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A bibliometric analysis of the global branding literature and a research agenda

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Abstract

This study examines the citations used in the global branding literature (GBL), and evaluates the knowledge structure of this area of research to date. Our bibliometric analysis involves an examination of 120 global branding articles in business-related research. We employ multidimensional scaling to reveal a range of intellectual influences that have helped shape the GBL. The foundation of knowledge in the GBL is uncovered by analyzing co-citation data to identify important topical influences in the formation of global branding research. The conceptual framework developed incorporates five areas with important implications for the future development of global branding as an area of inquiry. These major research topics in the GBL are international branding strategy, brand positioning, brand/country origin, brand concept-image, and brand performance. We leverage resource- and capability-based paradigms, and use the five underpinning knowledge groups to propose an agenda for future research that fills existing gaps and offers the potential to advance and enrich the GBL.

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Notes

  1. Representative of these important shifts are the passage of the Single European Act (1987) and the subsequent emergence of the European Union (EU) in 1993; the conclusion and ratification of the Uruguay Round (1987) of GATT negotiations in 1993; the emergence of the World Trade Organization as the governing body of world trade, investments, and dispute settlement; the emergence of NAFTA and Mercusor to accommodate greater openness in trade and investment among member countries in North and South America, respectively; and the development of the euro as the single currency used in most EU countries.

  2. The concept of global brands lacks a common definition (Özsomer & Altaras, 2008). However, such brands are generally distinguished from other brands by their larger global footprints, their presence in key international markets, and their significant sales volumes. Global brands are also distinct from others in that they are perceived as having high quality, and give the impression of being prestigious and worldly (Alashban, Hayes, Zinkhan, & Balazs, 2002; Dimofte, Johansson, & Ronkainen, 2008; Johansson & Ronkainen, 2005; Özsomer, 2007).

  3. An asterisk following a given term would include any ending variation related to the search term. For example, a search for “brand*” would capture “brands”, “branded”, “branding”, etc.

  4. Exact syntax is available from the authors upon request.

  5. There is a trade-off between developing meaningful configurations of underlying knowledge areas and the number of articles incorporated in an MDS analysis. For example, vis-à-vis our optimum solution incorporating 27 publications, the stress value for a solution incorporating 50 articles increases by 33% and the stress value for a solution using 31 publications increases by nearly 10%.

  6. In metric multidimensional scaling, stimuli proximities vis-à-vis one another are computed via Euclidean distances (Torgerson, 1952). For a given number of stimuli, the MDS algorithm seeks to achieve monotonicity by minimizing stress (or error) values vis-à-vis the co-citation data. Hence the axes are not plotted based on a set of predefined parameters. In bibliometrics, the investigator seeks to identify meaningful information based on the nature of citing and cited articles, as well as the position of the stimuli along the axes in the results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collins College of Business, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, USA

    Brian R Chabowski & Saeed Samiee

  2. Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

    G Tomas M Hult

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  1. Brian R Chabowski
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Correspondence to G Tomas M Hult.

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Accepted by Daniel Bello, Area Editor, 2 April 2013. This paper has been with the authors for three revisions.

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Chabowski, B., Samiee, S. & Hult, G. A bibliometric analysis of the global branding literature and a research agenda. J Int Bus Stud 44, 622–634 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2013.20

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