Call for papers: Standardisation Versus Adaptation of Business Practices in Europe – 20 Years of a Single European Market 1993-2013

A thematic issue of European Journal of International Management

 With the creation of the 'four freedoms' – the free movement of goods, services, people and capital – a Single European market was launched on January 1st, 1993. In addition to political objectives, the member states of the European Union aimed at creating an economic space in which companies could do business freely and become more competitive. The removal of all kinds of barriers was intended to drive the harmonisation of business and, in particular, marketing practices for EU and non-CEU companies and thus to reduce the necessity to engage in the costly and complex process of adaptation. The Single Market was regarded as key in improving the competitiveness of European firms by exploiting economies of scale and scope.

In the early years after the introduction of the Single Market, a small number of empirical and conceptual papers appeared discussing the actual or potential extent of standardisation of marketing practices in Europe (e.g. Boddewyn & Grosse, 1995 or McLauchlin, 1993). After this initial interest in the topic, the next small wave of publications only appeared after the turn of the millennium (e.g. Aistrich, Saghafi & Sciglimpaglia, 2006; Halliburton & Hunerberg, 2004; Kaynak and Jallat, 2004; Bousch, 2003; Jallat & Kimmel, 2002; Thorne LeClair, 2000), only to quickly fizzle out again.

Twenty years after the birth of the Single Market, we now encourage new inquiries into the state of the standardisation-adaptation debate in European marketing.

This thematic issue is open to all conceptual or empirical papers on the topic, although the Guest Editors in particular would like to invite submissions that explore the following topics:

• Drivers of convergence/divergence in the political-administrative, economic, legal, societal and technological environments in Europe.
• Forced supply-side harmonisation versus persisting variety on the demand-side.
• Role of European and sub-European strategies within the global strategy framework.
• Pan-European product and branding strategies in the Single Market.
• Pricing strategies across borders in Europe (e.g. European price-corridors).
• Harmonisation of distribution strategies in Europe.
• Industry-specific studies on standardisation trends in marketing.
• Traditional and alternative approaches of market segmentation in Europe (e.g. sub-regional clusters, Euro consumer groups/'Euro-Styles').
• Implementing pan-European marketing programmes (e.g. European brand management, key account management, competence centres).

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 1 June, 2013
Notification to authors: 1 September, 2013
Final versions due: 1 March, 2014