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Presents the findings of Millward Brown’s international study of the relationship of the youth generation with brands, using these findings to give marketers advice on how to connect with young people. Emphasises how much more grown up are today’s tweens (8 to 14 year olds) than previous generations, and the opportunities this gives to marketers. Discovers that tweens not only influence the brands they buy for themselves but also expensive family purchases. Examines how brand loyal they are, finding that brand loyalty increases sharply at the age of ten and peaks at around 30. Outlines the brand pyramid, with the strongest bonding of consumer to brand at the top, and assesses the importance of peer pressure in determining brand loyalty, including the “fish‐streaming” phenomenon (in which younger children wish to use the brands that teens do). Discusses whether brand loyalty is a lifetime relationship, and how some brands like McDonald’s successfully segment their markets to appeal to all ages.

Discusses how Digital Customer Services highlights a survey on achieving good “scores”, helping everyone in the organisation to work towards customer satisfaction. Describes three facets of the survey. Stresses that information gained from the survey can be utilised. Focuses on the use of the expectation scale and asserts that a survey can focus on achieving good “scores” which can be used as a public relations tool or it can help all to work towards customer satisfaction. Concludes that the programme is ever‐changing and the organisation committed to adjusting survey techniques to suit the changing dynamics and needs of a growing customer base in a global market.

This chapter contributes to the ongoing debate about how digitalisation affects the internationalisation of small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs). By applying the Uppsala Internationalisation Process model, this chapter examines the impact of e-commerce on the internationalisation of SMEs. The study uses a unique dataset, which includes 14,513 SMEs across several sectors in 34 countries. The results show that firms using the Internet as a means to provide information about the firm exhibit a higher degree of internationalisation, while using the Internet to facilitate transactions was found to have a positive impact on the ratio of foreign sales to the total sales; however, these foreign sales are likely to be concentrated in less regions/markets. Furthermore, perceived export barriers were found to be a significant moderator of the effects of e-commerce usage on international intensity and international diversification. This suggests that e-commerce does not automatically facilitate the internationalisation of SMEs.

The authors focus on “writing women into ‘history’” in this study, embracing the notion of cisgender and ethnicity in relation to the “historic turn”. As such, the authors bring forward the stories of the US Pan American Airway’s Guided Missile Range Division (GMRD) and the White women who worked there. The authors ask what has a Cold War US missile division to tell us about present and future gendered relationships in the North American space industry.

The authors apply Foucault’s technology of lamination, a form of critical discourse analysis, to both narrative texts and photographic images in the GMRD’s in-house newsletter, the Clipper, dating from 1964 until the end of 1967. They meld an autoethnography to this technique, providing space for the first author to share her experiences within the contemporary space industry in relation to the GMRD White women experiences.

The authors surface, in applying this combined methodology, a story about a White women’s historical, present and future cisgender social reality in the North American space industry. They are contributing then to a multi-voiced, cisgender/ethnic “historic turn” that, to date, is focused on White men alone in the US race to the moon.

The social implication of this study lies in challenging perceptions of the masculinist-gendering of the past by bringing forward tales of, and by, women. This study also brings a White woman’s voice forward, within a contemporary North American space industry organization.

The authors are making a three-fold contribution to this special issue, and to an understandings of gendered/ethnic multi-voiced histories. The authors untangle the mid-Cold War phase from the essentialized Cold War era. They recreate multi-voiced histories of White women within the North American space industry while adding an important contemporary voice. They also present a novel methodology that combines the technology of lamination with autoethnography, to provide a gateway to recognizing the impact of multi-voiced histories onto contemporary and future gendered/ethnic relationships.

Emotional and affective responses are experienced during service use that determine customer behavior; and for this reason, bank services require an better understanding of the emotions customers feel in service experiences. This research aims to examine whether different customer segments exist in the bank services industry, based on the emotions they experience when using the service.

The factors were examined through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Then, two-step clustering analysis was developed for customer segmentation on data from 451 bank service customers. Finally, an Anova test was conducted to confirm the differences among the obtained customer segments.

Our findings show that the emotion-based segmentation is meaningful in terms of behavioral outcomes in bank services. Further, research findings indicate that bank service customers cannot be perceived as a homogenous group, since four customer clusters emerge from our research namely “angry complainers”, “pragmatic uninvolved”, “emotionally attached customers” and “happy satisfied customers”.

Our findings show that the emotion-based segmentation is meaningful in terms of behavioral outcomes in bank services. Further, research findings indicate that bank service customers cannot be perceived as a homogenous group, since four customer clusters emerge from our research namely “angry complainers”, “pragmatic uninvolved”, “emotionally attached customers” and “happy satisfied customers”, being the “angry complainers” the most challenging customer group.

The study is the first one to specifically segment bank customers based on the emotions they experience when using the service.

The COVID19 crisis has thrown wide open the debate on Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union’s (EMU) future. Next Generation EU (NGEU) has broken the stalemate over a central fiscal capacity. The open question is whether NGEU is a one-off or a first step. The suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact has given new urgency to the debate on reforming EMU’s fiscal rules.

There is no debate as yet about how these two prospects relate to each other. This paper argues that a permanent fiscal capacity and revised rules should be seen as alternatives.

This study makes two claims: first, a fiscal capacity renders a reformed pact unnecessary and second, that is an optimal solution politically. A fiscal capacity would provide an efficient asymmetric shock absorber and therefore reduce the need for pre-emptive action against negative cross-border externalities. It would also provide an abundant supply of an EU-wide safe asset around which to structure the EU’s financial system, thus rendering unnecessary the backstopping of member states' debts.

This would restore democratic accountability while eliminating moral hazard and enforcement problems.

Researchers into entrepreneurial strategy have overlooked the impact of small vs big investments on a venture's return on investment (ROI). The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent does entrepreneurial behavior impact initial investment size and the return on that investment?

This investigation summarizes research into entrepreneurial leadership behavior and uses data from longitudinal case studies of four innovative start‐up wine businesses in California, India, and Italy.

Investment size and ROI appear to be related to entrepreneurial behavior.

Lead entrepreneurs must develop both technical competence and social networking skills to achieve small wins, i.e. early if only modest ROI.

This paper develops a model consisting of several testable propositions to measure the impact of entrepreneurial behavior on ROI.

Finding ways in which technology can be used to modify, strengthen, scale up and sustain lesson study (LS) is an emerging field of research. It has become even more important due to a pandemic leading to teacher and student learning being delivered online. The purpose of this paper is to present research findings about experiences of online LS and identify issues for further research.

A systematic search of articles from 2010 to 2020 identified 13 relevant papers, and through analysis, some major themes were identified. All papers in the special issue were synthesized from the lens of the identified themes; finally, further directions are discussed.

In general, various online LS models were found to have features that resulted in positive effects on teaching and learning, but, whilst several characteristics of effective online learning were identified, some studies also highlighted issues.

There is a need for larger scale projects over an extended period to assess the effectiveness of online LS. Future research focused on carrying out learning study online as well as consideration of equity issues associated with online LS are also suggested.

The studies presented in this issue address the opportunities and challenges of conducting online LS during a pandemic and beyond. Together, the literature review and contributory papers provide an international perspective of using online LS and identify important issues for further research.

This chapter complements the one that appeared as “History of the AIB Fellows: 1975–2008” in Volume 14 of this series (International Business Scholarship: AIB Fellows on the First 50 Years and Beyond, Jean J. Boddewyn, Editor). It traces what happened under the deanship of Alan Rugman (2011–2014) who took many initiatives reported here while his death in July 2014 generated trenchant, funny, and loving comments from more than half of the AIB Fellows. The lives and contributions of many other major international business scholars who passed away from 2008 to 2014 are also evoked here: Endel Kolde, Lee Nehrt, Howard Perlmutter, Stefan Robock, John Ryans, Vern Terpstra, and Daniel Van Den Bulcke.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.