This study explores the use of social media in higher education with a particular focus on the role of cultural and socioeconomic differences. The dataset, built on surveyed respondents from China, Poland, Spain, Turkey and United States, was analysed using quantitative techniques that allowed us to test various hypotheses. Findings show that the use of social media for educational purposes is determined by socio-demographic variables (gender, age, education level) that returned different social media users' profiles across countries. Overall, the results indicate that social media is a useful tool of communication between teachers and students but that national cultural differences must be taken into account in the design of subjects and teaching materials used by teachers in the digital environment. From another point of view, the results related with the cultural differences and the socioeconomic determinants may give insight to the marketers in the promotion of education related products such as books, language schools, degree and certificate programs in social media.

A B S T R A C T Objective:The main objective of this article is to identify social media (SM) usage in communication between individual consumers and producers in different countries. The considerations in the article are focused on consumers' perspective. Research Design & Methods:The article takes a deductive approach and the aim is to answer two research questions: For what purpose do consumers communicate with companies via SM? Does the frequency of using the most popular SM in the researched countries influence the range of using them in marketing communication? Three research techniques were used in the exploratory empirical study: FGI (pilot study), PAPI and CAWI (main study). The analysis is based on both literature studies and empirical data, collected in several countries (China, Poland, Turkey, the United States). Findings: Results of the exploratory study showed that consumers from the researched countries communicate via SM with producers for different purposes. Some of them look for discounts and information about a product or brand, whilst others also take into account adverts presented by companies on SM, as well as information about company events. Implications & Recommendations: As a result, the findings can be utilised by numerous different groups of stakeholders (such as companies and institutions), in particular companies using SM for marketing communication in foreign markets. The results showed the way of using social media by consumers and that is why they can be advice for producers how to use them in the communication with their customers. Contribution & Value Added: The content of the article is significant, up to date, and original due to the fact that it focuses on current marketing communication issues. Article type:research article

The main objective of the paper is to identify the interdependencies between a type of a product (durable products) and the nature of information on social networking sites (SNSs) that affects the making of purchase decisions. An attempt has been made to answer the research question: to what extent types of products are of influence when using relevant information on SNSs and when making purchase decisions (pre-purchasing stage). The literary studies are complemented with empirical research done in three countries: China, Poland and the United States. The results confirm the importance of SNSs and the information obtained from them in making purchase decisions. In relation to the categories of products the strongest correlations were observed in fashion, household goods and cosmetics. In the case of the type of information gained through SNSs that influence making purchase decisions advertisements placed on SNSs and information about new products are the most significant.

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On the one hand, internationalization and globalization processes influence the fact that attitudes and behaviours of representatives of different cultures become similar. On the other one, opposite processes which aim at the manifestation of cultural differences can be observed.The aim of this article is to find an answer to the question whether young people, students of higher schools of economics, future managers show similar cultural traits or whether the influence of the native environment is so strong that young Europeans manifest different values. In order to answer this question selected characteristics, which are significantly applicable at work in an enterprise have been used.The answer to the aforementioned question has been searched both in the literature on the subject as well as in empirical studies conducted in ten European countries (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Great Britain). Their results show significant similarities of cultural traits among the young respondents coming from the surveyed countries. These characteristics are manifested in various attitudes, hypothetical behaviours and the judgment of behaviour of others.

PurposeThe aim of the paper is to identify the determinants of the marketing and managerial knowledge transfer from a foreign subsidiary located in a post-transition country to its headquarters established in a developed country.Design/methodology/approachThe authors combined the critical literature studies and empirical research, where the method of Computer-assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) was applied. The empirical data was gathered from 231 manufacturing foreign subsidiaries established in Poland (as one of the post-transition economy). To test the hypotheses logistic regression was applied.FindingsThe knowledge accumulated in the foreign subsidiary, the amount and level of novelty of innovation in the foreign subsidiary and its strategic autonomy is crucial for the occurrence of the reverse knowledge transfer. However, the more powerful the foreign subsidiary is, the less eager it is to transfer marketing and managerial knowledge to the headquarters.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is concentrated just on the manufacturing sector in the Polish economy. The results are based on the opinions and perception of managers, but they represent the corporate perspective (not their individual ones).Practical implicationsThe study provokes asking the question about the proper level of strategic autonomy of a foreign subsidiary. The implication related to the autonomy is much about the proper strategy for human resources management. The obtained results indicate that the intensity of innovation in a foreign subsidiary “translates” to the outflow of knowledge from a foreign subsidiary to its headquarters. Thus, encourages headquarters to let their subsidiaries innovate still monitoring their power.Social implicationsFSs are entities more or less embedded in the host markets, thus their strength and sustainable existence is important for their stakeholders, in particular – internal entities such as employees and external entities such as suppliers, and other cooperating organisations and institutions in the host market. The contribution of FSs to the innovation performance and knowledge pool of external partners is determined much by their absorptive capacity. Thus, the results obtained indirectly point to the importance of external agents ability to absorb and exploit the knowledge.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper concerns three issues. Firstly, the previous studies are mainly focused on either developed or emerging markets and as a result, the peculiarity of post-transition economies, like Poland has been neglected. Secondly, the determinants of reverse knowledge transfer are presented from the corporate perspective. Thirdly, authors focus on marketing and management knowledge distributed from a foreign subsidiary to its headquarter.

Research background: Country of origin and brand image are among the main factors influencing consumer buying decisions. The phenomenon known as the Country of Origin Effect (COE) refers to the influence of a country’s image on consumer product evaluations and the perception of brands originating from specific countries. The COE describes consumer attitudes towards certain product categories and is connected with the perception of quality of such products manufactured in particular markets. The changing market conditions and proliferation of hybrid products cause certain problems for consumers who find it increasingly difficult to identify the country of origin of specific products and face a dilemma whether a product manufactured in China is of equal quality as a product of the same brand, but manufactured in France. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of the paper is to identify the young Europeans` attitudes towards the country of origin of purchased products. An attempt has been made to answer two research questions: firstly, whether are young Europeans guided by stereotypes associated with the country of origin of specific product categories in their conscious buying decisions? Secondly, do young European consumers attach higher value to a product’s brand than its country of origin? Methods: The analysis has been based on literature studies and empirical data collected in two different period of time 2008 and 2015 among 1362 respondents (in 2008) and 1125 respondents (in 2015) from eight European countries (Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Great Britain). In the exploratory empirical study, the author of the paper used two research methods: PAPI in 2008 (Paper and Pen Personal Interview) and CAWI in 2015 (Computer Assisted Web Interview). Findings & Value added: The study results reveal that in some countries, namely Poland and the Czech Republic, young consumers are guided in their deliberate buying choices by certain mental schematics perpetuated, for example, in the mass media (the best wine comes from France, best watches are made in Switzerland, and superior quality cars originate from Germany). Respondents representing other nationalities showed more support for domestic products. By far, the most ethnocentric in their choices turned out to be the French who in almost all product categories showed preferences for products originating from their country. Furthermore, the empirical study showed that with respect to different product categories young European consumers attach more importance to a product’s brand than its country of origin.