Foreign market entry mode choice of service firms: A contingency perspective

Research on how service firms choose their initial mode of operation in foreign markets appears to have led to two contradictory conclusions. Findings from one group of studies suggest that factors determining entry mode choice by manufacturing firms are generalizable to service firms. Findings from another group of studies contradict that view. The authors reconcile the two views by means of a classification scheme that allows some services to be grouped with manufactured goods in terms of entry mode choice. A conceptual model of factors affecting the entry mode choice of service firms is proposed, research propositions are developed, and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed. Ikechi Ekeledo is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include international marketing, services marketing, and strategic market planning. K. Sivakumar (Ph.D., Syracuse University, 1992) is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include pricing, international marketing, and innovation management. His research has been published or is forthcoming inBarron’s, International Marketing Review, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Theory & Practice, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theJournal of Social Behavior & Personality, Marketing Letters, Marketing Science Institute’s Working Paper Series, and Pricing Strategy & Practice: An International Journal, and summarized as Editors’ Briefings inHarvard Business Review. He has won several awards for research and is on the editorial boards of four scholarly journals.