Reflections on international marketing: destructive regeneration and multinational firms

Abstract

Constant in the evolution of the business enterprise has been its relentless search for competitive advantage. What has been phenomenally different about this quest is that it is, increasingly, a global landscape that defines the firm's opportunities and challenges. The global marketplace has always been dynamic and complex in terms of the changes it brings, but the last two decades have been exceptionally transformational. In terms of opportunities, firms pursuing international customers have never before faced such open markets, rise in discretionary income, and modern tools for accessing global markets. In terms of challenges, intense competition, complexity of managing multiple markets and coordinating marketing strategy, a host of risk elements, and the sheer difficulty of managing geographic, cultural, and political barriers are among the factors which impede the firm's success in global markets. Often, these changes come in the form of radical, transformative disruptions. This essay draws attention to major disruptions impacting international marketers and provides insights for appropriate firm response.

Corporate social responsibility in international marketing: review, assessment, and future research

“…This confirms Cavusgil and Cavusgil's (2012) recent claim that, in the future, CSR will play an increasingly decisive role in shaping the international marketing landscape, thus making the combined examination of these two fields of research a fertile ground for offering useful insights to international marketing managers. This is particularly true nowadays, in light of growing public concern and sensitivity to socially-related issues (Auger et al, 2010), the imposition of stringent laws by many governments regulating the behavior of firms, and the intensification of competition on a global scale (Reuter et al, 2010).…”

A focus on international competitiveness

“…In the spirit of JAMS' breadth of coverage as a journal, the articles broadly cover issues related to the scope of the field of international marketing (Cavusgil and Cavusgil 2012;Samiee and Chabowski 2012), multinational firms (Rugman et al 2012), small-medium enterprises (Kamakura et al 2012), culture (Steenkamp and Geyskens 2012), exporting , foreign market subsidiaries (Homburg et al 2012), and offshoring and outsourcing (Jensen and Pedersen 2012;Kotabe et al 2012;Kalaignanam and Varadarajan 2012). Naturally, some of the articles span multiple areas as well and, as such, make unique advances to the topic of international competitiveness and international marketing.…”

“…The lead article by Cavusgil and Cavusgil (2012) provides research-based reflections on international marketing. They suggest that the constant in the evolution of the business enterprise has been its relentless search for competitive advantage.…”

“…Often, these changes come in the form of radical, transformative disruptions. The article by Cavusgil and Cavusgil (2012) draws attention to major disruptions impacting international marketers and provides insights for appropriate firm responses. Rugman et al (2012) conduct a fascinating study on Porter's (1990) so-called "diamond model."…”

“…While Cavusgil and Cavusgil (2012) started out with a research-based thought piece on international marketing (IM), the Samiee and Chabowski (2012) article concludes the special issue with an empirically-based analysis of the knowledge structure in international marketing. Samiee and Chabowski (2012) examine the underlying forces that shape the IM field using three common bibliometric methods: exploratory factor analysis (EFA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and metric multidimensional scaling (MDS).…”