Psychic Distance, International Marketing Strategy, and Export Performance: Some Research Hypotheses

Abstract

Firms are still faced with obstacles including psychic, economic, and cultural differences when entering foreign markets even though globalization has created a homogeneous market and convergence. Although psychic distance and cultural distance are antecedents of international marketing strategy and export performance, previous studies have not properly utilized psychic distance, leading to inconsistent empirical findings concerning the psychic distance-international marketing strategy-performance link. Therefore, a conceptual framework that incorporates psychic distance in terms of business and cultural distance, marketing program and process standardization, and export performance is proposed. The authors develop research propositions to establish a research agenda on this topic.