Executive Summary
Multinational firms’ exposure to highly diverse markets in many countries enables them to develop a storehouse of knowledge from vastly varied contexts. In turn, this knowledge provides the potential to outperform their domestic competitors by creating superior value. Thus, a source of potentially valuable knowledge in multinational enterprises is foreign marketing knowledge—that is, knowledge from one country unit that may offer value and competitive advantage to marketing managers in other country units. The article by Roth, Jayachandran, Dakhli, and Colton builds on marketing and management knowledge transfer research to further understand both the conditions under which one subsidiary uses external knowledge from another subsidiary and the outcomes of such use in the subsidiary's market.
Using the theory of value creation and appropriation and field interviews with headquarter and subsidiary marketing managers, the authors develop a theoretical framework to delineate the conditions that influence the use of marketing knowledge generated in one country unit for marketing decisions in another subsidiary. Their model integrates prior research on the conditions that affect knowledge transfer and use in multinational firms with insights from depth interviews. The model is based on grounded theory methodology and emphasizes that the mere availability of marketing knowledge developed in other country units does not facilitate its use.
Roth, Jayachandran, Dakhli, and Colton develop a model and research propositions of the enabling, motivating, and perceiving conditions that affect subsidiary use of foreign marketing knowledge. They also examine strategic outcomes of foreign market knowledge use, including effects on marketing program effectiveness and efficiency, organization identification, and intellectual capital in subsidiaries of multinational enterprises. They conclude with implications of the study for managers and academics.
Biography
Martin S. Roth is Professor of International Business at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His areas of expertise include global corporate and marketing strategy. Dr. Roth’s research has been published in leading journals, such as Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of International Marketing, and many others. He currently serves on the editorial review boards of Journal of Advertising, Journal of World Business, and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. Dr. Roth has received undergraduate and graduate teaching awards from the University of South Carolina. Prior to joining the Moore School, he held faculty positions in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He has also taught at Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, Arthur D. Little School of Management (Boston), and at universities in Austria, France, and Hong Kong.
Satish Jayachandran is Moore Research Fellow and Associate Professor of Marketing at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. His research focuses on marketing strategy, specifically the responsiveness of organizations to changes in the market environment. His research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. With his coauthors, he received the Harold H. Maynard Award for 2001 from Journal of Marketing. Satish was nominated for Marketing Science Institute’s Young Scholar program in 2003 based on research productivity and managerial interest in research. He received the Alfred G. Smith Award for Outstanding Teaching from Moore School of Business in 2005. He is a member of the editorial review board of Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Mourad Dakhli is Assistant Professor of International Business and Management at the American University of Kuwait. He earned his PhD in International Business and Strategy from Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. His research areas include international entrepreneurship, cross-cultural management, and social networks. His current projects investigate the cross-cultural value creation processes of social networks in organizations. His research focuses on how culture shapes interpersonal interactions within the multinational corporation and the implications on learning, innovation, and performance. Prior to joining the American University of Kuwait, Dr. Dakhli was Assistant Professor at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University.
Deborah A. Colton is Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business at E. Philip Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her research interests combine Internet marketing and global marketing, with an emphasis on cross-national studies of e-commerce, branding, and corporate blogging. She teaches Internet Marketing, Global Marketing, and Marketing Concepts at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Additionally, she teaches for the Rochester Institute of Technology’s online program. She received her PhD degree in International Business with a concentration in Marketing from the University of South Carolina in 2004.
J International Marketing, Volume 17, Number 1, March 2009
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