Lei Song

• PhD MBA
• Professor (Associate) at Pennsylvania State University

To compete on the world market, companies from emerging economies often adapt their innovations to satisfy unique cultural needs. They do so, in part, by copying the products of their western counterparts with a degree of modification. This approach is referred to as Shanzhai, which is a Chinese neologism meaning “copycat.” In this article, we disc...

Purpose This paper aims to examine how a stereotype threat, which entails being aware of a negative stereotype about one’s social group (e.g. gender), affects consumers’ price perceptions. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted four studies to examine the effect of a stereotype threat on consumers’ perceptions of a product’s price–quali...

Purpose This study aims to provide a practical strategy for customer service and salesforce from the basis of behavioral economics. When customers thought they missed a discount but eventually could get the deal, they perceived that they had obtained more value. This research defines such a conversion effect between gain and loss accounts, demonstr...

Hidden-price promotions, a type of uncertain price promotion in which the final price is not revealed when consumers first encounter the product, have been recently adopted by retailers. However, current research suggests that hidden-price promotions have the potential to backfire and result in reduced consumer purchase intention. Across seven stud...

Prior research on online limited-time promotions has not yet examined the role of regulatory focus and culture. As e-tailers expand across the globe, they need to understand how customers with a different regulatory focus across cultures react to online limited-time promotions. This study, using the lens of regulatory focus, examines the impact of...

Prior literature has provided little insight into how counterfeit dominance—consumers’ perception that counterfeit brands possess over 50% of market share for authentic and counterfeit brands combined—influences luxury fashion brand owners’ perceptions of their brands across cultures. Our research shows that counterfeit dominance negatively affects...

Marketing channels have faced rapid structural and functional transformations during the last few decades. While a large body of research has been devoted to understanding the supply-side aspects of marketing channels, much less research has taken the demand-side perspective to study consumer perception of channel position and functions. This artic...

Understanding, building, and predicting customer loyalty in e-commerce are important due to the high stakes involved for long-run profitability. However, these tasks are challenging due to the complex mix of variables that may influence and drive e-loyalty. In this research, we demonstrate that businesses do not have complete control over cultivati...

https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/qmr/literati-awards/qualitative-market-research-literati-award-winners-2020 https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/QMR-01-2017-0044 Purpose To unlock social media’s value, this study integrates insights from several theoretical perspectives and the relevant literature, developing an extended...

Imitation goods are widely spread throughout the global business world. Shanzhai imitation (山寨) represents a type of imitation that mimics the original brand through surface or functional similarities but often provides enhanced or innovative features adapted to local market needs. Although both practitioners and academia have studied and provided...

Prior research has shown that after receiving online services of varying quality, customer expectations are either positively disconfirmed (i.e., services exceed customer expectations) or negatively disconfirmed (i.e., services fall short of customer expectations). The present research examines expectation disconfirmation across national cultures a...

Understanding customers’ choice strategies is important in order for marketing managers to develop and implement marketing programs directed at improving customer satisfaction. Prior research on customer choice strategies has mainly focused on decisions related to different product attributes or purchasing situations in Western cultures. Little res...

Online retailers constantly strive to improve customer satisfaction. However, satisfaction levels can vary significantly across cultures when customers experience mixed quality services, that is, services with a mixture of high and low quality service attributes. Based on two studies, we find that Westerners (e.g., European Americans) react more ne...