Teaching international marketing from existing texts I always find it perplexing that the exporting option is given such short shrift. It is an important activity since it represents what international trade is all about, and some of the most prominent and successful companies engage in it intensively (for example, Japanese auto manufacturers), but somehow exporting seems to be treated as what companies do before they get serious abroad.
Professors Rosson and Reid, the editors of this excellent collection of original chapters, show that the limited role for exporting in the multinational marketing picture is based on a theoretical misconception. the traditional view is to see exporting as one mode of serving foreign markets, largely at a level of marketing effort best characterized as "low-keyed." However, in this book exporting is finally shown capable of encompassing all levels of marketing involvement--on both empirical and conceptual grounds.
This demonstration frees the authors represented in this volume from making a lot of comparisons between exporting, licensing, and foreign direct investment; instead, they concentrate on the task of exporting. the payoff is astounding. As often happens when minds are concentrated on a seemingly narrow and straightforward topic, unexpected riches are unearthed and a number of new perspectives are generated. One is reminded of the Japanese saying that even the smallest matter contains the embryo of the universe.
The book contains chapters that question the standard internationalization stages, precisely because the option to export is alive at any stage. It features other chapters that approach the export organization problem from a network perspective and demonstrate the value of established relationships in exporting, regardless of whether the units are company owned. What emerges in other chapters is an exciting treatment of exporting as a pure "agency" problem using the economics nomenclature.
Two developments in particular are dear to my heart and give, I think, the collection a special patina. One is the thorough emphasis on context, on the situation-specific nature of the normative implications of much of the research. Several chapters are really up-to-date . . .
