Bert Rosenbloom

The purpose of this article is to provide a review of scholarly articles that have examined retail internationalization issues. We identify three core areas within RI research: (1) RI drivers and impediments, (2) RI strategy, and (3) RI performance. We also discuss four RI strategy issues that have been examined: (1) RI speed, (2) Foreign market selection, (3) Foreign entry mode, and (4) Strategy employed. Based on the review, we point to multiple areas where RI research is lacking and can contribute to the advancement of the field as well as offer insightful implications for international retail managers.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between national cultural values and retail structure. Design/methodology/approach - The authors use a panel data set of 67 countries over the period 1999-2012. Findings - The results demonstrate that national cultural values, measured with the World Values Survey's traditional/secular-rational and survival/self-expression dimensions, affect retail structure. Research limitations/implications - While marketing scholars have examined the relationship between demographic and competitive factors and retail structure, there has been a substantial body of anecdotal evidence showing that national culture can also drive retail structure development. In order to enhance the understanding of the relationship between national culture and retail structure, the authors empirically examine the impact of national cultural values on retail structure. Originality/value - This study is the first one to empirically examine the impact of national culture on retail structure. The authors thus help advance retail structure research the primary focus of which has been on investigating the impact of demographic and competitive factors on retail structure. This study is especially relevant to international retail managers who coordinate retail operations in multiple countries around the world. These managers need insight into the impact of national cultural values on retail structure in order to devise effective retail strategies for each host market.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the existing retail channel structure research by investigating the impact of retail foreign direct investment (FDI) restrictions on retail channel structure as well as the moderating impact of a country's level of economic development on this relationship. Using a panel data set of 79 countries over the period 1999-2012, we show that retail FDI restrictions can influence retail channel structure development and that the relationship between retail FDI restrictions and retail channel structure is moderated by a country's level of economic development.

This study investigates the impact of the degree of retailer international involvement (DRII), which we define as the number of geographic regions in which a retailer operates, on retailer performance. The data cover 16 international retailers over the period 1996-2012. The findings of the study show that DRII is negatively related to retailer performance. We also find that the cultural distance between the home and host country moderates the relationship between DRII and retailer performance.

From its very beginnings as an academic discipline over a century ago, marketing functions and institutions have been core concepts of marketing. Except for the case of direct marketing channels linking producers directly with final users, all marketing channel structures contain intermediaries involving independent businesses or organizations working together to bring products and services to market. Considering if the functions now being performed by marketing channels may become obsolete in the 21st century, while acknowledging new and changing technologies used to perform these functions, the author concludes that these paradigms of functions and institutions are as relevant now, and for the future, as they ever were.

In today's more diverse sales organizations, sales managers face important interpersonal challenges to achieving high-quality relationships, which result in better performance within their sales force. In this article, it is argued that cultural distance can negatively influence sales manager and sales subordinate relationships. The quality of these relationships ultimately influences the level of effort that sales subordinates exert toward achieving organizational sales goals. However, despite the potential obstacle of cultural distance, sales managers can utilize transformational leadership as a means to mitigate its adverse effects on one-to-one relationships with members of the sales force.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative view of marketing that Donald F. Dixon spent much of his distinguished career developing - a paradigm that we refer to as the Dixonian systems perspective of marketing. It is a paradigm that presents marketing as a phenomenon that reaches far beyond the micro/managerial marketing mix paradigm. Design/methodology/approach - Analysis and interpretation of Donald F. Dixon's and colleagues' scholarly work to distill the essence of Dixon's view of marketing, which we refer to as the Dixonian systems perspective of marketing. Findings - The Dixon's systems perspective of marketing offers a framework for the analysis of macromarketing issues that is not provided by the conventional marketing mix micro/managerial paradigm. Originality/value - The paper provides a concise overview of the macro/systems ideas and concepts of marketing contained in Donald F. Dixon's and his colleagues' extensive writings that to date has not been available from any other source.

The argument over standardization versus adaptation of marketing strategy in international markets has raged for several decades. This argument has generally taken place at the aggregate level to include all four strategic areas of the marketing mix (product, price, promotion, and place) taken together. This article disaggregates the standardization-versus-adaptation argument by focusing on just one strategic area of the marketing mix-channel strategy. We argue that three underlying phenomena or forces in global markets (culturally distant distribution behavior, distributive institution rigidity, and international functional fragmentation) inhibit a firm's ability to standardize channel strategy in global markets to a greater degree than is the case for product, price, and promotional strategies.