Approaches to Global Expansions: Standardization vs. Adaptation

An overall marketing strategy often articulates a preferred approach for undertaking a global expansion. This chapter introduces a framework to describe the different approaches that companies explicitly, or implicitly, adopt when expanding their foreign operations. The framework is based on the observation that some companies prefer, and can afford, to standardize the marketing mix when entering new markets, whereas others favor and are compelled to adapt the marketing mix to fit the cultural characteristics of new markets. We discuss the pros and cons of standardization and adaptation, and the contexts in which each strategy is the preferred one.