To increase consumer acceptance of novel products, firms often employ extension strategies, that is, launching new products under familiar brand names. Prototypical brands are among the most familiar in any product category, and, therefore, seem attractive candidates for extension efforts. But, by definition, prototypical brands and their product category show a strong association. Starting from a categorization theory perspective, prior research suggests that this association may hinder the extendibility of prototypical brands to products that belong to distant categories. Yet counter-intuitively, results from two studies focusing on novel extensions demonstrate that brand prototypicality increases rather than decreases consumer acceptance of novel extensions, in “close” as well as “distant” product categories. A mediation analysis provides evidence for the underlying mechanism by indicating that the risk-reducing advantage of prototypical brands outweighs their category-anchored rigidity.

Nowadays, an increasing number of information technology tools are implemented in order to support decision making about marketing strategies and improve customer relationship management (CRM). Consequently, an improvement in CRM can be obtained by enhancing the databases on which these information technology tools are based. This study shows that data augmentation with situational variables of the purchase occasion can significantly improve purchasing behavior predictions for a home vending company. Three dimensions of situational variables are examined: physical surroundings, temporal perspective and social surroundings respectively represented by weather, time, and salesperson variables. The smallest, but still significant, increase in predictive performance was measured by enhancing the model with time variables. Besides the moment of the day, this study shows that the incorporation of weather variables, and more specifically sunshine, can also improve the accuracy of a CRM model. Finally, the best improvement in purchasing behavior predictions was obtained by taking the salesperson effect into account using a multilevel model.

This study uses a Delphi approach – a method which essentially canvasses the opinions of a panel of experts over successive rounds – to forecast the Chinese business environment in the next decade. A total of 61 issues covering economic, political–legal and socio–cultural factors are examined, focusing on their anticipated direction (and magnitude), as well as their importance. Overall, a very high level of consensus is revealed about how the Chinese business environment might look 10 years from now. In a number of fundamental respects it is expected to be markedly different from the present situation, but in some other respects remarkably similar.

The author reports the results of a survey on global compensation management practices in multinational firms, most of them headquartered in continental Europe and the United Kingdom. The study focuses on whether decisions on different compensation and benefits issues in these firms are taken at a headquarters or at the regional, business unit or country/local level. In addition, the author provides more qualitative information on the degree to which the respondents are satisfied with the decision-making process as well as their concrete suggestions for improvement. Finally, the author deals with the question of whether centralization or decentralization is the preferable option.