The term "global brand" has become widely used by the media and by consumers. Business week publishes annually its widely known ranking of the "Best Global Brands" (with Coca-Cola as number 1 in the past years) and consumers on summer vacations purchase brands such as Heineken or Marlboro they...

Comparing groups with respect to hypothetical constructs requires that the measurement models are equal across groups. Otherwise conclusions drawn from the observed indicators regarding differences at the latent level (mean differences, differences in the structural relations) might be severly...