Marketing autonomy of foreign subsidiaries in Brazil regarding new product development in multinationals

Abstract

This article analyses marketing autonomy in new product development in multinationals. The objective is to verify the relationship between global integration strategies and local adaptation in terms of marketing autonomy in the Brazilian subsidiaries of foreign firms. The subject is addressed by means of a theoretical review of three topics - new product development decisions, autonomy within the context of multinationals, and subsidiary marketing autonomy, which give rise to the hypotheses tested. The research is quantitative: a survey with 104 managers of foreign subsidiaries in Brazil. The results show a negative correlation between the degree of global integration of the multinational and global strategic alignment and marketing autonomy regarding new products. On the other hand, the greater the local adaptation, the greater the marketing autonomy in new product development. The authors conclude that despite the dilemma between global integration and local adaptation in terms of new product development autonomy, this dilemma, when analyzed within the evolutionary process of the strategies of subsidiaries, explains why some subsidiaries have greater competitive advantage than others in the corporation.