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Conference on Cross-National and Cultural
Research in Marketing. Participants from all
over the world, New Zealand, Germany,
France, Finland and The Netherlands,
presented their work. The location was ‘De
Vereeniging’ in Nijmegen. Several colleagues
from our department (marketing and
international management) attended and
presented their work. Alain de Beuckelaer
and Hester van Herk (Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam) presented a paper on crosscultural
measurement and scaling issues,
while Ed Nijssen and Hester van Herk
shared with the audience the results from
their project ‘The Role of Ethnocentrism in
Cross-border Shopping Relationships’. Other
interesting papers, ranging from a crossnational
brand extension study (Damien
Mather, University of Otago New Zealand)
to national and cultural differences in website
design between Germany and Spain
(Dirk Snelders, TU Delft), and personal and
brand value congruence in cross-cultural
situations (Hartmut Holz-mueller, Dortmund
University, Germany) were presented and
discussed. At the end of the first day a dinner
was organized in De Stadstuyn and delegates
had a chance to get to know each other better
and discuss their research in an informal
setting.
The next day sessions continued. A positive
aspect of the small set-up and extended time
for presentation and discussion was the
opportunity to really continue the discussion
of papers and also address grounds for future
research exploring new and challenging
ideas. At the end of the day everyone had a
very positive feeling about the conference
and Hartmut Holzmueller from Dortmund
University promised to explore with us the
possibility to organize the conference again
next year, in Nijmegen or in Dortmund.
9:;<=>!>#?%@
Seminar Series:
Trends in the Marketing and
Strategy Literature
At the end of June and the beginning of July
the seminar series ‘Trends in the Marketing
and Strategy Literature’ took place. Tied to
an introduction in trends in marketing
designed as a part of my Ph.D. project, I
organized four seminars featuring short
presentations on a number of topics drawing
on selected key articles. Afterwards, the
participants discussed key insights, trends
and new grounds for research, with one of
the senior staff/researchers acting as
moderator. Participants were encouraged to
engage in discussion, not only in order to
develop new research ideas, but also to aid
teaching staff in course development.
The four sessions were on Customer
Relationship Management, Marketing
Strategy, First and Second Mover
Advantages, and Market Orientation. The
four moderators were respectively Ed
Nijssen, Olivier Furrer, Bas Hillebrand,
and David Dekker.
The CRM session elaborated on the
relationship paradigm which made some
significant inroads into marketing. As more
empirical evidence is accumulating several
‘facts’ (such as that longer relationships lead
to higher profits) established in CRM
research were revised and updated.
The session on Marketing Strategy showed
increasing attention to organizational issues
in the marketing strategy literature, but also
that the link with segmentation/positioning
may be explored further. Cross-fertilization
of the marketing and strategy literatures
stands much to gain for the future.
The First and Second Mover Advantages
session learned that there is much more to
the long-held belief that pioneers or firstmovers
will reap extraordinary benefits from
being first. More empirical research on the
processes involved in how to gain first and
second mover advantages is called for.
Recent developments in the literature are

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