Evidence of a glocal marketing strategy: a case study in the Brazilian telecommunication market

Susana Costa e Silva, Viviane Yamasaki, Thelma Valéria Rocha, Paulo Duarte
2019 International Journal of Business Excellence  
Adaptation versus standardization dilemma has been coined as a major issue within the international marketing literature for the past fifty years, and academic research has showed that the extreme positions were unbearable and that the virtue lied in a middle position between these two positions. This opened space for another stream of research devoted to analyze and discuss the level of control and autonomy that Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) should grant to their subsidiaries. In this
more » ... we analyze the impact of subsidiaries' capacity to innovate in marketing in an emerging economy. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to explore marketing autonomy in Multinational Enterprises' subsidiaries to innovate and develop new products and services to the Brazilian telecommunications market. Using the grid proposed by Lasserre, several interviews to senior managers of Telefónica were conducted in order to evaluate the level of autonomy of Telefonica's 1 Corresponding author 2 Brazilian subsidiary. The results show that Telefónica uses a glocal approach, since its subsidiary has autonomy to create and adapt its products when the headquarters recognize that global decisions might not meet local demands. Despite being a single case study, Telefóncia is a giant in the telecommunication sector, operating in numerous countries, thus the current insights on the way the company runs global operations may be helpful not only for researchers but also for other companies. Financed by FCT
doi:10.1504/ijbex.2019.10024245 fatcat:63sg5hr3gberbh7jr6hj7myy74