How your product solves customers problems or improves their si.docx

How your product solves customers' problems or improves their
situation (relevancy)
Delivers specific benefits (quantified value)
Tells the ideal customer why they should buy from you and not
from the competition (unique differentiation)
Value Proposition
Types of Customer Problems
Functional: issues performing/completing a specific task
Social: problems w/ perception. i.e. looking good or gaining
power
Emotional: seeking a specific feeling like feeling good or
secure
Purchasing: comparing offers, deciding which products to buy,
performing a purchase or taking delivery of a product or service
Transferring: things like product disposal, transfer or resell
Market Segments
Share a common interest
Have “access” to each other and
Who look to one another as a trusted reference.
Why market segmentation is important?
Word of mouth regarding products works best among those who
share a need and a means to communicate a solution.

“Access to each other” indicates a common methodology to
reach them.
Indirect knowledge (e.g., PR, testimonials, etc.) of like
individuals buying a product is a powerful influence.
Early Adopters:
They have the problem you’re trying to solve
They know they have it and
ARE actively seeking solutions
Early Majority:
Have the problem you’re trying to solve
Know they have the problem
Aren’t actively looking for solutions
Target Market: A particular group of consumers at which a
product or service is aimed.
Demographics
Age
Location
Gender
Income level
Education level
Marital or family status
Occupation

Ethnic background
Psychographics
Personality
Attitudes
Values
Interests/hobbies
Lifestyles
Behavior
- Need to satisfy
Task to perform
Problem to solve
Negative emotions
Undesired costs
Undesired situations
Before, during and/or after job
Benefits customer expects, desires or would be surprised by
includes utility, social gains, positive emotions and cost
savings
- Delivered to your home
- Proven recipe
-all Ingredients pre-portioned
Fresh and healthy recipes
Meal Kits

- Delivered to home
Includes all ingredients portioned out
Comes with instructions
Chef/professional tested recipes
-Quality time with family
- Eat Dinner
-Satiated by meal
Happy family members
Feel good about eating at home
Value for money
Spent
-Not enough time to plan and shop
Not having all ingredients ready
Eating unhealthy
PeachDish
-Fear of trying new recipes and messing up meal
Spending too much
- Low time investment
Professional, women, married or partner, children, health
conscious, limited time
Feel good about quality of food
‘Customer Jobs’ you gather all the customer needs, the
problems that they are trying to solve and the tasks they are
trying to perform or complete.

‘Customer Jobs’ you gather all the customer needs, the
problems that they are trying to solve and the tasks they are
trying to perform or complete.
8
David M. Szymanski, Sundar G. Bharadwaj, & P. Rajan
Varadarajan
Standardization versus Adaptation of
Internationai Mariceting Strategy:
An Empiricai Investigation
An issue debated frequently in the international marketing
literature centers on whether a business should pursue
a strategy that is standardized across national markets or
adapted to individual national markets. Of the two as-
pects relating to standardization of marketing strategy across
national markets—(1) standardization of the pattern
of resource allocation across marketing mix variables integral to
a business's marketing strategy and (2) standard-
ization of the strategy content with respect to individual
marketing mix variables—the latter has been the sub ĵect
of numerous conceptual articles. However, there is a relative
dearth of empirical studies on both issues. To partially
fill this void, this study addresses empirically the question of
the standardization of the pattern of resource alloca-
tion among marketing mix variables across national markets.
The question is addressed by examining whether com-
petitive strategy and industry structure variables affect market
share and business profits similarly or dissimilarly
across Western markets, that is, the U.S., U.K., Canada, and
Western Europe. The results reveal that with few
exceptions, the effects of competitive strategy and market

structure variables generalize across these markets. The
study findings provide insights into both the merits of
standardizing the strategic resource mix across Western mar-
kets and the competitive strategy and market structure variables
that are major explanators of business perfor-
mance across Western markets.
I N the international marketing literature, the desirability of
pur-suing a strategy of standardization of marketing mix and
other competitive strategy vadables across national markets
versus adaptation to individual national markets has been de-
bated extensively (e.g., Ghoshal 1987; Levitt 1983; Walters
1986; Wills, Samli, and Jacobs 1991; Wind 1986; Yip
1989). In recent years, however, the debate centering on the
pros and cons of pursuing a strategy of total standardization
across national markets versus complete adaptation to
individual markets has given way to a more fruitful dia-
logue focusing on the (1) desired degree of standardization
(or adaptation) with respect to various competitive strategy
variables such as branding, advertising, sales promotion,
and pricing (Riesenbeck and Freeling 1991) and (2) moder-
ating effects of organizational and environmental contin-
gencies on the desired degree of standardization (or adapta-
tion) with respect to these variables (Quelch and Hoff
1986). However, two related issues that merit further explo-
ration in an international context are the degree to which (1)
the nature of the underlying relationships between competi-
tive strategy variables and business performance are similar
across national markets and (2) certain competitive strategy
David M. Szymanski is Associate Professor of Marketing,
Department of
Marketing, College of Business Administration and Graduate
School of Busi-
ness, Texas A&M University. Sundar G. Bharadwaj is Assistant
Professor

of Marketing, Emory Business School, Emory University. P.
Rajan ferada-
rajan is the Foley's Professor of Retailing and Marketing,
Department of
Marketing, College of Business Administration and Graduate
School of Busi-
ness, Texas A&M University. The authors gratefully
acknowledge the
many helpful comments of the anonymous JM reviewers and the
editor
and the research support provided by the Strategic Planning
Institute.
variables are relatively more important determinants of per-
formance across national markets than other variables.
Realistically, a business competing in or contemplating
competing in multiple national markets should first develop
an understanding of the nature of the underlying relation-
ship between competitive strategy variables (e.g., advertis-
ing, personal selling effort, etc.) and performance (e.g., mar-
ket share and profitability) to determine whether the pat-
terns of these relationships are similar across national mar-
kets. Specifically and as explicated in Figure 1, the mar-
keting strategy formulation process in multinational firms
can be viewed as comprising a series of decisions pertain-
ing to the business's (1) strategic orientation (standardiza-
tion vs. adaptation), (2) desired degree of standardization of
the strategic resource mix (i.e., pattern of resource alloca-
tion among advertising, promotion, personal selling, and
other marketing mix variables), and (3) the desired degree
of standardization of the strategy content (i.e., decisions on
product positioning, brand name, appropriate media, con-
tent of advertisements, etc.). Making effective decisions re-
lating to strategic orientation, resource allocation across stra-
tegic variables, and strategy content with respect to individ-

ual marketing mix elements, in turn, can be viewed as
being contingent on managers' understanding (derived
from sources internal and external to the business) of
relationships among strategic levers (i.e., marketing mix
and other competitive strategy variables under the control
of the business that impact performance and also are im-
pacted by performance), industry drivers (i.e., industry struc-
ture variables that impact performance and in turn can be af-
fected at times by a business's performance),yirw drivers
(i.e., the characteristics of the firm and business unit, such
Journal of Marketing
Vol. 57 (October 1993), 1-17 Standardization Versus
Adaptation / 1
as firm-specific and business-specific skills and resources
that can impact the strategic levers), and business perfor-
mance. Unfortunately, there is a relative dearth of empirical
information from sources external to the business on the
determinants of business performance across foreign and do-
mestic markets (exceptions include Ayal and Hirsch 1982;
Craig, Douglas, and Reddy 1987; Douglas and Craig 1983;
Kotabe 1990; Kotabe and Omura 1989; Kotabe and Murray
1990; Lecraw 1983; Roth, Schweiger, and Morrison 1991;
Samiee and Roth 1992; Samli 1977; Takada and Jain
1991). The lack of sufficient information from external
sources persists in many respects in spite of the potential
value of infonnation on the determinants of business perfor-
mance across multiple national markets, particularly to
managers of multinational firms and managers whose firms
are entering international markets for the first time.
In an attempt to compensate for this void in the interna-
tional marketing literature, we focus on two key questions

facing intemational businesses: "Does an opportunity exist
for standardizing the strategic resource mix across national
markets?" and "On which strategic variables should busi-
nesses place relatively greater emphasis across national mar-
kets?" To provide insights into tiiese issues, we examine a
number of marketing mix variables for their effects on busi-
ness profits in Western markets, i.e., the U.S., U.K., Can-
ada, and Western Europe. Specifically, we build on the ear-
lier cross-sectional work by Douglas and Craig (1983) and
Craig, Douglas, and Reddy (1987), which examined the im-
pact of marketing mix and marketplace factors on business
performance across the U.S. and European markets. We
build on these efforts by (1) expanding the set of marketing
mix variables to include service quality, product line
breadth, vertical integration, advertising expenditures, and
shared marketing programs across businesses from the
same parent company; (2) controlling for industry drivers
and additional competitive strategy variables (i.e., research
and development [R&D] expenditures, shared customers,
and shared facilities) whose omission from the empirical
model might otherwise lead to specification errors; (3) study-
ing more than twice as many businesses as those examined
by Douglas and Craig (n=1556 vs. n=734), which can pro-
duce more accurate estimates of relationship form; and (4)
studying businesses that represent a greater array of na-
tional markets (i.e., the U.K. and Canada in addition to the
U.S. and Western Europe) to gain additional insights into
whether marketing mix-business performance relationships
generalize across national markets. Furthermore, we ex-
amine one slice of the conceptual model in Figure 1 (paths
1 and 2) as the initial study in a programmatic stream of re-
search directed at developing a better understanding of the
strategic orientation, resource mix, and content that would
enable a business to achieve superior performance in the
global marketplace.

Generalizability of Performance
Relationships Across
Western iVIarkets
One way of conceptualizing the relationships among compet-
itive strategy, industry structure, market share, and profita-
bility is to follow the path model presented in Figure 2. The
model represents strategic levers and industry drivers affect-
ing both market share and profits and market share as di-
rectly impacting business profits. The face validity of this
representation is suggested by numerous empirical studies
that over the years have examined the effect of competitive
strategy and market structure variables on market share and
profits, as well as the numerous empirical studies modeling
market share as an antecedent of business profits (see
Capon, Farley, and Hoenig [1990]; Szymanski, Bharadwaj,
and Varadarajan [1993] for reviews of this literature).
Before delving into the rationale behind the relation-
ships depicted in Figure 2, a discussion of whether the de-
terminants of business performance in general would be sim-
ilar among firms serving the U.S., U.K., Canadian, and West-
ern European markets is in order. Though empirical evi-
dence focusing directly on this issue is scant, theory sug-
gests that business strategies and their effects on firm perfor-
mance should generalize across national markets that are
similar economically, politically, and culturally (cf. Jain
1989; Levitt 1983; and Takeuchi and Porter 1986). Market
similarities on these dimensions hold constant the factors
that could moderate the relationship between strategic lev-
ers/industry drivers and firm performance. If this perspec-
tive is correct, then comparing the economic, political, and
cultural characteristics of the U.S., U.K., Canadian, and
Western European markets could provide preliminary in-
sights into whether we could expect the determinants of busi-

ness performance to be similar across these four markets.
Overall, the evidence suggests that the U.S., U.K., Cana-
dian, and Western European markets are more similar eco-
nomically, politically, and culturally than they are different.
The markets exhibit similarly high levels of per capita in-
come and gross national product, which Terpstra (1988) sug-
gests are important indicators of the demand for consumer
and industrial goods, respectively; they display similar lev-
els of political stability and government intervention into
business practices (Cateora and Keaveney 1987); and many
barriers to trade between certain pairs of Western markets
have already been or are being eliminated through agree-
ments such as the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the
Single European Act, and other acts of coalition (Dudley
1990; Tillier 1992).
In addition, the four markets can be characterized as dis-
playing cultural similarities that add support to the supposi-
tion that competitive strategy/market structure relationships
with business performance would generalize across West-
em markets. For one, the nuclear/am/Z>' (parents and chil-
dren) is the rule in Western markets (Terpstra 1988), and
the family is the primary agent of socialization among pre-
adolescent children (Ward et al. 1986). We might therefore
expect to find many similar values and family decision-
making strategies across buyers from different Westem mar-
kets as found by Douglas (1976, 1978) in her comparisons
of consumers in France versus the U.S. Second, consumers
in these Westem markets on average are highly and simi-
larly educated, which suggests that they may hold similar
perceptions and respond similarly to strategic variables
(Cateora and Keaveney 1987). The latter possibility is sup-
ported in cross-national studies that compared buyers' atti-
tudes toward advertising (Anderson and Engledow [1977]
compared buyers in the U.S. versus Germany; Barksdale et

al. [1982] made comparisons among buyers in the U.S.,
U.K., Canada, and Norway), buyers' price consciousness
2 / Journal of Marketing, October 1993
FIGURE 1
Marketing Strategy Formulation in a Multinational Firm
Information Bank on Business Performance
Relationships by National Markets^-"
Firm Drivers
• Financial Resources
• Other Firm-Specific Skills and Resources
n n
Industry Drivers
• Industry Structure
• Marketplace Characteristics
Business
Performance
T
Strategic Levers
• Competitive Strategy Variables
• Synergistic Relationships
Global Competitive Strategy': Decisions and Outcomes
IS
J l l
strategic Orientation

•Total standardization of
marketing mix elements
across national markets
' Total adaptation of
marketing mix elements
by national markets
Strategic Resource Mix
Pattern of resource allocation
among marketing nnix elements
• Total standardization across
national markets
' Total adaptation to individual
national markets
(2)
IT BusinessPerformance
Strategic Content
Degree of standardization of
the content of marketing
mix elements across national
markets
Element 1
Element 2
High Low
High Low

Element N High Low
^ The performance relationships presented as bi-directionai
reflect the fact that over time, firm performance couid impact
certain firm drivers
(e.g., successful firms are able to attract better managers and
skilled workers). Industry drivers (e.g., industry structure), and
strategic levers
(e.g., experience and scale effects that provide an opportunity
for the firm to lower prices); and firm drivers (e.g., financial
assets) could impact
on Industry drivers (e.g., industry structure), and both firm and
Industry drivers could impact on strategic levers (e.g., possible
pricing points,
quality of R&D efforts, and advertising strategies employed by
the firm).
•> The factors listed under the respective headings are
illustrative rather than exhaustive of firm drivers, industry
drivers, and strategic levers.
For additional insights into industry drivers and strategic levers,
see Yip (1989).
<= The focus here is limited to marketing strategy Variables.
Standardization Versus Adaptation / 3
FIGURE 2
Path Model Representing the Relationship Among Strateglo
Levers,
Industry Drivers, and Business Performanoe
Relative
Market
Share

strategic Levers:
'^I = Quality of customer service
^2 = Product quality
'̂ 3 = Product line breadth
M = New products
^̂ 5 = R&D expenditures
^6 = Backward vertical integration
^7 = Forward vertical integration
^8 = Advertising expenditures
^9 = Promotion expenditures
= Sales force expenditures
= Product price
= Shared customers
= Shared marketing programs
= Shared facilities
Industry Drivers:
= Marketing growth rate
= Industry concentration
(Anderson and Engledow [1977]; Hester and Yuen [1987],
who compared U.S. with Canadian consumers; and
Lehmann and O'Shaughnessy [1974], who contrasted U.S.
buyers with U.K. buyers), and buyers' valence for product/
service quality (Barksdale et al. [1982]; Colvin, Heeler, and
Thorpe [1980], who studied buyers in Germany, the U.K.,
and Sweden; Lehmann and O'Shaughnessy [1974]; and
Lewis [1991], who compared U.S. consumers to those con-
sumers residing in the U.K.).
Evidence at the aggregate level also suggests that West-
em markets are similar economically, politically, culturally,
and in other ways. Huszagh, Fox, and Day (1985) clustered
21 countries (U.S., U.K., Canada, Western European coun-

tries, and Japan) on the basis of nine economic and social
welfare variables (life expectancy, average work week, per-
centage employed in service, consumer price index, unem-
ployment, govemment spending per capita, manufacturing
percentage of GNP, urbanization, and private spending
percentage of GNP) and found that the clustering algorithm
grouped together the U.S., U.K., Canada, and the Westem
European countries of Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Neth-
erlands, and the former West Germany. Another study by
Sethi (1971) clustered 91 countries on the basis of 29 polit-
ical, socioeconomic, trade, transportation, communication,
biological, and personal consumption variables, and found
that the clustering algorithm placed the U.S., U.K., Canada,
and most European countries (with the exception of
Greece, Italy, and Spain) in the same cluster. Finally,
Goodnow and Hansz (1972) sorted 100 countries into low-,
moderate-, and high-risk markets to enter using 59 country
descriptors (the U.S. was not included in the study), in
which a low-risk market was defined as politically stable,
noninterventionist vis-a-vis business, not legally restrictive
of business, culturally harmonious, and economically devel-
oped (Gatignon and Anderson 1988). They found that the
U.K., Canada, and the European countries of Austria, Bel-
gium-Luxembourg, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the former West Ger-
many were clustered together as low-risk markets in which
to conduct business.
In summary, theory suggests that strategic relationships
should generalize across national markets that are similar

economically, politically, and culturally; and the available
empirical evidence suggests that the U.S., U.K., Canadian,
and Western European markets are relatively similar along
these three dimensions. We therefore hypothesize that, on av-
erage, the effects of strategic levers and industry drivers on
business performance would generalize across the four West-
em markets. Though it is plausible that, like Douglas and
Craig (1983), we may find that certain relationships gener-
alize across markets and others do not, recent advances in
communication that have led to greater exchange of informa-
tion across national markets suggest that Western markets
are more homogeneous than before (Archer 1990; Douglas
and Craig 1991; Ohmae 1987; Smith 1990), and hence
more similarities than differences should characterize the un-
derlying relationships between strategic levers/industry driv-
ers and business performance across the four Western
markets.
The next section provides a rationale for the path rela-
tionships represented in Figure 2. Consistent with the hy-
pothesis that performance relationships will be the same
across the four markets, this discussion is generic (i.e., with-
out reference to the four markets).
Strategic Levers, Industry Drivers,
and Business Performance
strategic Levers
Product/service quality. Though several studies have uncov-
ered a positive relationship between product quality and mar-
ket share (Buzzell and Wiersema 1981a, 1981b), differ-
ences in how quality is defined (e.g., conformance versus su-
perior performance; see Garvin 1988) could influence the re-
lationship between quality and market share. When supe-
rior quality is defined as greater conformance to product

specifications, higher costs and any accompanying higher
prices that could reduce sales are not necessarily impera-
tive. However, when superior quality is defined as superior
or more expensive features, the accompanying higher costs
passed on to buyers in the form of higher prices could lead
to reduced sales.
The relationship between quality and profit is also equiv-
ocal. When increased costs from the use of more expensive
components, less standardized procedures, greater emphasis
on product innovation to sustain a high-quality position,
and higher promotional expenditures to convey a position
of superior quality to customers (Farris and Reibstein 1979;
Phillips, Chang, and Buzzell 1983) cannot be passed on to
customers, profit margins would be squeezed, and quality
and profit would be inversely related. On the other hand,
consumers may be willing to pay a premium for better qual-
ity goods and services (Buzzell and Gale 1987), and supe-
rior product quality could also reduce rework and service
costs (e.g., warranty costs [Garvin 1988]) to increase mar-
gins as well as protect the business from outside forces that
reduce them (e.g., bargaining power of buyers).
Product line breadth. The net effect of offering a broad
line of products on market share is expected to be positive
for several reasons. A broad product line can reduce the
chances of market share erosion from consumers' variety-
seeking behavior (i.e., variety seeking can occur within the
business's offerings), and/or when consumers are deal
prone (i.e., by ensuring that one of the business's offerings
is on deal). A broad product line can also minimize market
share erosion by acting as an entry barrier (i.e., closing al-
ternative product forms, sizes, etc., as entry points; and
preempting shelf-space [Rao and Rutenberg 1979]), and it
may be preferred by buyers whose needs change with time

by lowering their purchase risks and transaction costs be-
cause they would be familiar with the general characteris-
tics of the business and its offerings.
The impact of product line breadth on the level of busi-
ness profits, however, appears to be equivocal. On one
hand, the modularization benefits of producing a broad line
could allow the business to achieve product differentiation
while using common parts across products in the line to
help reduce costs (Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark 1988).
Conversely, the impact on profits could be negative be-
cause of the increased costs that could result from more com-
plex operations (Johnson and Kaplan 1987; Lubben 1988),
increased material handling and inventories (Kekre 1987;
Lubben 1988; McClain and Thomas 1980), more diverse
process fiows (Banker, Datar, and Kekre 1988; Karmarkar
1987), more monitoring of operations (Miller and Vollman
1985), and more resources required for scheduling the
shorter production runs commonly associated with produc-
ing a broad line of goods (e.g., Abegglen and Stalic 1985;
Johnson and Kaplan 1987).
New products. New products can have a favorable ef-
fect on market share to the extent that they satisfy customer
needs better than the existing goods (Davidson 1976) and
prevent competitors from taking away a business's custom-
ers with their own new products (Hayes and Abernathy
1980). Though new products can cannibalize the sales of ex-
isting products and consume the marketing resources that
would otherwise go to them (Hambrick and Schecter 1983),
continuous and constant innovation are competitive imper-
atives for maintaining and/or building share. Hence, in the
aggregate, market share at the strategic business unit (SBU)
level can be expected to vary positively with the rate of
new product introductions.

The relationship between new product introductions
and profits, however, is equivocal. There is evidence to sug-
gest that new product introductions could hurt business prof-
its in the short run. Developing and introducing new prod-
ucts can require large investments in R&D and plant and
equipment (Woo 1987) and in advertising and promotion to
build consumer awareness. Yet, evidence from studies on
' 'excellent'' companies suggests that new products and prof-
its are positively related in the long term (Peters and Water-
man 1982; Maidique and Hayes 1984); other evidence sug-
gests that new products and profits are positively related
when consumers are willing to pay a price premium for su-
perior new products that cannot be readily duplicated by
competitors (Booz, Allen, and Hamilton 1981; Cooper
1986).
Research and development expenditures. R&D directed
at both product innovation (e.g., introducing innovative
new products) and process innovation (e.g., improving qual-
ity and/or lowering production costs) are likely to endow a
business with enduring competitive advantages. All else
equal, R&D expenditures can be expected to be positively
related to market share because innovative new products
that match buyer needs more closely are likely to command
a larger market share. Innovative new products and improve-
ments in existing products resulting from investments in
R&D also are less likely to be vulnerable to price wars and
more likely to command a price premium. However, since
investments in R&D tend to have long gestation periods
(Ravenscraft and Scherer 1982), the positive relationship be-
tween R&D expenditures and profitability often are more

pronounced in lagged R&D-profit relationships than contem-
poraneous R&D-profit relationships.
Vertical integration. It seems plausible to expect that
vertical integration would be positively related to both mar-
ket share and profits. Vertic^ly integrating operations can
lead to supply assurances (Amihud and Lev 1981), more
consistent product quality (Scherer 1980), shorter turna-
round in producing the product and making it available to
consumers (Chandler 1977), and higher entry barriers
(Buzzell 1983). These factors could translate into more
sales and a greater share of the served market.
Vertically integrating operations could also have a posi-
tive impact on profits because (1) business profits that
would otherwise go to other members of the distribution
chain are internalized (Aaker and Jacobson 1987) and (2)
the reduced transaction costs often offset the increased
costs associated with being more integrated (e.g., coordina-
tion costs [Buzzell 1983; Ravenscraft 1983; Williamson
1975]). However, riecent studies focusing on alternatives to
vertical integration that offer the benefits of vertical integra-
tion without the accompanying costs and disadvantages sug-
gest a weak relationship between vertical integration and
profitability. Nonintegration strategies—such as maintain-
ing close, long-term working relationships with suppliers
and long-term contracts—and quasi-integration strategies—
such as minority equity investment, strategic alliances, joint
ventures, loan guarantees, and prepurchase credits—have
been proposed as alternatives to full integration (Hanigan
1984). In fact, a conceptualization of vertical integration as
involving operations that are 1(X)% owned and physically in-
terconnected to supply 100% of a business's needs by the
business itself is viewed as outmoded by some scholars (Har-
rigan 1985).

Expenditures on communication elements. All else
equal, expenditures on advertising, sales promotion
(Assmus, Farley, and Lehmann 1984; TfeUis 1988), and the
sales force (Anderson 1988) are conducive to increased
sales and market share. Expenditures on these communica-
tion elements can increase customer awareness, facilitate
the formation of positive attitudes and behavioral intentions
among prospective consumers, and ultimately increase
sales for the business.
The impact of increased marketing communication ex-
penditures on profit, however, is less clear. The sign of the
effect would depend on whether the change in sales more
than offsets, exactly offsets, or less than offsets the change
in expenditures. All else equal, the lower the expenditure in-
curred in realizing a dollar of sales, the higher a business's
profits would be. However, marketing communication ex-
penditures and profits would not demonstrate a positive re-
lationship with profits when the increased sales from spend-
ing more on communication elements just offsets or fails to
offset the reduction in profit margins that occur when the
business spends more. Tlie nature of the underlying relation-
ship is further confounded by the degree to which the scale
economies associated with increased expenditures on market-
ing communications and the scope economies that result
from sharing marketing costs with other businesses in the
firm's portfolio are captured by the respective business
unit.
Product price. An inverse relationship between price
and market share is commonly thought to exist. However,
the possibility of there being a positive relationship be-
tween price and sales when higher prices refiect greater pres-
tige of ownership and/or superior quality cannot be com-
pletely overlooked (Michael and Becker 1973; Monroe and

Krishnan 1984). Hence, establishing the sign of the relation-
ship between price and market share is best left as an empir-
ical issue, and the same holds true for establishing the sign
of the relationship between price and profits. The sign of
the relationship between price and profit would depend on
the shape of the demand curve (monotonically decreasing,
vertical, or monotonically increasing [as in the case with gif-
fen goods]). When the demand curve is monotonically
decreasing, the relationship between price and profit would
also depend on the point along the demand curve at which
the business is operating. In the inelastic portion of a mon-
otonically decreasing demand curve, total revenues decline
with increases in price, whereas in the elastic portion of the
demand curve, total revenues more than offset the lost sales
from charging higher prices up to the point where the elas-
ticity of demand equals one (Henderson and Quandt 1980).
Shared customers, marketing programs, and facilities.
All else equal, marketing synergies can be expected to dem-
onstrate a positive relationship with market share. For exam-
ple, selling products to shared consumers allows buyers to
draw on their information bank to form associative evalua-
tions of the business's newest offerings (Nayyar 1990). Cus-
tomers who have favorable impressions of some of the
firm's offerings would be more favorably disposed toward
purchasing the offerings of other businesses in the firm's
portfolio. Synergies may also allow a business to offer pack-
age deals to customers, initiate joint promotions (e.g., mul-
tiple coupons in one mailing), and cross-sell to customers
of other SBUs in the firm's portfolio.
Businesses could also achieve greater efficiency in cur-
rent operations to increase profit margins when they share
customers, facilities, and/or marketing programs witfi other
business units in the firm's portfolio of businesses (Lecraw
1984; Lemelin 1982; Nayyar 1990; Rumelt 1982; Wells

1984). These synergistic relationships can lead to cost sav-
ings through the sharing of knowledge, marketing skills,
and marketing programs and resources such as the sales
force, warehouses, etc. Woo and Cooper (1985) found the
gains accruing to high market share businesses to be greater
than the gains accruing to low market share businesses. How-
ever, establishing synergies is not costless. There may have
to be compromises between formulating optimal marketing
programs for individual business units versus developing a
common marketing program for a number of businesses;
and the search for synergies can increase the complexity of
a business's management system because of the need to
coordinate competing schedules and maintain an atmos-
phere of cooperation (Ghoshal 1987). In the aggregate, how-
ever, one would expect the benefits of sharing customers,
marketing programs, and/or facilities to outweigh the costs
of administering and coordinating these shared
"resources."
Industry Drivers
Market growth rate. All else equal, the higher profit po-
tential of high-growth markets should make these markets
more attractive to nonincumbent businesses. We would
therefore expect to witness more businesses leaving low- or
no-growth markets to enter high-growth markets (assuming
there are no significant barriers to entry). The correspond-
ing effect would be that the combined market share of com-
peting businesses in the high-growth markets would be dis-
persed over a larger number of competitors. Consequently,
we would expect to find an inverse relationship between

market growth rate and market share.
Whereas operating in high-growth markets may be in-
consistent with having high market share, high-growth mar-
kets and high profitability can be very consistent. High-
growth markets are often characterized by relatively higher
gross margins, marketing costs, and prices (that rise at a
rate below costs), rising productivity, increased investment
to keep pace with growth, low or negative cash flow, more
new customers, higher levels of demand per customer, and
a higher probability that the product will meet some custom-
ers' needs. The net effect of these cost reductions, cost in-
creases, rising profit margins, and rising sales that often char-
acterize high-growth markets seems to be increased profits
(Buzzell and Gale 1987).
Industry concentration. Though by definition, industry
concentration and market share are positively related, the
positive relationship often exhibited between industry
concentration and profit (e.g., Domowitz, Hubbard, and Pe-
tersen 1986; Weiss 1974) could result from several factors.
The structure-conduct/strategy-perfonnance (SCP/SSP) para-
digm, for example, posits that industry structure variables
(e.g., concentration) influence a business's conduct (strat-
egy) and eventually impact its financial performance (Bain
1951; 1956). Embedded in this SCP/SSP perspective is the
view that businesses attempt to control the output in the mar-
ket through the exercise of monopoly power or colluding
with other businesses to drive up prices and profit. Though
the question of whether the association between industry
concentration and profitability is attributable to the exercise
of market power by incumbent businesses or efficiency dif-
ferences among businesses (see Demetz 1973; Gale and
Branch 1982; Ravenscraft 1983; Smirlock, Gilligan, and
Marshall 1984) is a point of controversy, both viewpoints
imply a positive relationship between industry concentra-

tion and profits.
Market Share/Profit Relationship
Finally, the relationship between market share and profita-
bility is expected to be positive. Efficiency theory predicts
that businesses with large market shares are cost-efficient be-
cause of experience curve and scale effects that ultimately
lead to greater profitability (Day and Montgomery 1983;
Buzzell and GaJe 1987). Market power theory posits that
businesses with large market shares have the power to ob-
tain inputs at lower costs, extract concessions from channel
members, and set prices rather than be price takers to in-
crease their profits (Martin 1988; Schroeter 1988). The pos-
itive relationship between market share and profitability
also has been supported in numerous empirical studies (see
Capon, Farley, and Hoenig 1990; Szymanski, Bharadwaj,
and Varadarajan 1993).
Methodology
Among secondary data sources, there seems to be growing
recognition that the PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strat-
egy) data base has value for providing initial insights into
business phenomena across national markets (Buzzell and
Gale 1987; Craig, Douglas, and Reddy 1987; Douglas and
Craig 1983; Douglas and Rhee 1989; Manu 1992; Yip
1991). The PIMS data base contains competitive strategy,
market structure, and business performance data on thou-
sands of business units; and the recent expansion of the in-
ternational portion of the data base now makes it even more
attractive for conducting cross-national market compari-
sons. Moreover, empirical evidence suggests that PIMS-
based findings are both reliable and valid. Phillips, Chang,
and Buzzell (1983) found that independent observations
taken over time from the same respondents measured the
same latent variable; Marshall and Buzzell (1990) showed

that the PIMS data base and the Federal Trade Communica-
tion line of business data produced similar profit relation-
ships; and Hagerty, Carman, and Russell (1988) found that
marketing mix elasticities generated from the PIMS data
base corresponded with the published literature and had pre-
dictable relationships with market characteristics. In addi-
tion, Rumelt (1991) provides evidence that business unit fac-
tors (the level at which the PIMS program gathers data) ac-
count for most of the differences in financial performance.
Industry structure variables and corporate level factors ac-
counted for relatively less of the explained variance in
performance.
These attractive features of the PIMS data base factored
into our decision to use it for examining the generalizability
of performance relationships across Western markets. At
the same time, we recognize that the PIMS data base has lim-
itations (cf Anderson and Paine 1978; Kerin, Mahajan, and
Varadarajan 1990). Overall, PIMS member companies are
Fortune 500 U.S. companies and British, Canadian, and
Western European companies of similar size. Neither the
number of SBUs from individual member companies in-
cluded in the data base nor the extent to which various com-
panies are already global players is known. Though there is
considerable dispersion in the size, strategy, performance,
and other characteristics of SBUs in the data base, research-
ers have expressed concerns about the appropriateness of
generalizing the findings of studies based on PIMS busi-
nesses to the larger population of businesses (i.e., SBUs of
large, medium, and small firms and of non-PIMS compa-
nies). In addition, the considerable leeway PIMS member

companies have in defining their business units (i.e., a divi-
sion, product line, or profit center that produces/markets a
well-defined set of related goods that serve a clearly de-
fined set of customers, and/or competes with a well-defined
set of competitors [Buzzell and Gale 1987, p. 32]) could
lead to considerable variance in the level of aggregation at
which they provide information on industry structure, busi-
ness strategy, and performance variables. Another limita-
tion of the PIMS data base is that it pools cross-sectional
data from a sample of businesses across different products
and markets, which can bring into question the appropriate-
ness of analyzing a pooled sample of heterogeneous busi-
nesses (Bass, Cattin, and Wittink 1978). Unfortunately, con-
fidentiality constraints associated with the PIMS data base
preclude testing the appropriateness of all pooling
procedures.
Though these and other limitations of the PIMS data
base should not be ignored, the similarities in the magni-
tude of the estimated relationships often found among
PIMS-based and non-PIMS-based studies (Hagerty, Car-
man, and Russell 1988; Marshall and Buzzell 1990) sug-
gest that, overall, the data base could be viewed as a useful
source of information for generating initial insights into
whether strategic levers and industry drivers impact busi-
ness performance similarly across national markets.
Specifically, we used the SPI4 data base (i.e., four-year
averaged data), which has the added feature of controlling
better than single-year data for abnormal data fiuctuations
because of economic and other conditions that could affect
the estimated path coefficients. The sampling frame was fur-
ther restricted to include only those business units having
90% or more of their served market located in one Western
market; i.e., either the U.S. (n=1168 businesses), U.K.
(n=189), Canadian (n=86), or Western European (n=113)

market (i.e., Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland). Businesses classified in
the PIMS program as serving "other countries" or more
than one national market were excluded from the sample.
Estimation Procedures
Both the correlation- and regression-based approaches to
moderator analysis advocated by Arnold (1982, 1984) were
used to examine whether the predictor-criterion variable re-
lationships specified in Figure 2 differed by the location of
the served (national) market (LOSM). Path analysis in turn
was used to estimate the magnitude of the causal relation-
ships represented in Figure 2. The value of path analysis
over regression per se is that path analysis can provide in-
sights into the magnitude of direct effects (i.e., the effect of
a predictor variable on the adjoining criterion variable), in-
direct effects (i.e., the effect of a predictor on the criterion
variable through an intervening variable; for example, the
impact of product quality on profits through market share),
spurious effects (i.e., the portion of the correlation between
two criterion variables caused by the sharing of a common
causal variable) and the effect coefficients (i.e., the total ef-
fect equal to the direct plus indirect effects [Pedhazur
1982]). The path methodology therefore permits us to exam-
ine (1) whether an indirect effect embellishes, diminishes.
or negates an associated direct effect and (2) the degree to
which the market share-profit relationship is spurious.
Expressing the Variabies in the Modei
Profit and market share, the two endogenous variables in
the performance model, are measured as return on invest-
ment (ROI) and relative market share, respectively. ROI is

used rather than return on sales because ROI more fully re-
lates profits to the assets used in achieving them; and rela-
tive market share (a business's market share relative to the
combined market share of its three major competitors) is
used instead of absolute market share because the sum con-
straint (the predicted market shares of individual businesses
should add up to 100) and the bound constraint (the pre-
dicted market shares of individual businesses should be be-
tween zero and 100), two conditions that must be satisfied
when using absolute measures of market share, cannot be sat-
isfied when the data are pooled across industries as they are
here (Varadarajan and Dillon 1982). Relative market share
is thought to also capture more comprehensively the scale
and bargaining effects associated with a business's relative
size in its served market (Buzzell and Gale 1987). The op-
erational definitions for the endogenous and exogenous var-
iables can be found in Buzzell and Gale (1987) and the
PIMS data base manual.
Results
The question of whether the relationships among strategic
levers, industry drivers, and business performance general-
ize across businesses serving the U.S., U.K., Canadian, and
Western European markets was examined by viewing the lo-
cation of the served market as a potential moderator varia-
ble that could affect the strength (i.e., correlation) and/or
form (i.e., the magnitude of the estimated regression coeffi-
cient) of the hypothesized relationships.
Strength of the Reiationship
To test for the degree to which the LOSM moderates the re-
lationships between strategic levers/industry drivers and
business performance, the z-transformed correlations be-
tween each Xj and y were compared across the four Western
markets with a chi-square test with three degrees of free-

dom (Arnold 1982; Cohen and Cohen 1983). The respec-
tive z-transformed correlations and chi-square test results
are reported in Table 1. The findings reported in Table 1 in-
dicate that (1) the strength of the variable relationships dif-
fered significantly (p < .05) across the respective served
markets for only five of the 17 predictor variables (29.4%)
when profitability was the performance measure of interest
and (2) the strength of the relationships across markets did
not differ for any of the predictor variables when market
share was the associated factor of interest. Overall, these
findings indicate that the LOSM does not moderate the
strength of the relationship between marketing strategies/
marketplace conditions and the business's market share
performance, and only on an infrequent occassion does the
LOSM moderate the strength of the business's respective
financial performance relationships.
Form of the Reiationship
Moderated regression analysis (MRA) was used to test
whether the LOSM moderates the form of respective ex-
TABLE 1
z-Transformed Correlations Between the Respective Exogenous
and Endogenous
Variables by Location of the Served iVlarket
Exogenous Variabie
Strategic Levers:
Quality of customer service

Product quality
Product line breadth
New products
R&D expenditures
Backward vertical integration
Forward vertical integration
Advertising expenditures
Promotion expenditures
Sales force expenditures
Product price
Shared customers
Shared marketing programs
Shared facilities
industry Drivers:
Market growth rate
Industry concentration
iVlari(et Share:
Relative market share
Endogenous

Variabie
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI
MS
ROI

MS
ROI
MS
ROI
ROI
MS
ROI
ROI
The U.S.
Mari(et
.30
.15
.40
.26
.38
.16
-.02
-.07
.08
-.11
.10

.06
.08
.20
.24
.14
.22
.13
.09
.04
.17
.05
.01
.05
-.01
.01
.03
-.07
.05
.07

.02
.38
The U.K.
iVlarl<et
.29
.13
.55
.27
.45
.06
-.04
-.08
.01
-.11
.06
-.18
.12
-.07
.31
.23

.21
.19
.16
.01
.27
.14
.05
.10
.03
.08
.01
.01
.14
.37
.20
.41
The
Canadian
iUlari(et

.31
.05
.38
.00
.35
-.09
.01
.35
.11
.06
.21
.01
.39
.12
.26
-.03
.19
-.04
.09
-.08

.16
.08
.03
.27
-.01
-.01
-.01
-.05
-.12
.16
-.01
.19
The Western
European
iVlarket
.38
.08
.49
.32
.56

.10
-.13
.05
.29
-.10
.05
-.10
.11
.06
.41
.15
.28
.10
-.02
.06
.30
.19
.08
.02
.00

.03
-.09
.05
.13
.18
.33
.34
.84
1.21
3.98
5.73
4.06
6.03
1.36
8.11"
1.93
2.24
3.41
10.58"
7.33
12.30"
4.27

3.91
.40
1.61
2.20
1.27
2.75
2.97
.68
4.00
1.11
.83
1.52
2.18
4.49
13.95"
13.91"
16.10"
3 MS is the relative markel share variable. ROI is the return on
investment variable.
^ The z-transformed correlations differed significantly across
the four markets at alpha ^ .05
ogenous-endogenous variable relationships specified in Fig-
ure 2 (Arnold 1982; Shanna, Durand, and Gur-Arie 1981;
Stone 1988). MRA is hierarchical regression with three equa-
tions and contingency effects modeled as interaction terms.

In a bivariate model with one moderator variable (m), the
three equations would be
(t) y = a + b,x;
(2) y = a + b|X +
(3) y = a + b,x +
; and
By examining the change in explained variance between var-
ious pairs of the three models, one can infer whether m is a
moderator variable, and if it is, what type. The change or ab-
sence of change in explained variance can be interpreted as
follows (see Arnold 1982; Sharma, Durand, and Gur-Arie
1981):
• Step I. If the change in the R^ for equation 3 over equation
2 is statistically significant, conclude that the factor moder-
ates the form of the relationship and proceed to Step 2. If the
change in explained variance is not significant, go to Step 3.
• Step 2. Detennine whether m is related to the criterion fac-
tor. If it is not related to the criterion variable, m is a pure
moderator (i.e., interacts with the predictor but is not related
to either the predictor or the criterion variable); otherwise m
is a quasi moderator variable (interacts with predictor and is
related to the criterion or predictor variable).
• Step 3. Determine whether m is related to the criterion vari-
able. If m is related to the criterion variable and the change

in R
̂ for equation 2 compared to equation 1 is statistically
significant, then m is not a moderator variable. Instead, m is
a predictor variable and equation 2 is the appropriate model.
On the other hand, if m does not interact with the predictor
variable and m is not related to the criterion variable, equa-
tion 1 is the appropriate model.
A summary of the MRA findings when market share
was the criterion variable and then when profitability was
the criterion variable is reported in Table 2. The MRA re-
sults strongly suggest that the LOSM does not moderate the
predictor-criterion relationships either when market share
or profitability is the criterion variable of interest. In both
cases, specifying the LOSM as an interaction term did not
increase significantly the explanatory power of the respec-
tive model. The change in R^ for equation 3 over equation
2 was only 3%, both when market share was the en-
dogenous variable and profit was the endogenous variable.
Both changes in explanatory power are nonsignificant (p >
.50). The MRA was also carried out with only the U.K., Ca-
nadian, and Western European subset of businesses to deter-
mine whether the disproportionate number of U.S. firms in
the sample could be masking the moderating effects of the
LOSM. The findings when k=3 were the same as when
k=4. The LOSM (k=3) neither moderated nor acted as a pre-
dictor of the business's market share or financial perfor-
mance. (Further MRA revealed that business type—i.e., in-
dustrial versus consumer—neither moderated nor predicted
performance effects.)
The failure to uncover significant moderator effects sug-
gested that we proceed to Step 3 of the MRA procedure to
examine whether the LOSM was related to either market
share or profitability. The analysis was carried out first by
calculating the change in explained variance for equation 2
versus equation 1 for the respective market share and prof-

itability models as reported in Table 2. The change in ex-
plained variance when market share and profitability were
the criterion factors, respectively, was near zero and nonsig-
nificant. Second, the categorical LOSM factor was modeled
as a series of dummy variables (n=3 dummy variables) and
regressed on market share and subsequently on profitability
to ascertain whether the LOSM was related to either market
share or profitability. The LOSM was found to explain just
.8% (nonsignificant) of the variance in market share and
just .2% (nonsignificant) of the variance in profitability.
Because the findings indicate that the LOSM is related
to neither market share nor profitability and does not mod-
erate the direct effects of strategic levers/industry drivers on
business performance, pooling the data across the U.S.,
U.K., Canadian, and European subsamples was considered
appropriate (i.e., the equivalent to equation 1). The decision
to pool the business data across markets was also reinforced
by the relative similarity in the values of the indirect effects
between any variable i and profitability across the four sub-
models (see Table 3). Examining the magnitude of the indi-
rect effects estimated for each of the four subsamples of busi-
nesses reveals that the differences across subsamples are rel-
atively small (cf. Slomczynski, Miller, and Kohn 1981).
Pooled Results
The results on the basis of analysis of the pooled sample of
businesses reported in Tables 3 and 4 provide insights into
the major explanators of business performance when serv-
ing the four Western markets. Regarding the market share
submodel, the findings (Table 4) revealed that 11 of the 15
paths (73.3%) between the respective exogenous variables
and market share were statistically or marginally significant
(p < .10). The four nonsignificant paths had backward and
forward vertical integration, shared marketing programs,

and market growth rate as the predictor variable, respec-
tively. Two factors having a significant coefficient (i.e.,
new products and sales force expenditures) were associated
with a negative sign, contrary to a priori expectations.
When profitability was the performance variable of inter-
est (Table 3), we found that nine of the 17 path coefficients
were statistically or marginally significant. However, five
of the variables' signs were opposite to the direction pre-
dicted. Forward and backward vertical integration, R&D, ex-
tent of sharing of facilities, and market growth rate showed
a negative relationship to profitability. In contrast, the find-
ings revealed that market share had a positive effect on
profit as expected, which was relatively large in magnitude
and virtually nonspurious (88.6% of the association was
nonspurious).
Findings from an analysis of the pooled data further re-
vealed that the direct effect of product quality on profit was
reinforced by the indirect effect of this exogenous variable
on business performance. They also suggested that the neg-
ative and direct effects of R&D and shared operating facili-
ties were tempered by the positive and indirect effects that
these two factors exerted on profits. Finally, market share
and product quality had the greatest effect on business prof-
its among the businesses in the pooled sample. The effect co-
efficients for market share and product quality were .31 and
.20, respectively, whereas the absolute value of the next larg-
est effect coefficient was (-).IO for R&D.
Discussion
Our findings have implications for two key questions faced
by managers of businesses competing in multinational mar-
kets: "Does a significant opportunity exist for standardiz-
ing the strategic resource mix across national markets?"
and "On which competitive strategy variables should inter-

national businesses place greater emphasis in their strategic
programs?"
Standardization Versus Adaptation of the
Strategic Resource Mix
In reference to strategy content, it has been argued that
adopting a standardized approach instead of a multidomes-
tic approach to serving multinational markets is desirable be-
cause sales can be increased by developing a consistent
image of the product across national markets; and costs can
be lowered by pooling production activities across coun-
tries, moving production to low-cost locations without rede-
fining the production process, and capturing the economies
associated with formulating and implementing a single mar-
keting plan (Walters 1986; Yip 1989). Advocates of multido-
mesdc strategies, in contrast, point out that because few mar-
TABLE 2
Moderated Regression Results for the Market Share and Profit
Modeis
Descriptive Statistics
iModel R2 p level AR2 p level
Market Share Modei:
(1) Market
structure.and
competitive
strategy^ .28 40.53 .0001

(2) Market
structure,
competitive
strategy,
and LOSM"
(3) Market
structure,
competitive
strategy, LOSM,
and their
interactions
Profit Modei:
(1) Market
structure,
competitive
strategy, and
market share*^
(2) Market
structure,
competitive
strategy,
market share,
and LOSM
.29 34.59 .0001 .01 1.17 >.5O
.32 10.87 .0001 .03 1.02 >.5O
.17 18.80 .0001
.18 16.21 .0001 .01 .89 >.5O
(3) Market

structure,
competitive
strategy,
market share, LOSM,
and their
interactions .21 5.53 .0001 .03 .76 >.5O
^Interpretation: Market structure and competitive strategy
variables were regressed as main effects on market share.
"LOSM is the "location of the served market" variable.
''Interpretation: Market structure, competitive strategy, and
market share variables were regressed as main effects on
profitability.
kets are exactly alike, some adaptadon of markedng pro-
grams is necessary to ensure that buyer needs are satisfied
effecdvely and sales maximized (Quelch and Hoff 1986;
Wills, Samli, and Jacobs 1991).
Our findings address the extent to which it would be de-
sirable for businesses to standardize their strategic resource
mix when serving muldple Westem markets. Failing to find
that strategic resource mix effects generalize across markets
would suggest that a standardized approach is not likely to
be effecdve for serving these markets, whereas finding that
performance reladonships generalize across markets sug-
gests that a standardized approach could be conducive to su-
perior performance. The findings suggest that a multina-
donal business that employs a similar pattem of resource al-
locadon among markedng mix variables when serving the
U.S., U.K., Canadian, and Western European markets
would find that, on average, the standardized approach
evokes similar performance responses in Westem markets.
Specifically, our findings show that the strength and form

of the relationships between the various marketing mix,
other competitive strategy, market structure, and business
performance factors are relatively similar across the four
markets. Hence, businesses may be better off standardizing
their strategic resource mix to capture the benefits pur-
ported to be associated with a standardized approach to serv-
ing muldple nadonal markets. However, further research di-
rected at the nature of the underlying reladonship between
a multinational business's strategic orientation and its mar-
ket share/financial performance is required to illuminate
fully this reladonship.
Reiative Emphasis on Competitive
Strategy Variabies
In addition to offering insights into the opportunity for em-
ploying a standardized resource mix with respect to market-
Standardization Versus Adaptation / 1 1
TABLE 3
Decomposition of Exogenous Variable Effects on Profitabiiity
by Location of Served Market and Pooled Sample
The U.S. Market The U.K. Market
independent
Variables
Hypothesized
Effect on
Profitabiiity
Direct Indirect Effect Totai

Effect Effect Coefficient r
Direct indirect Effect Totai
Effect Effect Coefficient r
Strategic Levers:
Product quality
Product line breadth
New products
R&D expenditures
Backward vertical integration
Fon/vard vertical integration
Sales force expenditures
Product price
Shared customers
Shared facilities
Industry Drivers:
Market growth rate
Market Share:
Relative market share
R 2 ( R 2 adj.)
F (p value)
MaxVIF=
df.
.01
.138

.00
.068
-.01
.03
.04
.02
-.03
-.04"
.078
.01
-.09
.068
.00
.318
.18 (.17)
15.35 (.0001)
1.94
1150
.03
.07
.08
-.02

.03
.01
.00
.03
.02
-.01
.02
.01
-.01
.02
.01
.03
.04
.20
.08
-.08
-.11
.00
.03
.07

.04
-.04
-.02
.08
.00
-.07
.07
.03
.31
.158
.258
.168
-.078
-.118
.068
.02
.148
.138
.04
.05
.05

.00
-.088
.05"
.02
.368
.06
.06
-.06
-.07
-.09
-.188
-.07
.07
.12"
-.09
.04
-.01
.09
.00
.138
.06
.328

.05
.10
.10
-.02
.01
-.03
.01
.02
.03
.00
.01
.00
.01
.05
.00
.07
_
.28 (.20)
3.64 (.0001)
2.05

161
.11
.16
.04
-.09
-.08
-.21
-.06
.09
.15
-.09
.05
-.01
.10
.05
.13
.13
.32
.13"
.268
.06

-.08
-.11
-.188
-.07
.238
.198
.01
.14"
.10
.08
.01
.14
.208
.398
The Canadian Market The Western European Market
Hypothesized
Independent Effect on
Variabies Profitability
Strategic Levers:
Quality of customer service + / -
Product quality +/-
Product line breadth + / -
New products + / -

R&D expenditures +
Backward vertical integration +
Fonward vertical integration +
Advertising expenditures +/-
Promotion expenditures + / -
Sales force expenditures +/-
Product price + / -
Shared customers +
Shared marketing programs +
Shared facilities +
Industry Drivers:
Market growth rate +
Industry concentration +
Market Share:
Relative market share +
R2 ( R 2 adj.)
F (p value)
Max VIF<=
df.
Direct
Effect
.18
-.06
-.11
-.398
.03
-.04
-.04
.01

.11
-.16
.16
.358
-.15
-.05
-.12
.00
.16
.31 (.13)
1.76 (.05)
2.35
68
indirect
Effect
.02
.04
.03
-.02
.01
.01
.06

.03
-.02
-.02
-.01
.01
-.02
.01
.00
.04
Effect
Coefficient
.20
-.02
-.08
-.41
.04
-.03
.02
.04
.09
-.18
.15
.36

-.17
-.04
-.12
.04
.16
Totai
r
.05
.00
-.098
-.348
.06
.01
.12
-.03
-.04
-.08
.08
.278
.00
-.05
-.12
-.01

.19"
Direct
Effect
.02
.22"
-.04
.01
-.208
-.148
-.14"
-.01
-.05
-.10
.07
-.03
.01
-.10
.02
.238
.288
indirect
Effect
.03
.04

.09
-.03
.05
.02
-.01
.03
.06
-.06
.05
.00
.01
-.03
.01
.06
.28 (.16)
2.20 (.008)
2.24
95
Effect
Coefficient
.05

.26
.05
-.02
-.15
-.12
-.15
.02
.01
.04
.12
-.03
.02
-.13
.03
.298
.28
Totai
r
.18"
.318
.10
-.05
-.10

-.10
-.06
.15
.10
.06
.198
.02
.03
.05
.13
.328
.33
TABLE 3
Continued
Pooled Sample
Independent
Variables
Strategic Levers:

Product quaiity
Product iine breadth
New products
R&D expenditures
Backward verticai integration
Forward vertical integration
Saies force expenditures
Product price
Shared customers
Shared facilities
Industry Drivers:
Market growth rate
Market Share:
Reiative market share
R2 ( R 2 adj.)
F (p value)
Max ViF<:
df.
Hypothesized
Effect on Direct
Profltabiiity Effect
+/- .02
+ / - .13a
+ / - -.03
+/- -.06a

+ -.13a
+ -.04''
+ -.04''
+/- .03
+/- .03
+ / - -.03
+ / - -.02
+ .07a
+ .02
+ -.07a
+ .07a
+ .01
+ .3ia
.17 (.16]
Indirect
Effect
.04
.07
.08
-.02
.03
.01
.01
.03

.02
-.02
.02
.01
-.01
.02
.01
.05
-
1
18.80 (.0001)
1.83
1525
Effect
Coefficient
.06
.20
.05
-.08
-.10
-.03
-.03

.06
.05
-.05
.00
.08
.01
-.05
.08
.06
.31
Total
r
.14a
.24a
.13a
-:07a
-.10a
.01
.01
.15a
!i3a
.03

.07a
.06
.02
-.05a
.05a
.07a
.35a
a Significant at aipha ^ .05
'' Significant at aipha > .10
"= Max VIF (i.e., the maximum variance infiation vaiue
associated with any one of the predictor variables in the
respective model) provides a
formal method for detecting the presence of multicoiiinearity. A
Max ViF in excess of 10 is often taken as an indication that
multicoilinearity
may be unduly influencing the ieast squares estimates (Neter,
Wasserman, and Kutner 1990).
ing mix variables for serving Westem markets, our findings
provide managers with insights into the factors that multina-
tional businesses should emphasize in their marketing strat-
egies. Specifically, offering a broad product line and selling
high-quality products with high levels of customer service
seem to be especially conducive to superior market share per-
formance. Selling high-quality goods, integrating vertically,
focusing on new products, following a strategy of increas-
ing market share, sharing customers among business units,
and competing in high-growth markets appear to be condu-
cive to superior financial performance. The sign of the rela-
tionship between R&D expenditures and profitability re-
ported in Table 3 is contrary to a priori expectations, and

this finding should be weighed against the fact that invest-
ments in R&D are often characterized by relatively long ges-
tation periods and investment-profitability lags (Raven-
scraft and Scherer 1982) that could not be captured in this
study.
The findings also lend support for efficiency and mar-
ket power theories (Day and Montgomery 1983; Buzzell
and Gale 1987; Martin 1988; Schroeter 1988; Staten, Um-
beck and Dunkelberg 1988) by demonstrating that the mar-
ket share-profit relationship is positive and statistically sig-
nificant and nonspurious. Though, in our model, we were un-
able to control for all factors that may be related to market
share and profitability or capture the underlying relation-
ship between these two factors (e.g., focusing on more ma-
ture businesses), the findings suggest that on average pursu-
ing a strategy of building market share within various West-
em markets can be conducive to achieving superior finan-
cial perfonnance. The results further suggest that marketing
communications are crucial to a business's market share per-
formance in particular, capturing perhaps the reduced price
sensitivity (cf. Comanor and Wilson 1967; Nelson 1974,
1975; Klein and Leffier 1981), stronger brand preferences,
and brand loyalty (Schultz and Vanbonacker 1978) among
buyers often associated with products that are intensely pro-
moted. Finally, the findings indicate that the breadth of the
product line impacts profits not directly, but indirectly by
market share. The latter finding accents the critical nature
of fully examining and taking into account both the direct
and indirect factors impacting business performance.
Limitations of the Study and
Directions for Further Research
The limitations of our study should also be considered

when interpreting our findings. Moreover, some of the
study's limitations are suggestive of directions for fiirther re-
search efforts. For example, future studies should extend
the analysis to include additional national markets as well
as closely examine the appropriateness of treating Westem
Europe as a single segment as we and others have done
(Ayal 1981; Anderson and Coughlan 1987; Boyd and Ray
1971; Lillien and Weinstein 1984). Future studies might
also (1) adopt a longitudinal approach; (2) expand the set of
predictor variables to include other strategic levers such as
TABLE 4
Exogenous Variable Effects on Market Share by Location of the
Served ii/larket
Hypothesized
Exogeneous Effect on
Variable Mari«tShai
Strategic Levers:
Quaiity of customer service +/-
Product quality +/-
Product line breadth +
New product +/o
R&D expenditures +
Backward verticai integration +
Fonward verticai integration +
Advertising expenditures +
Promotion expenditures +
Sales force expenditures +
Product price +/-

Shared customers +
Shared mari<eting programs -t-
Shared facilities -t-
industry Driver:
Mari<et growth rate +
R^ (R^ adj.)
F (p ievel)
Max ViF
df.
U.S.Maricet
Beta
.12
.22
.24
-.08
.10
.02
.01
.09
.05
-.05
.05
.03
-.01
.07
.04

.26
26.71
1.94
1152
t
3.85a
7.01a
8.72a
-3.06a
3.70a
.72
.38
2.79a
1.55
-1.62
1.98"
1.15
-.49
2.40a
1.35
(.25)
(.0001)
U.K.Martet
Beta

.14
.36
.33
-.09
.04
-.08
.05
.09
.06
.04
.04
-.04
.10
.16
.05
t
2.22a
5.13a
4.92a
-1.52
.57
-1.24
.72
1.08
.77

.53
.62
-.52
1.26
2.19a
.72
0.42 (.37)
7.91 (.0001)
2.03
163
Canadian iUlarket
Beta
.13
.28
.16
-.07
.03
.02
.38
.18
-.11
-.06
-.06
.10
-.06

.05
-.01
t
.94
1.94"
1.36
-.67
.24
.18
3.22a
1.24
-.75
-.50
-.52
.84
-.51
.38
-.11
.35 (.21)
2.53 (.005)
2.34
70
European Market
Beta
.12

.19
.31
-.12
.16
.05
-.05
.14
.18
-.20
.13
-.01
.02
-.03
.08
t
1.16
1.78"
3.40a
-1.50
2.13a
.55
-.60
1.55
1.87"

-2.25a
1.32
-.11
.27
-.26
.99
.49 (.42)
6.25 (.0001)
2.15
97
Pooled Sampie
Beta
.12
.22
.25
-.09
.09
.01
.03
.12
.05
-.05
.06
.05
-.02

.05
.03
t
4.60a
8.29a
10.69a
-3.97a
4.03a
.53
1.36
4.32a
1.84"
-2.25a
2.50a
1.85"
-.62
2.23a
1.21
.28 (.28)
40.53 (.0001)
1.83
1527
asignificant at p ^ 0.05
"Significant at p < 0.10
distribution intensity and firm-specific assets (e.g., manage-

ment skills, corporate reputation/image, and corporate/
brand equity) and industry and firm drivers of business per-
formance that are not specified in our model; and (3) exam-
ine whether the findings based on an analysis of the PIMS
businesses generalize to the broader spectrum of non-PIMS
businesses.
Also, additional studies might examine more fully the de-
sired degree of standardization of individual marketing mix
elements across national markets. These implementation is-
sues include the content of advertisements and promotions
(Cavusgil and Nevin 1981; Gilly 1988), governance struc-
ture of channels of distribution (e.g., Anderson and Cough-
lan 1987), administration of shared programs, personal sell-
ing strategies appropriate within each foreign market, and
so on. Though we offer evidence to suggest that the pattern
of allocation of resources among marketing mix variables
could be standardized across Westem markets, the extent to
which the content of marketing strategy and individual mar-
keting mix elements should be standardized across national
markets or adapted to individual national markets is not ad-
dressed in this study. To varying degrees, adapting the con-
tent of marketing mix elements to match the needs of na-
tional markets being served can be important to both the
short- and long-run success of multinational businesses. For
instance, an important macroenvironmental dimension with
respect to which differences exist across the four markets ex-
amined (but were not examined because of data constraints
associated with the PIMS data base) are those regarding the
regulations governing the content of advertising, media
through which goods and services can be advertised, and
types of sales promotion programs that can be employed.
Colvin, Heeler, and Thorpe's (1980, p. 73) discussion on im-
plementation issues in terms of pattern standardization is
particularly pertinent in reference to the latter issue. Here, a

strategy is designed from the outset to be susceptible to ex-
tensive modification to suit local conditions while maintain-
ing sufficient common elements to nunimize the drain on re-
sources and management. Examining these and other issues
would add significantly to the limited body of empirical ev-
idence available that addresses determinants of business per-
formance across national markets.
REFERENCES
Aaker, David A. and Robert Jacobson (1987), "The Role of Risk
in Explaining Differences in Profitability," Academy of Man-
agement Journal, 30 (June), 277-96.
Abegglen, James C. and George Stalk, Jr. (1985), KAISHA, The
Japanese Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
Amihud, Yakov and Baruch Lev (1981), "Risk Reduction as a
Managerial Motive for Conglomerate Mergers," The Belt Jour-
nal of Economics, 12 (Autumn), 605-17.
Anderson, Carl R. and Frank T Paine (1978), "PIMS: A
Reexam-
ination," Academy of Management Review, 4 (July), 602-12.
Anderson, Erin (1988), "Strategic Implications of Darwinian
Ec-
onomics for Selling Efficiency and Choice of Integrated or In-
dependent SalesfoTces,"Management Science, 34 (May), 599-
618.
and Anne T. Coughlan (1987), "International Market
Entry and Expansion via Independent or Integrated Channels
of Distribution," Joumat of Marketing, 51 (January), 71-82.
Anderson, Ronald and Jack Engledow (1977), " A Factor

Analytic
Comparison of U.S. and German Information Seekers," Jour-
nal of Consumer Research, 3 (March), 185-96.
Archer, Margaret (1990), "Theory, Culture and Post-Industrial
So-
ciety," in Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Mod-
ernity, Mike Featherstone, ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publi-
cations, Inc.
Arnold, Harvey J. (1982), "Moderator Variables: A Clarification
of Conceptual, Analytic, and Psychometric Issues," Organiza-
tional Behavior and Human Performance, 29 (April), 143-74.
(1984), "Testing Moderator Variable Hypotheses: A
Reply to Stone and Hollenbeck," Organizational Behavior
and Human Performance, 34, 214-24.
Assmus, Gert, John V. Farley, and Donald R. Lehmann (1984),
"How Advertising Affects Sales: Meta-Analysis of Economet-
ric Results," Joumai of Marketing Research, 21 (February),
65-74.
Ayal, Igal (1981), "International Product Life Cycle: A Reas-
sessment and Product Policy Implications," Joumai of Market-
ing, 45 (Fall), 91-6.
and Seev Hirsch (1982), "Marketing Factors in Small
Country Manufactured Exports: Are Market Share and Market
Growth Rate Really Important?," Joumai of International Busi-
ness Studies, 13 (Fall), 73-84.

Bain, Joe S. (1951), "Relation of Profit Rate to Industry
Concen-
tration: American Manufacturing 1936-1940," Quarterly Jour-
nal of Economics, 65 (August), 293-324.
(1956), Barriers to Competition. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Banker, Rajiv D., Srikant M. Datar, and Sunder Kekre (1988),
"Relevant Costs Congestion and Stochasticity in Production En-
vironments," Journal of Accounting and Economics, 10
(April), 171-98.
Barksdale, Hiram C , William D. Perreault Jr., Johan Amdt, J.
A.
Bamhill, Warren A. French, Michael Halliday, and Jehiel Zif
(1982), " A Cross-National Survey of Consumer Attitudes To-
wards Marketing Practices, Consumerism and Government Reg-
ulations," Columbia Joumai of World Business, 17 (Summer),
71-86.
Bass, Frank M., Phillippe J. Cattin, and Dick R. Wittink (1978),
"Firm Effects and Industry Effects in the Analysis of Market
Structure and Profitability," Joumai of Marketing Research,
15 (February), 3-10.
Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc. (1982), New Product
Management
for the 1980s. New York: Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, Inc.
Boyd, Harper W. and Michael L. Ray (1971), "What Big Agency
Men in Europe Think of Copy Testing Methods," Joumai of
Marketing Research, 8 (May), 219-23.
Buzzell, Robert D. (1983), "Is Vertical Integration Profitable?"
Harvard Business Review, 61 (January-February), 92-102.

and Bradley T Gale (1987), The PIMS Principles: Link-
ing Strategy to Performance. New York: The Free Press.
and Frederik D. Wiersema (1981a), "Successful Share-
Building Strategies," Harvard Business Review, 59 (Januaiy-
February), 135-44.
and (1981b), "Modelling Changes in Market
Share: A Cross-Sectional Analysis," Strategic Management
Joumai, 2 (January-March), 27-42.
Capon, Noel, John U. Farley, and Scott Hoenig (1990), "Deter-
minants of Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis," Manage-
ment Science, 36 (October), 1143-59.
Cateora, Philip R. and Susan Keaveney (1987), Marketing: An
In-
ternational Perspective. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc.
Cavusgil, Tamer S. and John R. Nevin (1981), "The State of the
Art in International Marketing: An Assessment," in Review of
Marketing, Ben Enis and Ken Roering, eds. Chicago: Ameri-
can Marketing Association.
Chandler, A. (1977), The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revo-
lution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
Cohen, Jacob and Patricia Cohen (1983), Applied Multiple Re-
gression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Colvin, Michael, Roger Heeler, and Jim Thorpe (1980), "Devel-
oping International Advertising Strategy," Joumai of Market-

ing, 44 (Fall), 73-9.
Comanor, William S. and Thomas A. Wilson (1967), "Adver-
tising, Market Structure and Performance," Review of Econom-
ics and Statistics, 49 (November), 423-40.
Cooper, Robert G. (1986), Winning at New Products. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
Craig, C. Samuel, Susan P. Douglas, and Srinivas K. Reddy
(1987), "Market Structure, Performance and Strategy: A Com-
parison of U.S. and European Markets," in Advances in Inter-
national Marketing, Vol. 2, S. Tamer Cavusgil, ed. Greenwich,
CT: JAI Press, Inc., 1-21.
Davidson, Hugh J. (1976),'Why Most New Consumer Brands
Fail," Harvard Business Review, 54 (March- April), 117-20.
Day, George S. and David B. Montgomery (1983), "Diagnosing
the Experience Curve," Joumai of Marketing, 47 (Spring), 4 4 -
58.
Demetz, Harold (1973), "Industry Structure, Market Rivalry,
and
Public Policy," Joumai of Law and Economics, 16 (April), 1-
19.
Domowitz, Ian, Glenn R. Hubbard and Bruce C. Petersen
(1986),
' 'Business Cycles and the Relationship Between Concentration
and Price-Cost Margins," The Rand Joumai of Economics, 17
(Spring), 1-17.
Douglas, Susan P. (1976), "Cross-National Comparisons and
Con-
sumer Stereotypes: A Case Study of Working and Non-work-

ing Wives in the U.S. and France," Joumai of Consumer Re-
search, 3 (June), 12-20.
(1978), " A Cross-National Exploration of Husband-
Wife Involvement in Selected Household Activities," in Ad-
vances in Consumer Research, Vol. 6, William L. Wilkie, ed.
Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
and C. Samuel Craig (1983), "Examining Performance
of U.S. Multinationals in Foreign Markets," Joumai of Inter-
national Business Studies, 14 (Winter), 51-62.
and (1991), "Spatial Dimensions of Inter-
national Markets," in Research in Marketing, Suppl. 5, Avijit
Ghosh and Charles A. Ingene, eds. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press,
Inc.
and Dong Kee Rhee (1989), "Examining Generic Com-
petitive Strategy Types in U.S. and European Markets," Jour-
nal of International Business Studies, 20 (Fall), 437-63.
and Christine D. Urban (1977), "Life-Style Analysis to
Profile Women in International Markets," Journal of Mar-
keting, 41 (July), 46-54.
Dudley, James W. (1990), 1992 Understanding the New
European
Market. Dearborn, MI: Financial Publishing Inc.
Farris, Paul W. and David J. Reibstein (1979), "How Prices, Ad
Expenditures, and Profits Are Linked', Harvard Business Re-
view, 57 (November-December), 173-84.
Gale, Bradley and Ben Branch (1982), "Concentration Versus
Mar-
ket Share: What Determines Performance and Why Does It

MaX.-
t&Tl" Antitrust Bulletin, 27 (Spring), 83-106.
Garvin, David A. (1988), Managing Quality. New York: The
Free
Press.
Gatignon, Hubert and Erin Anderson (1987), "The Multinational
Corporation's Degree of Control Over Foreign Subsidiaries:
An Empirical Tfest of the Transaction Cost Explanation," Jour-
nal oflMw, Economics, and Organization, 4 (Fall), 305-36.
Ghoshal, Sumantra (1987), "Global Strategy: An Organizing
Framework," Strategic Management Joumai, 8 (September-
October), 4 2 5 ^ 0 .
Gilly, Mary C. (1988), "Sex Roles in Advertising: A
Comparison
of Television Advertisements in Australia, Mexico, and the
United States," Joumai of Marketing, 52 (April), 75-85.
Goodnow, James D. and J. Hansz (1972), "Environmental De-
terminants of Overseas Market Entry Strategies," Joumat of In-
temational Business Studies, 2 (Spring), 33-60.
Hagerty, Michael R., James M. Carman, and Gary J. Russell
(1988), "Estimating Elasticities with PIMS Data: Methodolog-
ical Issues and Substantive Implications," Joumat of Market-
ing Research, 25 (February), 1-9.
Hambrick, Donald C. and Steven M. Schecter (1983), ""nima-
round Strategies for Mature Industrial-Product Business

Units," Academy of Management Joumat, 26 (June), 231-48.
Harrigan, Kathryn R. (1984), "Formulating Vertical Integration
Strategies," Academy of Management Review, 9 (October),
638-52.
(1985), Strategic Flexibitity: A Management Guide for
Changing Times. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Hayes, Robert H. and William J. Abemathy (1980), "Managing
Our Way To Economic Decline," Harvard Business Review,
58 (July-August), 67-77.
, Steven Wheelwright, and Kim B. Clark (1988), Dy-
namic Manufacturing. New York: The Free Press.
Henderson, James M. and Richard E. Quandt (1980),
Microecon-
omic Theory: A Mathematical Approach. New York: McGraw-
Hill, Inc.
Hester, Susan B. and Mary Yuen (1987),' 'The Influence of
Coun-
try of Origin on Consumer Attitude and Buying Behavior in
the United States and Canada," in Advances in Consumer Re-
search, Melanie Wallendorf and Paul Anderson, eds. Provo,
UT: Association of Consumer Research, 538-42.
Huszagh, Sandra M., Richard J. Fox, and Ellen Day (1986),
"Global Marketing: An Empirical Investigation," Columbia
Journal of World Business, 21 (Twentieth Anniversary Issue),
31-44.
Jain, Subhash C. (1989), "Standardization of Intemational Mar-
keting Strategy: Some Research Hypotheses," Journal of Mar-
keting, 53 (January), 70-9.

Johnson, Thomas H. and Robert. S. Kaplan (1987), Relevance
Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Karmarkar, Uday S. (1987), "Lotsizing, Manufacturing Lead
Times and Utilization," Management Science, 13 (March),
419-23.
Kekre, Sunder (1987), "Perfonnance of Manufacturing Cell with
Increased Product Mix," HE Transactions, 19 (September),
329-39.
Kerin, Roger A., Vijay Mahajan and P. Rajan Varadarajan
(1990),
Contemporary Perspectives on Strategic Market Planning. Bos-
ton: AUyn and Bacon.
Klein, Benjamin and Keith B. Leffler (1981), "The Role of Mar-
ket Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance," Journal of
Political Economy, 89 (August), 615-41.
Kotabe, Masaaki (1990), "Corporate Policy and Innovative
Behav-
ior of European and Japanese Multinationals: An Empirical
Investigation," Journal of Marketing, 54 (April), 19-33.
and Janet Y. Murray (1990), "Linking Product and Pro-
cess Innovations and Modes of International Sourcing in
Global Competition: A Case of Foreign Multinational Firms,"
Journal of Intemational Business Studies, 21 (Third Quarter),
383-408.
-and Glenn S. Omura (1989), "Sourcing Strategies of Eu-
ropean and Japanese Multinationals: A Comparison," Joumal
of Intemational Business Studies, 20 (Spring), 113-30.

Lecraw, Donald J. (1983), "Performance of Transnational Cor-
porations in Less Developed Countries," Journal of Intema-
tional Business Studies, 14 (Spring/Summer), 15-33.
(1984), "Diversification Strategy and Performance,"
The Industrial Journal of Economics, 33 (Spring/Summer),
179-98.
Lehmann, Donald R. and John O'Shaughnessy (1974), "Differ-
ences in Attribute Importance for Different Industrial Prod-
ucts," Joumal of Marketing, 38 (April), 36-42.
Lemelin, A. (1982), "Relatedness in the Patterns of Intra-
Industry
Diversification," The Review of Economics and Statistics, 64
(November), 646-57.
Levitt, Theodore (1983), "The Globalization of Markets," Har-
vard Business Review, 61 (May-June), 92-102.
Lewis, Barbara R. (1991), "Service Quality: An Intemational
Com-
parison of Bank Customers' Expectations and Perceptions,"
Joumal of Marketing Management, 7 (January), 47-62.
Lillien, Gary L. and David Weinstein (1984), "An Intemational
Comparison of the Determinants of Industrial Marketing Expen-
ditures," Joumal of Marketing, 48 (Winter), 46-53.
Lubben, Richard T. (1988), Just-in-Time Manufacturing. New
York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Maidique, Modesto A. Robert H. Hayes (1984), "The Art of
High-

Technology Management," Sloan Management Review, 26
(Winter), 1-31.
Manu, Franklyn A. (1992), "Innovation Orientation,
Environment
and Performance: A Comparison of U.S. and European Mar-
kets," Joumal of Intemational Business Studies, 23 (Second
Quarter), 333-59.
Marshall, Cheri T. and Robert D. Buzzell (1990), "PIMS and the
FTC Line-Of-Business Data: A Comparison," Strategic Man-
agement Joumal, 11 (May-June), 269-82.
Martin, Stephen (1988), "Market Power and/or Efficiency," Re-
view of Economics and Statistics, 70 (August), 331-5.
McClain, John O. and L. Joseph Thomas (1980), Operations
Man-
agement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Michael, Robert T. and Gary S. Becker (1973), "On the New
The-
ory of Consumer Behavior," Swedish Journal of Economics,
75 (December), 378-95.
Miller, Jeffrey G. and Thomas E. Vollman (1985), "The Hidden
Factory,'' Harvard Business Review, 63 (September-October),
142-50.
Monroe, Kent B. and R. Krishnan (1984), "Effects of Price on
Sub-
jective Product Evaluations," in Perceived Quality: How Con-
sumers View Merchandise in Stores, J. Jacoby and J. Olson,
eds. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Nayyar, Praveen R. (1990), "Information Asymmetries: A

Source
of Competitive Advantage for Diversified Service Firms," Stra-
tegic Management Joumal, 11 (November-December): 513-9.
Nelson, Philip (1974), "Information and Consumer Behavior,"
Joumal of Political Economy, 81 (July-August), 729-54.
(1975), "The Economic Consequences of Advertising,"
Joumal of Business, 48 (April), 213-41.
Neter, John, William Wasserman, and Michael H. Kutner
(1990),
Applied Linear Regression Models. Homewood, IL: Richard
D. Irwin, Inc.
Ohmae, Kenichi (1987), "The Triad Worid View," Journal of
Business Strategy, 7 (Spring), 8-19.
Pedhazur, E.J. (1982), Multiple Regression in Behavioral Re-
search. Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc..
Peters, Thomas J. and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. (1982), In
Search
of Excellence: Lessons From America's Best Run Companies.
New York: Harper & Row.
Phillips, Lynn W , Dae R. Chang, and Robert D. Buzzell (1983),
"Product Quality, Cost Position and Business Performance: A
Test of Some Key Hypotheses," Journal of Marketing, 47
(Spring), 26-43.
Quelch, John A. and E. J. Hoff (1986), "Customizing Global
Mar-
keting," Harvard Business Review, 64 (May-June), 59-68.
Rao, Ram C. and David P. Rutenberg (1979), "Preempting an

Alert Rival: Strategic Timing of the First Plant by Analysis of
Sophisticated Rivalry," The Bell Joumal of Economics, 10 (Au-
tumn), 412-28.
Ravenscraft, David J. (1983), "Structure-Profit Relationships at
the Line of Business and Industry Level," Review of Econom-
ics and Statistics, 65 (February), 22-3 L
and Frederic M. Scherer (1982), "The Lag Structure of
Returns to Research and Development," Applied Economics,
14 (December), 602-20.
Riesenbeck, Hajo and Anthony Freeling (1991), "How Global
are
Global Brands?" The McKinsey Quarterly, 4, 3-18.
Roth, Kendall, David M. Schweiger, and Allen J. Morrison
(1991), "Global Strategy Implementation at the Business Unit
Level: Operational Capabilities and Administrative Mecha-
nisms," Journal of International Business Studies, 22 (Third
Quarter), 369-402.
Rumelt, Richard (1982), "Diversification Strategy and Profita-
bility," Strategic Management Journal, 3 (October-Decem-
ber), 359-69.
(1991), "How Much Does Industry Matter?" 5/ra-
tegic Management Journal, 12 (March), 167-85.
Samiee, Saeed and Kendall Roth (1992), " T h e Influence of
Global Marketing Standardization on Performance," Journal

of Marketing, 56 (April), 1-17.
Samli, Coskun A. (1977), "An Approach for Estimating Mar-
ket Potential in East Europe," Journal of International Busi-
ness Studies, 8 (Fall-Winter), 49-54.
Scherer, Frederic M. (1980), Industrial Market Structure and
Economic Performance. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.
Schroeter, John R. (1988), "Estimating the Degree of Market
Power in the Beef Packing Industry," Review of Economics
and Statistics, 70 (February), 158-62.
Schultz, Randall R. and W. G. Vanbonacker (1978), " A Study
of Promotion and Price Elasticity," Paper #657, Institute for Re-
search in the Behavioral, Economic and Management Sci-
ences, Purdue University.
Sethi, Prakash S. (1971), "Comparative Cluster Analysis for
World Markets," Journal of Marketing Research, 8 (August),
348-54.
Sharma, Subash, Richard M. Durand, and Oded Gur-Arie
(1981), "Identification and Analysis of Moderator Variables,"
Journal of Marketing Research, 18 (August), 291-300.
Slomczynski, Kazimierz M., Joanne Miller, and Melvin L.
Kohn (1981), "Stratification, Work and Values: A Polish-
United States Comparison," American Sociological Review,
46 (December), 7 2 0 - ^ .
Smirlock, Michael, Thomas Gilligan, and William Marshall
(1984), "Tobin's q and the Structure-Performance Relation-
ship," American Economic Review, 74 (December), 1051-60.
Smith, Anthony D. (1990), "Towards a Global Culture?" in

Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity,
Mike Featherstone, ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications
Inc.
Staten, Michael, John Umbeck, and William Dunkelberg
(1988), "Market Share/Market Power Revisited," Journal of
Health Economics, 1 (March), 73-83.
Stone, Eugene F. (1988), "Moderator Variables in Research: A
Review and Analysis of Conceptual and Methodological Is-
sues," in Research in Personnel and Human Resources Man-
agement, Vol 6, G.R. Ferris and K.M. Rowland, eds.
Greenwich, CT: Jai Press, Inc.
Szymanski, David M., Sundar G. Bharadwaj, and P. Rajan Var-
adarajan (1993), "An Analysis of the Market Share-Profitabil-
ity Relationship," Journal of Marketing, 57 (July), 1-18.
Takada, Hirokazu and Dipak Jain (1991), "Cross-National Anal-
ysis of Diffusion of Consumer Durable Goods in Pacific Rim
Countries," Journal of Marketing, 55 (April), 48-54.
Takeuchi, Hirotaka and Michael E. Porter (1986), "Three
Roles of International Marketing in Global Strategy," in Com-
petition in Global Industries, Michael E. Porter, ed. Boston:
Harvard Business School Press, 111-46.
Tellis, Gerard J. (1988), "The Price Elasticity of Selective De-
mand: A Meta-Analysis of Econometric Models of Sales,"
Journal of Marketing Research, 25 (November), 331-41.
Terpstra, Vem (1988), International Dimensions of Marketing.
Bos-
ton: PWS-Kent Publishing.
Tillier, Alan (1992), Doing Business in Today's Westem

Europe.
Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books.
Varadarajan, P. Rajan and William R. Dillon (1982), "Intensive
Growth Strategies," Journal of Business Research, 9 (De-
cember), 49-64.
Walters, Peter G. (1986), "International Marketing PoUcy: A
Dis-
cussion of the Standardization Construct and Its Relevance for
Corporate Policy," Journal of International Business Stud-
ies," 17 (Summer), 55-69.
Ward, Scott, Thomas S. Robertson, Donna M. Klees, and Hubert
Gatigon (1986), "Children's Purchase Requests and Parental
Yielding: A Cross-National Study," in Advances in Consumer
Research, Vol 13, Richard J. Lutz, ed. Provo, UT: Association
for Consumer Research, 629-32.
Weiss, L. W. (1974), "The Concentration-Profits Relationship
and Antitrust," in Industrial Concentration: The New Learn-
ing, H.J. Goldschmid et al., eds. Boston: Little Brown.
Wells, John (1984), In Search of Synergy. Unpublished doctoral
dis-
sertation. Harvard University.
Williamson, Oliver (1975), Markets and Hierarchies. New York:
The Free Press.
Wills, James, A. Coskun Samli, and Lawrence Jacobs (1991),
"De-
veloping Global Products and Marketing Strategies: A Con-
struct and Research Agenda," Journal of Academy of Market-
ing Science, 19 (Winter), 1-10.

Wind, Yoram (1986), "The Myth of Globalization," Journal of
Consumer Marketing, 3 (Spring), 23-6.
Woo, Carolyn (1987), "Path Analysis of the Relationship Be-
tween Market Share, Business-Level Conduct and Risk," Stra-
tegic Management Journal, 8 (September), 149-68.
and Arnold C. Cooper (1985), "Corporate Settings of Ef-
fective Low-Share Businesses," in Strategic Marketing and
Management, H. Thomas and D. Gardner, eds. New York:
John Wily and Sons, 465-81.
Yip, George S. (1989), "Global Strategy: In a World of Na-
tions?," Sloan Management Review, 31 (Fall), 29-41.
(1991), " A Performance Comparison of Continental
and National Businesses in Europe," International Marketing
Review, 8 (July), 31-9.

How your product solves customers problems or improves their si.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to How your product solves customers problems or improves their si.docx

Similar to How your product solves customers problems or improves their si.docx (20)

More from pooleavelina

More from pooleavelina (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

How your product solves customers problems or improves their si.docx