Study 2: The Value Creation Process to Retail Patronage: Whether Retailers Benefit from Perceived Brand Globalness or Localness

Abstract

For over two decades, retail firms have aggressively internationalized, first into developed countries and then into developing countries, driven by opportunities, such as high growth rates, a growing middle-class, or the weakness of local retailers (Alexander, Rhodes and Myers 2007; Goldman 2001; Swoboda, Zentes and Elsner 2009). However, years after entering developing countries and adapting marketing offers based on local learning and knowledge about the local environment (an adaptation that even global firms make according to Jonsson and Foss 2011), foreign retailers can no longer rely on the weaknesses of local competitors because these local competitors have become more experienced and even internationalized.