Michigan State University Contributions to International Business and Innovation: Volume 19

This volume of the Advances in International Marketing is quite unique. It features chapters written by doctoral graduates of Michigan State University (MSU)'s marketing department. It also represents a culmination of my 21 years of service to MSU. This tenure has truly been a special journey full of satisfaction and gratification.

It is with this background that we planned and implemented a landmark event, The Invitational Symposium on MSU Contributions to Research in International Business and Innovation. We held the symposium during 7–9 May 2008 in East Lansing, Michigan. Nearly all of our graduates over the past 15 years joined faculty and other mentors who have been associated with the marketing and international business doctoral program at MSU. Some two dozen doctoral alumni were in attendance.

My decision to pursue an academic life in international marketing was unplanned. It was spring 1989 and I was an MBA student in my last semester in East Lansing. Because my MBA concentration was in finance I had applied for a number of finance PhD programs. While waiting for my applications, I was taking an elective course, international marketing, from Prof. S. Tamer Cavusgil. I was immediately hooked. His lectures were absorbing. Difficult concepts became lucid when he explained them with vivid stories. Classical theories became refreshing when he used them as a backdrop for contemporary phenomena.

Contrary to my expectations, the old adage holds true – “absence makes the heart grow fonder” – even in the context of higher education. If someone would have asked me 15 years ago if I would miss my time at the copy machine in the Marketing Department or in the library or stressing about comprehensive exams or my dissertation, my answer would have been a resounding “NO!” Now that I realize what a luxury it was to be focused exclusively on learning and research without all of the other obligations of tenured faculty life, I remember my days at MSU fondly. I can almost say I even miss the winters! However, since joining North Carolina State University in 1995, the key word in that last sentence is “almost”.

Among all the pieces of work I have written, this is most likely to be a chapter with the deepest meaning at a personal level. Being invited to the symposium on MSU Contributions to Research in International Business and Innovation held on May 7–9, 2008 at Kellogg Center on the beautiful Michigan State University (MSU) campus in East Lansing, MI was a big honor for me to start with. Secondly, it gave me the opportunity to reflect back on my days at MSU which both my family and myself remember with great joy and excitement. Lastly, but most importantly, it was a lifetime chance to pay partial gratitude to my mentor, Prof. Tamer Cavusgil, as well as my professors and colleagues at the Department of Marketing at Eli Broad College of Business, the International Business Center (IBC) – home to MSU CIBER, and University Apartments Residence Life (UARL) at MSU.

The philosophical blend of rigor and relevance characteristic of the Michigan State program was instrumental in the development of many who graduated from this institution. The result has been an increase in faculty who understand the multiple constituencies that depend on our work, and look beyond the simple publication records of fellow academics. These constituencies, or stakeholders, include students of all levels, firms, employees/managers/executives, economies, our academies, and our institutions. In other words, it was instilled upon us that our responsibilities went further than incremental contributions to the literature, and in fact we should look at our profession as one that should take ideas from theories and concepts all the way to dissemination in the classroom and application in the field. As a result, we were encouraged to become full portfolio professors: those who can forecast real business problems, develop theories to address those problems, test those theories in a rigorous fashion, and publish the results in the best of the academic journals. Where many other programs would consider this the endpoint of our responsibilities, we were encouraged to extend our efforts to address the needs of all our stakeholders. This could be accomplished in a number of ways, but particularly we were taught to reformulate our writings to address a managerial audience, and to refine our research to provide undergraduate, MBA, and executive audiences with the tools necessary to address the problems they deal with, or would deal with, in their work routines. This perspective not only influenced others outside of the academic world, but also forced us to constantly consider the relevance of our research and avoid an incremental or esoteric research agenda which might fail to provide meaningful solution sets to those managers at the sharp end of the business stick.

The most important of my research interests at MSU and beyond was the born global firm, companies that undertake international business at or near their founding. They have emerged in huge numbers in recent years, largely due to evolutionary environmental factors, such as globalization and advanced information and communications technologies. The trend is closely related to the internationalization of the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). My interest in born globals and international SMEs sprang in part from MSU's emphasis on frontier issues in international business. MSU and Professor Cavusgil stressed research on issues highly relevant to practitioners, who want to know how to enhance competitive advantages and superior company performance.

After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and teaching Advanced Calculus, Advanced Linear Algebra, and Statistics for over 3 years at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, my life took a major turn that forever changed my career path: I got an opportunity to join the MBA program at Michigan State University!

My days in the Michigan State University (MSU) doctoral program were days filled with intellectual stimulation and long hours of work on various research projects. Starting from my first day on Campus, I was part of the Center for International Business Education & Research (CIBER), which consisted only of Prof. Tamer Cavusgil and his assistant Kay Fitzgerald. Dr. Cavusgil's days were filled with writing research proposals to secure funding for the center. He was so good at this that the center grew rapidly. In my second year in the program, I was involved in the Marketing Expert Systems project. As part of this project, I worked with a team of doctoral students. The artificial intelligence brain of the project was Mike Mitri, a doctoral student at the Computer Engineering Department. Each doctoral student was assigned an application area in international marketing: I was assigned the Evaluation and Selection of an International Logistics Company.

In 1989 I decided to join the doctoral program in Marketing at Michigan State University (MSU). Although I had been accepted into the doctoral programs at several universities, including UCLA and the University of Washington, I chose MSU because of its strong reputation in International Marketing, and its emphasis on managerial applications. Tamer Cavusgil had recently joined the MSU faculty and had just initiated the Center for International Business Education and Research. I wanted to learn from him as my mentor and dissertation chair, and was encouraged by the potential resources available through the CIBER to do international research. This decision to come to MSU and to be a student of Tamer Cavusgil is a decision I have never regretted, and that has enabled me to become a successful, full professor, engaged in a career in International Marketing.

The title of my dissertation was “An Analysis of Competitive Positioning Strategies in the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry: An EQS Application.” Doctoral students frequently are daunted when they first hear that their dissertation research is to be a contribution to the field. “What could I do, as a mere doctoral candidate, who would revolutionize the field?” seems to be the question. After all is said and done, a dissertation is the “capstone to a formal academic training process.” It is a demonstration that you are capable of conceptualizing, conducting, and reporting research in a (reasonably) independent way. The real contribution of most dissertations is that they lead to conferral of the degree, open up new career options, help you to mature as a scholar, and socialize you into the scholarly norms of your field. H. Jackson Brown, Jr. once quoted that “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.” If the doctoral degree provides tangible evidence of one's ability to function at a high academic level, then the number of citations associated with that research is a testimonial of the apparent scientific impact of that scientist. In this case, the citation rate associated with my dissertation article “An empirical analysis of sustained advantage in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry: impact of firm resources and capabilities” is my personal tour de force (see Table 1).

In the summer of 1989, I followed a beacon of scholarship in a journey that brought me from Istanbul to East Lansing, Michigan. The beacon of scholarship was embodied in the person of Dr. Tamer Cavusgil who guided me through my doctoral study at Michigan State University. When I was invited to attend the symposium to celebrate Dr. Cavusgil's contributions to marketing and international business and write an essay reflecting on my career, I immediately knew what the focus of the essay would be: the processes Dr. Cavusgil put in place at MSU to develop scholars who can push the boundaries of their fields in the Innovation Age. This chapter uses my academic career as the context of describing that process.

As a high school senior, there was no doubt I wanted to attend college, it was just a matter of where. I applied to only two universities – Oakland University (OU) and MSU. I was not too familiar with MSU, but it had a good reputation; I was much more familiar with Oakland. Although I had obtained an application for the University of Michigan (UM), I decided that the UM application was just too long to complete. And what the heck is a wolverine anyway? I lived in Michigan for most of my life, and I had never spotted this mythical rodent. As a tendency, I always found Michigan students and alumni to be either too arrogant or eccentric for my taste. Also, at that time of my life, I found the atmosphere in Ann Arbor not right in some way, so I applied to only two universities.¹

For various reasons consumers find some innovations undesirable. These are identified as resistant innovations or those innovations that consumers are unable or unwilling to readily embrace, such as screw caps on fine wines, hybrid automobiles and nanotechnology-based products. What makes these types of innovations undesirable to consumers? How should marketers introduce into the marketplace these types of innovations? These questions are the foundation of my ongoing research. In reflecting on my research decisions for the past ten years, I came upon my application for PhD programs. In 1997, I wrote:“The past ten years I have been focused on product development for telecom firms, including five years as an entrepreneur. As I've worked, questions have frequently surfaced about the slow acceptance in the marketplace of some telecommunication offerings; Why has ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) not taken off? Why did 30,000 perfectly functioning Newton PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) end up at the Los Angeles dump? Did AT&T misjudge the market timing for videophones? What role, if any, did marketing play in these product mis-launches?”…I have explored disruptive technologies with Christensen (1997), crossed the chasm with Moore (1991), searched for the sources of innovation with Von Hippel (1988), and evaluated Roger's diffusion theories (1995) looking for direction. These investigations have led to more questions.

There is no doubt graduates in marketing from the Michigan State University (MSU) doctoral program have a distinct flavor. Alumni are known for their work ethic and bold minds. Coming from Australia, I take pride in this image and try to uphold this reputation at every opportunity. The transition from student to graduate was a memorable experience in every way. Upon arrival in East Lansing in January of 2001, I was struck by the realization I had found a place where thinking was as admired as physical perspiration (Australians love their sports above all else). I immediately felt a sense of inclusion into the department as other students showed me where to shop and how to find journal articles. The doctoral seminars were intense at times where every waking moment was dedicated to reading and formulating frameworks. Each week was a blur of papers, summaries, critiques and research ideas. As each semester ended panic ensued as class papers became due. With the stated goal of journal submission quality, each class paper was a simulation for the future job of a professor. I recall the nervousness and pressure of presenting original work in a peer setting, and the pleasure of sharing new ideas with one another. I trudged across campus with my fellow students to take courses in statistics, across to Owen Hall for the pizza and soup lunch, and I became one with coffee. My officemate Destan Kandemir and I even ran a quasi café from our office. Unexpectedly, I found it was sometimes hard to explain the nature of our department to outsiders.“Oh, so you're studying in the marketing department”“Yes I am”“Do you do advertising?”“No, we have a separate school for that”.“What about communication?”“No, we have a separate school for that, and for packaging too”.“Well what do you do in the marketing department?”

I got a phone call. A call on a Sunday morning! It was just like any other Sunday when my family and I had gotten ready for Sunday church service until I received this phone call from Dr. Cavusgil two days after my brief visit to the Michigan State University (MSU) campus, meeting a few faculty members. The phone call was to offer an admission to the doctoral program. It was the pivotal moment that turned my career route from a salary man to a scholar that I never thought would be what it turned out to be later.

There is no doubt that I am where I am because of Dr. Cavusgil and Dr. Calantone.

At the turn of the century, I was hunched over a clammy steel desk in a far-flung project office, listening to my counterparts explain how many times in the recent past this particular Ministry had been bombed. Hearing something like this would be enough to get anyone thinking about their future. And it did stimulate my thinking. Over the next year, as I journeyed from Central Asia to the Caribbean on various development projects, I plotted my next move.

I learned my first important lesson on research from the research design seminars offered by Drs Tamer Cavusgil and Roger Calantone. During my first semester in the Ph.D. program, I took a Ph.D. seminar class, international business research with Dr. Tamer Cavusgil. In that class, each student was asked to select a topic to research, present findings to the rest of the class, and write a term paper that could be turned into a potential publication. In the midst of my struggle to find this big bang topic that could lead to a potential publication, Dr. Tamer Cavusgil showed us a few surveys designed by previous Ph.D. students. He mentioned that we could use these surveys as guidelines to develop our own thoughts. These surveys turned out to be the concrete piece of information that I needed to be on track with my research. Prior to this, I had gained some interests in understanding how trust and relational norms govern inter-organizational relationships. One of the surveys Dr. Cavusgil passed to us happened to be about this research area. Under the guidance of Drs Cavusgil and Joseph Bonner, I developed my first research ideas on understanding the third way of governance, relational norms in international channels of distribution.

Becoming a scholar is a unique experience for each individual. It does not suddenly happen in the graduate office where you officially submit the final copy of your doctoral dissertation, along with a check for fees payable, and the clerk hands you a small green receipt with a curt, “Congratulations”. It is a journey. A journey, if undertaken properly, that does not really ever end.

One of the main research themes reoccurring in our research projects is the globalization process of a company. It is now well documented that a company's globalization occurs gradually, as firms gain international experience and expand their operations (Johanson & Vahlne, 1990; Townsend, Yeniyurt, & Talay, 2008; Yeniyurt, Townsend, Cavusgil, & Ghauri, 2008). The globalization process is a long and treacherous path that consists of incremental steps towards global rationalization. Usually firms first engage in exporting activities, then establish foreign subsidiaries and engage in strategic partnerships, developing first a regional international presence, gradually evolving into a multi-regional and finally into a global company. We explored the path towards globalization in the context of international marketing alliances (Yeniyurt et al., 2008), new product development (Townsend, Yeniyurt, Deligonul, & Cavusgil, 2004), product launch (Yeniyurt, Townsend, & Talay, 2007), and global brand architecture (Townsend et al., 2008).

My doctoral adventure started in 2002 as a graduate student. However, getting there was not quite straightforward; it was the result of a trial and error process. When I was a college student studying Economics, I wanted to know what to do when I graduated. Thus, I started looking into different types of jobs via internships. First, I gave the government sector a try and worked at the Turkish Republic Prime Ministry Undersecretariat for Foreign Trade, in Ankara. I decided that I did not like working for the government, so I decided to pursue the private sector. Next, I tried finance. After my internship at the Istanbul Stock Exchange of Turkey, I decided that I did not like that either. Then came the marketing experience at the Cenajans/Grey Advertising Agency in Istanbul. I did not quite like the agency side of it, but I realized that I liked what clients were doing. I liked the strategy formulation and owning the brand and being responsible for all the decisions related with the brand. Therefore, after graduation, I started a job in marketing in the headquarters of a major bank in Istanbul.

Before joining the faculty of the Eli Broad College of Business in 1990, Myron had 35 years as what some might call a “practioner” in business (interrupted for two years to serve in U.S. Army Counterintelligence, itself a great learning experience). Over those years, he had a wide array of experience that gave him a broad base of knowledge in international business.

When I was invited to this landmark event I was delighted in many ways. It was an uncanny opportunity to meet again with several generations of young and senior scholars, it was a rare opportunity to contemplate about myself and my times at Eli Broad. I thank Tamer and Roger for the invitation.

I am proud to be joining the many colleagues who appear in this volume, many younger but some more experienced in the marketing and the international business disciplines, honoring S. Tamer Cavusgil's retirement from Michigan State University. I am proud for many reasons, but mainly because throughout the years I have observed how Tamer's contributions to our professional and personal lives have shaped our growth as a fraternity of business scholars and teachers. I feel very fortunate to have grown as Tamer's colleague through the many papers we have published, the many doctoral students we have mentored, and the many service contributions we have made to the international business field during the past 30 years. I feel luckier, however, that I have come to know this remarkable person as a friend.