Marketing and Globalization

Citation

Baxter, R. and Batstone, C. (2003), "Marketing and Globalization", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 5/6, pp. 939-941. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm.2003.37.5_6.939.2

This book is something of an enigma. It is a collection of papers prepared for the Third International Marketing Symposium organised by two Eastern European university departments. They are the Department of Marketing – Section for International Marketing of Cracow University of Economics in Poland and the Department of Management and Marketing in the Faculty of Economics of the Matej Bel University, in the Republic of Slovakia.

The book's introduction draws the reader's attention to the fact that the symposium from which it is compiled was intended as a networking exercise in which participants could develop a sense of the issues that globalisation has generated for the marketing profession and for marketing educators. The papers in the book suggest that the symposium did a very good job on that score in an Eastern European environment. They provide good background information on globalisation, both in general and as it affects the eastern European environment.

However, it is not so clear who is the intended target audience for the compilation in the book. The fact that it is in English, presumably because the conference was conducted in English, suggests a wider audience, but a majority of the papers appear to be primarily of interest to an Eastern European audience in terms of their content, or perhaps a specialised audience elsewhere who are interested in current Eastern European thinking on marketing, globalisation and trade issues.

The content largely comprises expository papers interspersed with some more conceptual papers and some survey‐based papers focussed on the “state of international marketing” in Eastern European countries. The papers provide a comprehensive coverage of international marketing topics and of related trade issues, with a strong economic flavour in many of them. The topics covered are too broad to mention them all. Some are: internet marketing and e‐commerce in a global environment; branding; international business networks; and globalisation processes. There is plenty of discussion of the implications of globalisation on international marketing and on domestic economies in general, with some topical reference to Eastern European economies.

The focus of the papers is descriptive, as opposed to the theory‐building and testing exercises participants of US and Western European international marketing academic conferences would anticipate. This, and the lack of empirical articles other than those based on surveys of current marketing practice in Eastern Europe or on secondary data, does not fit with a more academic audience. The expository style of many of the papers and their content suggests a business or policy‐making audience, which is reinforced by the fact that there is very limited citation of the extensive sources available in many discipline areas on the topic of globalisation. There might also be an Eastern European undergraduate audience.

The papers that summarise extant literature on the nature and effects of globalisation will be of particular interest to readers in countries which are in the process of internationalising their economies, such as in Eastern Europe. For researchers and policymakers outside of Eastern Europe who are interested to know the situation of international marketing inside, the papers that describe surveys of the “state of marketing” or discuss issues of trade and economic policy in Eastern Europe, will be of interest. They provide useful background information for scoping the issues and identifying areas for research. They will also be of interest to businesspeople and policymakers in Eastern Europe.

Some of the papers include in their discussion recent conceptual developments in marketing theory from the existing literature, such as the work of the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) group. On the other hand, some need to take much more notice of recent work in the areas they cover, such as those which discuss the stages theory of the internationalisation of a corporation. They should take into account the more recent view of corporate internationalisation, which arises because of globalisation: that of spontaneous internationalisation from their very beginning. Inclusion of this more recent material is needed for a balanced view of the literature, even though the stages theory may be a particularly useful explanatory tool for Eastern European countries in transition from planned to market economies.

There is a need for more editing of the papers before publication. Some are difficult to understand as the result of the way in which the language is constructed.

In summary, we believe that this will be a very useful publication for readers in Eastern European countries or other countries where the impact of globalisation is relatively recent. It will be of interest to a much more restricted audience in other countries whose universities offer access to the extensive print and electronic academic literature available in the area of international marketing.