to empirically examine and show that consumer evaluations of extensions and feedback effects on parent brand equity differ across countries.

This study sets out to explore how consumers evaluate unbranded and unlabelled food products and to what extent they are able to select the products with the highest potential to meet their expectations regarding eating quality.

The study focused on Portuguese consumers and their purchase of bacalhau, i.e. salted and dried cod, which is sold unpacked, unbranded and unlabelled in supermarkets. The collection of data encompassed observations of shoppers in supermarkets, individual interviews and focus groups with consumers, and a consumer panel that conducted quality assessments and rankings of nine different bacalhaus and subsequent taste assessments of the same products following desalting and cooking.

Results indicate that Portuguese consumers – in spite of substantial experience with buying, preparing and consuming bacalhau – are uncertain in their in‐store quality assessment. Shoppers used multiple criteria to assess the quality of the bacalhau, such as the appearance and dryness of the product. Some rather curious quality criteria that were not related to “objective” product quality were also discerned. Touching the dried and salted cod trying to “feel” the quality was common. Some even broke the fish tail to assess the dryness. Findings from the consumer panel showed large discrepancies between how the same products were assessed before and after desalting and cooking.

The study is limited to one food product and one national market. Marketing implications, such as focus on packaging, quality labelling, and branding are discussed, as well as implications for future research.

The paper shows that although unlabelled and unbranded food products are common, relatively little research addressing how consumers assess such products in a wider sense, including which strategies consumers apply and to what extent they are able to select products that meet or exceed their expectations regarding eating quality, has been conducted. The paper also addresses the role cultural rules and rituals may play in the assessment of traditional food products such as bacalhau.

The aim of this paper is to propose an approach to international market segmentation that identifies meaningful cross‐national consumer segments, which focuses on airline passengers in the NAFTA market.

A conjoint analysis is used to evaluate consumers' preferences for six flight attributes: price, in‐flight service, number of stops before destination, on‐time performance, frequent flyer programme, and country of airline. A cluster analysis based on the relative importance scores of each of the six flights attributes then identifies five segments that prioritize similar product attributes within each country.

A representative sample of 4,787 airline passengers from the three countries reveal that price is the most important attribute for consumers from the USA and Canada, while on‐time performance is the most important attribute for Mexican consumers. A cluster analysis identifies five segments that prioritize similar product attributes within each country. It is also found that there are five cross‐national consumer segments in the NAFTA market that are homogeneous in terms of consumer preferences but heterogeneous in terms of relative group size and demographic variables.

The study is based on a purposive sample, which limits the ability to generalize to the whole population with any known degree of precision.

The research produces practical operational information on each segment that is translatable into strategy, specifically in terms of positioning, promotion, and targeting of the airline service.

The paper sheds light on the nature of cross‐national segmentation in the NAFTA air passengers market and the resulting cross‐national segmentation will be highly relevant for international marketing management.