Cultural influences on the development of marketing strategy for multinational retailers

Abstract

This paper examines the affects of culture on the marketing strategies of multinational retailers. The paper develops a model of nineteen international retail marketing strategy factors and relates them to the five cultural factors of the Hofstede Model. The paper relates three of these factors (breadth of product assortment, retail format, and speed of retailer expansion) to Hofstede's cultural factors and various economic factors. The findings of the paper are: the cultural factors of power distance and individualism, and the economic factor of population are related to the breadth of product assortment; the cultural factors of power distance and masculinity, and the economic factors of GDP and population are related to retail formats; and the cultural factors of power distance and masculinity, and the economic factor population growth are related to the speed of retail expansion. The significant findings of the paper are: the inverse relationship between the cultural factor of individualism and increases in product assortment; and the positive relationship between the cultural factor of power distance and the increased speed of retail expansion. (Author abstract)