Toward a Theory of International Marketing

The field of international marketing is replete with research outlining various similarities and differences which exist across cultures and national boundaries. However, many of these studies have been exploratory in nature and limited to comparative descriptions of the nations and cultures in question. Those which have attempted to employ a sound theoretical approach have done so by borrowing from other disciplines such as social adaptation theory and theories of cognitive representation (Grunert, Grunert, and Beatty 1989). This presents difficulties for the researcher focusing on international marketing phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to develop an initial starting point for the development of a framework for international marketing in an effort to provide deeper theoretical direction for research in this area. It is hoped the perspective developed in this paper will serve to give some direction for future research, thereby allowing international marketing to move toward the construction of more generalizable, integrated theoretical foundations (Wills, Samli, and Jacobs 1991).