Marketing Channel Management in Foreign Markets: Integrative Framework for Multinational Corporations

Abstract

Multinational corporations (MNCs) have grown in both numbers and economic importance, prompting emerging questions about how to manage complex MNC marketing channels that face diverse demands related to transnational standardization, local customization, and interactions among the headquarters (HQ), foreign subsidiaries, and local channel partners. Yet research on MNC marketing channels remains sparse. To address this issue, 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 that comprise (1) determinants of MNC channel structure and processes and (2) determinants of MNC marketing channel outcomes. Key variables are identified for both frameworks, with illustrative propositions that lead to an agenda for further research.