The authors conceptualize and empirically examine professional associations’ relationship-building efforts (core services performance, rewards for contributions, dissemination of organizational knowledge, member interdependence enhancement activities, and reliance on external membership requirements) that are theorized to enhance their membership's commitment to the relationship as well as the membership's relationship behaviors. Three components of commitment—affective, continuance, and normative—are theorized to mediate differentially the correlation between the associations’ relationship-building efforts and their members’ relationship behaviors (membership retention, exchange-based participation, and cooperatively based coproduction). Confirmatory factor analysis validates the commitment measures, and structural equations analysis indicates that normative and affective commitment partially mediate the effects of selected relationship-building efforts on coproduction and member participation. Core services performance was the only construct in the model found to affect member retention.

The extant business literature contains three separate characterizations of international marketing strategy: standardization–adaptation, concentration–dispersion, and integration–independence. These characterizations have, for decades, informed researchers, students, and practitioners alike of the strategic options a multinational firm might have in formulating its cross-border marketing approaches. Although useful, these characterizations have yet to be unified within an integrative classification scheme that considers the gestalt combinatorial patterns along multiple strategy dimensions. Toward creating such a classification scheme, this paper proposes a holistic conceptualization of international marketing strategy grounded in configurational theory, whereby strategies are viewed as multidimensional archetypes. We present evidence of three distinct international marketing strategy archetypes obtained through an exploratory case coding/clustering study. After discussing the characteristics, possible drivers, and contingent performance potentials of these archetypes, we offer directions for future research. Journal of International Business Studies (2006) 37, 499–524. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400206

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