A typology of marketing strategies for export

This study has two goals. The first goal is to develop and present a framework for analyzing and characterizing export marketing strategies. The second goal is to examine the proposed framework. The framework is based on three key dimensions: innovation, adaptation and involvement. In the first part of the paper a typological approach of strategic groups is applied to export marketing. In the second part an exploratory research is reported. One hundred one export ventures were clustered according to the three dimensions. We then test the validity of these dimensions by examining whether they generate prototypes that are significantly different in the adaptation, innovation and involvement. We identify and characterize four strategic prototypes based on the proposed framework. The correlation between the different prototypes and marketing variables is examined and compared with a set of hypotheses. We also explored the relations between the firm's goals, competencies and industry to the strategic prototypes, and the performance achievements of each prototype. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and managerial implication of the framework and the strategic prototypes.