Market similarity and market selection: Implications for international marketing strategy

International market selection patterns for a sample of 954 new products suggest that firms exhibit a significant preference for markets similar to the home market. Preferences for similar markets decline as firms gain experience in a variety of markets, however. This pattern suggests the importance of uncertainty and information in global market selection and marketing mix management. Alternative means of gathering information about foreign markets permit and support very different approaches to global marketing activity. More fundamentally, a global perspective on the relationship between market conditions, marketing policies and programs, and consumer response can be developed systematically to improve global marketing performance.     

Headquarters to subsidiary transfer effects on marketing strategy exploitation

The transfer of locally created marketing strategies worldwide represents a key competitive advantage for multinational corporations (MNCs). Although a research topic of much interest, empirical content of past studies is scarce. Absorptive capacity studies typically test direct effects of either the transfer capacity of the strategy's initiator or the recipient's ability to process and exploit the strategy on related learning outcomes. Mixed findings allow the possibility of more complex relationships. This study examines the relationships between MNC headquarters and marketing units located in subsidiary firms using a sample of 213 marketing managers. The study systematically explores linear, interaction, and quadratic effects within a structural equation modeling paradigm. The findings indicate that the relationship between a MNC headquarters' transfer capacity and a subsidiary marketing unit's processing capacity on the strategy's exploitation is one of mediation and moderation. The subsidiary marketing unit's processing capacity is a key mediating variable and headquarters' transfer capacity moderates the effects of this variable on the exploitation of the marketing strategy by the subsidiary's unit.     

Emerging economies and institutional quality: Assessing the differential effects of institutional distances on ownership strategy

The current study contributes to the institution-based view of internationalization that is contingent upon the home country development. We examine the differential effects of formal and informal institutions on emerging market multinational corporations’ (EMNCs) ownership strategies. Facing a large informal institutional distance that represents diverse cultural beliefs, EMNCs opt for a low ownership position that alleviates legitimacy threat, whereas a large formal institutional distance leads EMNCs to establish dominant ownership control. EMNC home market conditions, including market size and regulatory institutional quality, further explain the differential effects of institutional distances.     

Subsidiary strategy of emerging market multinationals: A home country institutional perspective

We examine the effects of home country institutional factors, namely, home country government support, domestic institutional weaknesses, and state ownership on the subsidiary-level strategy of global integration (I) and local responsiveness (R) of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). We draw upon the home country institution-based view and the I/R framework to develop our theoretical model. We empirically test our hypotheses using an original new survey data collected from Chinese multinational subsidiary managers supplemented with parent-level and country-level data. We find that home country government support and domestic institutional weaknesses have significant and negative effects on global integration strategy of Chinese multinational subsidiaries. On the other hand, domestic institutional weaknesses push foreign subsidiaries to pursue local responsiveness strategy. Nevertheless, those with greater degree of state ownership in their parent firms are neither willing to disintegrate from their parent firms nor motivated to pursue local responsiveness strategy in order to deal with home country institutional deficiencies and develop new sources of competitiveness in foreign markets. Our findings have advanced the literature on subsidiary strategy in the context of EMNEs, and provide important implications for subsidiary managers and policy makers.     

Change in international market strategy as a reaction to performance decline

While a great deal of research has explored how international marketing strategy influences performance, researchers have paid scant attention to understanding changes to international marketing strategy resulting from firm reaction to past performance. In this study, organizational learning theory addresses when and how international marketing strategy will change. Employing data from over 500 exporters, the results, which are consistent with theoretical predictions, indicate that (1) firms are generally not prone to inertia and do, in fact, change their international marketing strategy when facing declines in performance, and (2) that the direction of change depends on the level of competition in the specific foreign market, with firms adapting their international marketing strategy in low competitive markets and standardizing their international marketing strategy in highly competitive markets. The paper includes implications for academics and practitioners.     

The impact of market similarity on international marketing strategies: The automobile industry in Western Europe

The formulation of an optimal marketing mix is quite complex when that mix must be effective across multiple international markets. At the crux of the problem is whether markets are similar to each other or interdependent and how this influences marketing mix decisions. Examining the marketing mixes of more than 30 automobile companies competing in the five major markets in Western Europe, it was found that easily changed marketing mix elements, such as prices and advertising, reflect market similarity, interdependence, and product‐market conditions, although not always in the expected ways. The least flexible element, the number of models offered, does not appear to reflect any of these types of conditions. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Testing interaction effects of the dimensions of market orientation on marketing program creativity

Despite the plethora of research on market orientation, our understanding of how different dimensions of market orientation interact with each other in generating new intelligence for marketing programs is limited. In this paper, we develop and test a model that examines the interaction effects of the three dimensions of market orientation—customer orientation, competitor orientation, and cross-functional integration—on generation of marketing program creativity, composed of novelty and meaningfulness dimensions. In empirically testing such effects, we illustrate how to use two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation. We find significant positive interaction effects between customer orientation and competitor orientation and between competitor orientation and cross-functional integration in predicting marketing program novelty. We also find that competitor orientation and cross-functional integration significantly and positively interact with each other in improving marketing program meaningfulness. Our empirical results provide implications and directions for market orientation research.     

变化趋势及顺应对策

进入90年代以来,我国的市场供求关系发生了历史性的转变,由长期的供不应求转为供过于求.买方市场的初步形成使得需求约束成为经济发展的主要矛盾.如何刺激消费的稳定增长,如何扩大消费领域,已成为全国上下都关注的重要课题.笔者试图通过分析国内市场需求变化的趋势,了解消费者真正的需求动态,从而为提供产品和服务的商家提供信息,达到促进消费增长、发展经济的目的.     

New developments in global consumer behavior and marketing strategy: Introduction to the special issue

This special issue of the Journal of Business Research features ten articles selected from the papers presented during the seventh meeting of the Royal Bank International Research Seminar which took place in Montreal (Canada), September 22–24, 2011. The papers cover topics relating to new developments in online research, acculturation/socialization research, research methodology, and marketing strategy.     

The effects of entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and marketing subunit influence on firm performance

The study investigates how an organization’s entrepreneurial orientation moderates the interplay between market orientation and marketing subunit influence on firm performance. The hypothesized model predicts that the positive interaction between market orientation and marketing subunit influence has a weaker effect on firm performance under conditions of high entrepreneurial orientation. The regression and supplementary analyses provide support for most predictions and, most importantly, for a negative three-way interaction effect: At higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation, the positive moderating effect of marketing subunit influence on the market orientation–business performance relationship is reduced. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of their findings and provide a number of directions for further research.

论中小企业的市场营销策略

我国中小企业的市场营销观念落后,营销方式和策略运用不适,严重制约着中小企业的进一步发展.文章通过研究中小企业市场营销存在的问题,寻找,提出了相应的策略,以促进中小企业持续健康的发展.     

Coordinating manufacturing and marketing in international firms

In this article, the authors argue that manufacturing experiences much of the turbulence and conflict imposed by the dynamic global marketplace through its relationship with marketing, because marketing is usually responsible for introducing changing competitive priorities and demand patterns to the organization. Through a survey of manufacturing and marketing managers within international firms, the authors develop a profile of manufacturing-marketing conflicts experienced in each of four international strategy environments: export, multidomestic, global, and transnational. As international strategies became more complex, firms made use of more techniques for coordinating between marketing and manufacturing, with more use of decentralized and informal approaches. Coordinating techniques included individual MBO-reward systems, joint task forces for problem-solving, and direct involvement of manufacturing and marketing in establishing the competitive priorities of the firm.     

Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media,and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy

The 21^st century has brought both opportunities and challenges in our global, boundaryless world. Importantly, managers face a dynamic and interconnected international environment. As such, 21^st century managers need to consider the many opportunities and threats that Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers present and the resulting respective shifts in loci of activity, power, and value. To help managers understand this new dispensation, we propose five axioms: (1) social media are always a function of the technology, culture, and government of a particular country or context; (2) local events rarely remain local; (3) global events are likely to be (re)interpreted locally; (4) creative consumers’ actions and creations are also dependent on technology, culture, and government; and (5) technology is historically dependent. At the heart of these axioms is the managerial recommendation to continually stay up to date on technology, customers, and social media. To implement this managerial recommendation, marketers must truly engage customers, embrace technology, limit the power of bureaucracy, train and invest in their employees, and inform senior management about the opportunities of social media.     

2006年国际船市分析及预测

2005年末,船舶市场日益冷清,人们认为新船需求减少和降价将是2006年船市的主旋律,业内人士纷纷看淡后市.