Standardization in International Marketing Strategy is doomed to failure: Literature review and methodological critique. The literature on standardization of international marketing strategy has rapidly increased in amount since Levitt (1983) suggested the main concept that business strategies and their influences on firm performance should be universal through national markets which are very much alike culturally, economically and politically, in spite of limited empirical evidence focused directly on this topic.He pointed out that world markets are becoming more and more identical and therefore a standardized approach to company operations, productions, marketing and other functions is feasible and advisable.
This review focuses on a limited number of articles written since the first issue of standardization that addressed the aspect of advertising by Elinder in 1961, and selected from the main journals in business and management theory.There has been an ongoing debate about positive and negative aspects of business strategy based on total standardization across national markets, in contrast with complete adaptation strategies to individual markets (Leonidou, 2003).The first section of the study makes an observation of methodological orientations of selected literature; meanwhile the second section claims that worldwide markets have become so uniform and homogeneous that international corporations are given the opportunity of marketing standardized products and services around the world using identical strategies with the aim of cutting down expenditures and increasing profits (Jain, 1989).Furthermore, Clark (1990) argues that such elements of marketing process as product positioning, naming, branding etc.
, and customer services affect the degree of standardization in marketing strategy in different ways. However, the main finding of this review is that the degree of standardization or adaptation of marketing strategy designed to achieve higher financial indicators, directly depends on particular foreign markets and the time under consideration (Czinkota & Samli, 2007). Methodological OrientationsAccording to Samiee and Roth (1992) the global standardization does take place in the modern market, but there is neither an optimal approach for all market places and for the whole range of company products, nor a single strategy that will suit all marketing elements, necessarily to the same extent. Riesenbeck and Freeling (1991) assert that a focus on desired degree of standardization or adaptation through different elements of competitive strategy variables such as advertising, branding, sale promotion and pricing will give more effect than approaches with total standardization or adaptation.
There is, however, a very limited discussion on methodology used in the standardization in international marketing strategy in the selected literature that does take place at market. Birnik and Bowman (2007) define their research design as the underlying epistemological notion based on pragmatism. In the same way, Clark’s paper contains a satisfactory discussion on methodology.He methodologically describes every selected study and their limitations that can influence further findings although other academics reviewed do not classify themselves epistemologically or ontologically oriented. Nonetheless, it is obvious that the literature in this review has a predominantly positivist orientation. The paper by Birnik and Bowman (2007) presents findings of systematic literature review approach on marketing mix standardization elements in practices of global corporations.
The design of work is based on pragmatism as the underlying epistemological orientation. Their review has tried to synthesize the probative base in relation to marketing mix standardization in order to identify the ‘best evidence’ of standardization in practice of multinational corporations and to extract solution concepts for further use by management practitioners. The paper demonstrates findings that there are many limitations in literature on marketing. The academics observe that their work is boundless but full of contradictory findings.Also, it is not obvious how to extract ‘best evidence’ for use by management practitioners. Their systematic review is based on a detailed quantitative meta-analysis of accessible data from two databases namely EBSCO and ABI Inform.
They tested 84 articles for making a systematic review, which finally concluded that only 5% of the articles primarily relied on qualitative research methodologies. The authors summarize the evidence of contextual factors and the influence on standardization, and propose a four-step process to develop management practitioners’ own solution concepts.The idea of conceptualization of all factors of marketing process influenced standardization in the different ways was developed by Jain in 1989 either. Firstly, the academic mentioned that many papers were written lately on globalization of marketing although we still do not have any conclusive theory or practice. In an attempt to constitute a research agenda on the standardization question, the author developed 13 research propositions for each factor.Due to empirical disclosure demanded a theoretical base, the paper of this publisher aimed to create a standard for making standardization decisions by evolving synthesis of theoretical and empirical works in marketing management, international business, and strategic planning.
A proposed framework in this paper has been lacking of directing research attention to key variables and relationships. In a research article of Aref, Hayes, Zinktwii and Balazs (2002) make an effort to test several main hypotheses relevant to the branding strategy of standardization or adaptation.By using the ‘structure-conduct-performance’ paradigm, the authors suggest and empirically examine a conceptual framework to break down the consequences and ancestors of company’s brand-name standardization or adaptation strategy; develop hypothesis to the connection between brand-name standardization and adaptation and its consequences and ancestors; test four hypotheses empirically using a survey method and discuss conclusions for modern marketers. It is obvious that literature had reviewed in this work on international branding is scanty.
Leonidou (2003) claims that existent empirical researches on subject around international marketing strategy standardization versus adaptation are too scrap to make some conclusions, regardless of forty years debates. In his study he tries to cover all empirical papers on this topic that met main criteria such as empirical nature and adequate primary information in quantitative format. Leonidou’s paper bases on an integrative analysis of 36 papers that employed manual and electronic literature search methods.The mainstream of this research is found as contradictory and discovered by non-signi? ant deductions related with unsuitable conceptualization, and weak analytical methods. Conclusion The main conclusion of this literature review on the topic of standardization is that the degree of standardization or adaptation of marketing strategies aimed at achieving higher financial result is directly dependent on situation of market and period of time.
Jain (1989) tries to create a concept of marketing process aspects what influence business performance to create a model for making standardization decisions.In addition, a recent study of Birnik & Bowman (2007) attempts to synthesize 'best evidence' of standardization in practice of companies to generate solution concepts for managers has been found quite difficult due to lack of qualitative research methodologies. According to Belk (2006), most articles about marketing research exploit mixed methods and have positivistic orientation, in spite of contrary findings that characterized by non-signi? cant deductions connected with unsuitable conceptualization.All literature reviewed in this study has experienced a lack of empirical evidence in the area of international marketing. Most of the reviewed studies cannot be marked with preoccupation of descriptive character and present researched evidence regarding standardization of different aspects in the area of international marketing.
However, all academics have mentioned that many studies written and research conducted; there is not any final theory or practice on standardization of international marketing strategies.
