Marketing Channel Management by Multinational Corporations in Foreign Markets: An Integrative Framework and a Research Agenda

Abstract

Multinational corporations (MNCs) adopt increasingly diverse and complex marketing channels to sell their products worldwide, thus prompting questions about how to manage channels that confront diverse demands from headquarters (HQ), foreign subsidiaries, and local partners, as well as complex market environments. Extant research on MNC marketing channels remains sparse. In response, the current article proposes an organizing framework to spur and guide research on MNC channel management. The authors rely on a political economy framework as a meta-theory that integrates economic and social elements of MNC channel management, resulting in two testable frameworks pertaining to the determinants of the (1) MNC marketing channel structures and processes and (2) MNC marketing channel outcomes. Building on this framework, the authors advance an agenda for research, which includes testing substantive relationships, elaborating new constructs, and studying new contexts pertaining to MNC marketing channels. A set of propositions illustrates the applicability of the conceptual frameworks.

Keywords: Distribution Channel, International Business, Meta-Theory, Multination Corporation, Subsidiary Management

JEL Classification: K0, L2, M0, Z1