Global Integration of Brands and New Product Development at General Motors

Abstract

The rapidly globalizing marketplace reflects environmental characteristics requiring the development of unique capabilities that enable the firm to create competitive advantages. Correspondingly, this study addresses challenges faced by managers in a large company with a broad global footprint as it integrates the product development process and the portfolio of brands across geographic markets. In a global organization, the unique dynamic capabilities that need to be developed include a global orientation, global market knowledge competencies, and global coordination. The present study considers these capabilities with respect to process, position, and evolutionary history of the firm and its brands. Qualitative research methodology is employed to explore the phenomenon of moving products and brands from multidomestic to global. The findings indicate the structure of a global brand portfolio evolves through complex interactions among new product development, marketing, and brand management. Overall, the organization’s current positions and past history form the basis of the ways routines, practices, and means of learning are combined and coordinated to implement product decisions that support brand objectives. A Note from the Authors Since this paper was accepted, and prior to publication, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. It then emerged from bankruptcy with a great deal of aid from the American government. There are important considerations that arise from this circumstance, some of which have relevance to the future of the intersection of branding and product development in this company. However, these future considerations are secondary to the study presented in this paper for a number of reasons. First, academic study is meant to focus on a particular phenomenon observed at a given point in time— effectively transcending time by describing and explaining the occurrence. Although things have changed, it does not negate the qualitative data that were reflective of the situation at the moment in time they were collected or the subsequent analysis. The principles are still relevant. The qualitative study transcends time by contextualizing the phenomenon and highlighting the factors that explain the features described, enabling comparison with and grounding for discussion of similar or related phenomenon in other contexts (including other times). Also, while the firm’s performance, especially in the North American market, caused it to be unable to cope with the environmental shock of the global financial meltdown in 2008, poor firm performance is not a reason to dismiss academic research related to a particular subject—in this case, a firm. Selecting on the outcome would result in a restriction of variance that would not allow us to derive valid insights— essentially, if we study companies that only fail or companies that only succeed, we don’t know what happened to firms that pursued the exact same policies but had different outcomes.