S. Tamer Cavusgil, Seyda Deligonul, and Attila Yaprak
Executive Summary
There are two sources for scholarly development. Managers bring their field experience to a discipline from their practice, whereas scholars contribute to the field’s advancement with their theorizing. In the Kuhnian thinking, normal science is one in which knowledge accumulates incrementally as the field’s scholarship meets its practice.
Beginning with this philosophical vantage point, Cavusgil, Deligonul, and Yaprak provide an anchor for the practicing manager. Their task is to review the field of international marketing critically over a historical continuum. Their article attempts to inform the reader about the trajectory of relevant knowledge, its scholarly sources, and its methodological development. Equally important to the analysis of progress in the field is the potential for future scholarly work. What are the topics that deserve further research attention?
Cavusgil, Deligonul, and Yaprak contend that despite various limitations, scholarly work in the field has been reasonably rich, diverse, and illuminating along the three dimensions. Several positive trends signal an increasing recognition of the field and its scholarly output: the increasing volume of research originating from many parts of the world; a proliferation of new outlets publishing research in the field; cross-national collaborative research projects; adoption of more rigorous research methods and psychometric standards; and, most important, the growing number of doctoral programs that offer international marketing specializations.
These trends will be fortified when international marketing scholars receive increasing recognition from their peers through sharper focus on proper knowledge creation. This will require sustained effort in conceptualizing complex relationships; appropriate observation and data collection procedures; crystallization of key constructs before use; specification of linkages, such as those among structure, strategy, and performance; and validation through empirical analyses.
International marketing managers will become more effective as they sharpen their focus on the generation of marketing-related, value-added outcomes: customers, brands, channel relationships, and innovation. Cavusgil, Deligonul, and Yaprak believe that future work in the field will be conceptually exciting, theoretically meaningful, and managerially more relevant.
Cavusgil, Deligonul, and Yaprak hope that this review article will stimulate dialogue among the field’s scholars about research questions that will enhance knowledge in the field and spur the development of theoretically more robust and managerially more relevant explanations of international marketing phenomena.
Biography
S. Tamer Cavusgil is University Distinguished Faculty and John W. Byington Endowed Chair in Global Marketing at Michigan State University. He also serves as the Executive Director of MSU-CIBER. Professor Cavusgil specializes in international marketing strategy, early internationalization, and emerging markets. He is the author of several books and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. Doing Business in Emerging Markets (Sage Publications 2002) is his most recent contribution. He is also the author of several computer-aided diagnostic tools for managers, including CORE V (COmpany Readiness to Export). He served as the inaugural Editor in Chief of Journal of International Marketing. Professor Cavusgil is Associate Editor in Chief of Journal of International Business Studies and Editor of Elsevier’s book series Advances in International Marketing.
Seyda Deligonul is a professor in the Bittner School of Business at St. John Fisher College. He received his doctoral degree from Hacettepe University and his MBA from the University of Southern California. His areas of marketing expertise and interest include strategy, international marketing, marketing performance and equity development, governance issues, and research techniques. His work has been published in Journal of International Marketing, and he has authored or coauthored various books and chapters. His current research focuses on relational equity conceptualization and measurement (in the context of both domestic and international marketing).
Attila Yaprak received his doctoral degree in Marketing and International Business from Georgia State University; he earned his MBA and BS in Business Administration from Indiana University. His teaching and research interests are in international marketing strategy, cross-national consumer behavior, and marketing in emerging economies. He has worked as a market research analyst at Taris Inc. (Turkey) and as an export promotion consultant to the International Trade Center (the United Nations). His recent publications have appeared in Journal of Business Research and Journal of Political Psychology in addition to Journal of International Marketing. His current research is on consumer value transformations and cultural change in emerging markets.
Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 13, No. 4, December 2005
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