Standardization of Front-end Offers and Back-end Processes of International Store Retailers

This study addresses standardization vs. adaptation decisions in the context of international store retailers. Enhancing present research, the relationship between visible marketing offers and internal processes is analyzed. Based on interviews with top managers, the data show that the degree of standardization of retail marketing instruments influences the degree of standardization of marketing and supply chain processes. But there are differences in psychically dis- tant and psychically close markets. The results show that strategic and operative marketing instruments are standardized rather differently and have different impacts on standardization of processes. This underlines a more distinctive and complex view of standardization vs. adaptation decisions in international retailing research. For managers, the results emphasize the re- levance of market offer arrangements to changes in processes and vice versa.