The Problem with Standardizing International Market Research: A Case Study from B2B Services

Abstract

One of the key issues for multinational corporations (MNCs) is whether to standardize their marketing approach across all countries or adapt their practices to fit each country. In order to make this decision, MNCs must determine if their marketing approach is cross-culturally appropriate and equivalent from country to country. Unfortunately, recent research indicates that the vast majority of academic studies do not adequately address the cross-cultural equivalence issue. The primary purpose of this article is to illustrate the problem of using a standardized, global, B2B research approach. The second goal is to show how cross-cultural equivalence can be identified and managed. The firm in this study is a Fortune 100 MNC that provides facilities management services in over 100 countries. This article compares the cross-cultural equivalence of customer satisfaction survey data from the US and from Japan. The results show that about half of the items typically used to measure dimensions of product and service quality as drivers of customer satisfaction lack cross-cultural equivalence. The implication is that the use of a fully standardized approach to global research must be questioned.