International and Global Marketing

International and Global Marketing

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International and Global Marketing

The world is becoming more competitive and concurrently global; therefore the need for corporations to venture into the global marketplace so as to grow business and increase profits (Ronkainen and Menezes, 1996). Most corporations considering or going to the realm of global market lack a monitoring mechanism to determine failure or success. Globalization has quickly developed into a system of complex circuits of interactive dynamics, exchange and structures that interact collectively at higher levels; leading to rapid change that affect various aspects of human life. Growing globalization acts to produce results that are not easy to foresee, but operate to influence various aspects of the system. Globalization and increasing competition have affected the traditional aspects of consumer attitudes and habits in almost every country. In marketing, the debate about globalization of consumption started as early as the late sixties (Buzzell, 1968).

Even though everybody is in agreement that globalization has resulted in certain changes in consumer habits and marketing practices, discussion has been based on how marketing should respond to this new phenomenon. In his article ‘The Globalization of Markets’ (1983), Levitt states that companies need to learn operate as if the world is one big market- ignoring existing national and regional differences. In the 1980s the Journal of Consumer Marketing provided a platform for well-known academicians to convey more subtle aspects to globalization of marketing (Sheth, 1986). Many examples have been used to prove that despite the increasing globalization of markets, the difference in consumer behaviors has not reduced thus the need for a differentiated approach in marketing (Demooij, 2000).

In economics, there are four major market structures: monopoly, oligopoly and monopolistic competition and perfect competition (McEachern, 1998)....