Global Marketing Standardization And Cbbe Contingency Empirical Research

During the last three decades, globalization has been the core topic in the world economic development. Nowadays, the current economic crisis makes the process of globalization slow down, however, the historical experiences and the law of economic development has told us that globalization is still the necessary trend now and in the future. Under the background of globalization, along with the mutual opening and more interdependence among nations, more and more enterprises are expanding into global market and become the main competitors. Under such background, the foremost strategic problem for those enterprises that are expanding in the global market is the cross-national transfer of original marketing mode, i.e., to adopt the standardized marketing in different countries to pursue the scale economy, consistent image, or adopt adapted marketing to satisfy different countries' special demands furthest? The solving of this question would determine whether the enterprises could succeed in the international market with fierce competitions.The appropriateness of the selected level of strategy standardization/adaptation should be evaluated on the basis of its impact on company performance (customers, strategic and financial performance, et al.) in international markets. Thus, considering the strategic role of brand in multinational marketing and the importance of brand equity in measuring customers performance, this study adopts contingency theory to analyze the impact of marketing standardization on customer performance: via the concept of customer-based brand equity (CBBE), this study explores the contingent relationships between marketing standardization and customer performance (brand perception, emotional response, and loyalty, et al.) in different contexts, from the two different perspectives (home-host scenario and host-host scenario) which are classified according to the marketing standardization formation mechanism.Along with the development of internet and other communication techniques, the communications among customers from different nations are closer, and almost everyone everywhere could perceive other countries' culture and life style. Thus, there have existed more homogeneous characteristics among the different countries' customers, and more and more customers become admiring the goods or services with the label of "globalization". According to the significant changes in the customers' demands characteristics under the background of globalization, international marketing scholars brought forward the opinion of marketing standardization, which proposed to adopt uniform marketing programs and management process in the world. As a more efficient global expanding strategy choice and as the core opinion of global marketing theory, more and more scholars and enterprises become paying more attentions on standardized strategy and adopt it because of its scale economy, consistent image, and managerial convenience in theory. After reviewing the relevant literatures about marketing standardization, we find that quantitative research about the impact of standardization on performance has just begun, and there exist many limitations, such as confounded findings, imperfect research design, and ignoring customer performance, which threatens the fundamental tenet of the marketing standardization literatures, restricts the application in practice, and results in the continual debates between standardization and adaptation.In summary, according to the above theme these research works are included as follows: (1) this study reviews the classic literatures in three topics, such as global marketing standardization, brand equity, and relationships between marketing behaviors and brand equity. (2) Based on the literature review, via the theory of psychology, information economics, and strategy management, this study constructs the contingency model among marketing standardization, brand equity, and market similarity. (3) This study develops measurement scale of marketing standardization and CBBE dimensions after a series of works, such as back translation, groups' interviews, and pilot test. (4) This study chooses the marketing activities of 6 American brands in China, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan, et al. as the research objects, and carries through the scale investigation and empirical analysis via the customers' perceptions both in the home-host scenario (America as the comparing benchmark) and host-host scenario (China as the comparing benchmark).The main findings are summarized as follows: (1) the implementation of marketing standardization could directly improve the brand awareness and customers' positive perceptions about relevant brand attributes. (2) Standardized marketing could indirectly invoke the positive emotional response of customers, acquire price premium, and promote customers' repeated buying behaviors. (3) The extent of fit between marketing standardization and market similarity determines whether this strategy could acquire more excellent customer performance. (4) Results tell us that standardization of six marketing programs impact positively brand equity respectively. However, there exist some minor differences in the standardization extent and effects on brand equity among these six programs. (5) Organizational characteristics and managerial attitudes would influence the planning and implementation of marketing standardization. (6) There exists the basic relationship among CBBE dimensions as follows: brand awareness→brand association, perceived quality→brand affect→attitude loyalty, behavior loyalty.Theory contributions are manifested as follows: (1) this study gives an overall look at the relevant researches about global marketing standardization. (2) Distinct from others' enterprises' perspective, this study firstly chooses customers' perspective, and analyzes the mechanism of marketing standardization impact on customers' brand perception, emotional response, and loyalty. (3) This study adds in market similarity as a moderator between marketing standardization and performance via theory of strategic contingency, and validates the contingent relationships. (4) This study makes three contributions in empirical design: firstly, distinct from others' headquarters' perspective implicitly involving the MNCs' overall marketing operations, this study focused on MNCs' operations for a particular brand in a specific host market, which could obtain a more accurate assessment of international marketing practices, environmental influences, and performance; distinct from others' single perspective, this study brings forward two perspectives (home-host scenario and host-host scenario) according to the formation mechanism of marketing standardization, and validates the conceptual model respectively; this study develops a series of measurement scale about marketing standardization and CBBE based on customers' perceptions, and carries through cross-product categories, cross-national validations. (5) Via psychology theory, CBBE dimensions and internal relationships are constructed and validated.Based on the findings and some classic MNC cases, we give detailed managerial suggestions about how to choose and implement more efficient marketing standardization and international expanding paths, to help MNC, especially Chinese enterprises, expanding in the global market and acquiring high performance.