International expansion through flexible replication: Learning from the internationalization experience of IKEA
Författare
Summary, in English
Business organizations may expand internationally by replicating a part of their value chain, such as a sales and marketing format, in other countries. However, little is known regarding how such "international replicators" build a format for replication, or how they can adjust it in order to adapt to local environments and under the impact of new learning. To illuminate these issues, we draw on a longitudinal in-depth study of Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA, involving more than 70 interviews. We find that IKEA has developed organizational mechanisms that support an ongoing learning process aimed at frequent modification of the format for replication. Another finding is that IKEA treats replication as hierarchical: lower-level features (marketing efforts, pricing, etc.) are allowed to vary across IKEA stores in response to market-based learning, while higher-level features (fundamental values, vision, etc.) are replicated in a uniform manner across stores, and change only very slowly (if at all) in response to learning ("flexible replication"). We conclude by discussing the factors that influence the approach to replication adopted by an international replicator. Journal of International Business Studies (2011) 42, 1079-1102. doi:10.1057/jibs.2011.32
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2011
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
1079-1102
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Journal of International Business Studies
Volym
42
Issue
9
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Palgrave Macmillan
Ämne
- Business Administration
Nyckelord
- primary data source
- case theoretic approaches
- internationalization
- theories and foreign market entry
- knowledge-based view
- organizational
- learning
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0047-2506