Beschrijving

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics – Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 80, Queen Mary University of London (Business School), course: International Marketing, language: English, abstract: The debate around standardization versus adaptation in international marketing consists since nearly half a decade now. The first articles regarding the question whether firms should adapt their strategy and marketing program to the local costumers needs or if they rather should focus on global standardization were published in the 1960’s (e.g. Bartels, 1968; Buzell, 1968; Elinder, 1961/1965; Keegan, 1969). Since then over 300 articles address this research question and it is a never- ending debate with inconsistent findings. A recent detailed meta-study over relevant articles of the last 50 years leads to contradictory findings: Out of 274 articles published in Marketing and Management Journals, 8% recommended global standardization, 14 % favored adaption, 10 % could not give a recommendation and the majority (68%) stated that companies have to make their decision grounded on the specific situation they are in (Schmid & Kotulla, 2010). These contradictory findings in the literature alone show, that the statement \