1 A ‘Co-alignment–Convergence ’ Hypothesis on the Relationship between Global Marketing Strategy and Performance: An Explorative Study

This paper develops a general ‘co-alignment–convergence ’ hypothesis which aims to reconcile two legitimate perspectives on international marketing performance. On the one hand, literature reports a positive relationship between global (i.e., standardized and coordinated) marketing strategy and performance. On the other, studies confirm the co-alignment principle and suggest that a successful internationalizing firm should adapt its international marketing strategy. At first sight, these perspectives contradict each other. In a theoretical perspective, we hypothesize that firms may adopt various successful international marketing strategies along their internationalization path. Yet, over time all successful firms converge to an outperforming global marketing strategy. A multiple case study research supports this hypothesis. 3 Introduction and literature review The debate on international marketing standardization versus adaptation has been going on since the early 1960s (Roostal 1963). More than a decade later, Sorensen and Wiechman