In this article, we explore the relative endorsement effectiveness of mainstream celebrities versus social media influencers in the materialistic cultural environment of India. Based on three studies across two product categories, our findings suggest that mainstream celebrities were more effective endorsers than social media influencers in both a celebrity-product congruent and incongruent condition. Endorsement effectiveness was explained by the strength of the parasocial relationship that Indian consumers developed with celebrities and social media influencers. In a materialistic country like India, as celebrities possess more wealth, power, and status, consumers formed a stronger parasocial relationship with them than social media influencers. Regulatory focus moderated this relationship such that, for promotion-focused consumers, no difference existed in the strength of the parasocial relationship between consumers and celebrities versus social media influencers. However, for prevention-focused consumers, the strength of the parasocial relationship increased for mainstream celebrities and decreased for social media influencers.

This research examines the influence of the CEO’s competitive aggressiveness on the firm’s relative R&D investment behaviour. The authors propose that the CEO’s competitive aggressiveness positively impacts the firm’s relative R&D investment. Furthermore, this relationship is moderated by the CEO’s power and top management team (TMT) output orientation function. The findings from a sample of 306 publicly listed A&B category BSE Indian firms between 2008 and 2015 provide considerable support for these hypotheses. These findings have important implications for managers, board members, and researchers interested in the antecedents of the firm’s R&D management.

Purpose: The article explores how servitization influences firms' foreign market entry mode decisions. This relationship is researched under the contingent effect of macroenvironmental factors in the host country, namely, market attractiveness, institutional environment and national culture differences between the home and host country.Design/methodology/approach: The study employs a conceptual framework typology that interrelates, contextualizes and conceptualizes extant knowledge to develop explicit propositions.Findings: Based on the extant literature, using a 2 × 2 matrix, the authors delineate the influence of two dimensions of servitization on entry mode decisions: customer relationship focus and digitalization focus. They conceptualize that relationship management and digitalization-based servitization have an antagonistic effect on the need for entry mode resource commitments, and macroenvironmental factors' favorability moderates this tension.Research limitations/implications: The study extends and incorporates the servitization literature into the context of international marketing by exploring the combined effect of the two most significant dimensions of servitization, i.e. investment in customer relations versus investment in digitalization on entry mode, thus delivering valuable new insights and perspectives, as well as explicit propositions toward empirical testing.Practical implications: The authors’ framework increases foreign market managers' awareness of how servitization drives entry mode decisions of firms in international markets. Also, the framework explicates how the host country's market attractiveness, institutional environment and difference with the home country's national culture tangibly influence the relationship.Originality/value: The study provides novel insights into the implications of servitization on international marketing, particularly regarding foreign market entry mode. The study also elucidates the combined effect of two servitization dimensions, i.e. customer relations and digitalization – a critical research area in which the literature is scant.

The paper examines the relationship between CEO career horizon and strategic novelty under boundary conditions of CEOs’ temporal focus for firms in one of the emerging markets. Upper echelons theory predicts that CEOs’ risk aggressiveness decreases with diminishing career horizons. Therefore, CEOs nearing retirement are less likely to make novel strategic investments. We assert that CEOs’ career horizon influences strategic outcomes, especially risk aggressive strategic novelty outcomes contingent on the CEOs’ temporal perspective, i.e., past and future temporal focus. We test the hypotheses using archival data from 285 listed firms in India. The findings support the hypotheses by showing that CEOs’ carrier horizon positively influences strategic dynamism and distinctiveness, the two dimensions of strategic novelty. The results also suggest that past temporal focus enhances the negative influence of decreasing CEOs’ career horizons on strategic dynamism and distinctiveness. Future temporal focus, on the contrary, diminishes the negative influence of decreasing CEOs’ career horizons on strategic dynamism and distinctiveness. The findings contribute to understanding the joint role of the time static trait of CEOs, i.e., temporal focus, and time-varying trait, i.e., career horizon on strategic novelty.