Customer Reviews

International Marketing

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I recently used this Text to teach 3 MBA-level marketing courses. The text was selected by the department, but I would not recommend it. While it is fairly comprehensive, it lacks a good real-world feel and students found it tedious. There were a number of very good cases and examples, but somehow they did not connect well with the stodgy writing of the text. It feels like it could have been 1/2 the size and better written. That said, there are a limited number of texts available for this level of coursework. The next time I teach this class, I will look for a better text. You better really really enjoy reading and international marketing if you buy this book for non-academic uses. If you are a professor, be sure to get an advance copy before you select it. That said, you may be able to make this text work, if you have some strong backing materials. However, if you are a student, have a Red Bull handy--this one is a hard read.

Hope this helps!
Chris X. Moloney

I used his book as an MBA student 15 or so years ago. Now as an adjunct professor, I am using this newest edition in my undergraduate classes. Although my observation may be biased, the book is a bit too encyclopedic, a bit superficial in coverage, and fails to excite the students. I wish it were more up-to-date.

Newer editions don't seem to have capture current trends and perspectives well.

I'm a senior in college, and I have read many textbooks by many authors. Through all that studying, only a handful of books have ever stood out in my mind as "exceptionally good" or "exceptionally bad" for whatever reason.

Well, I am sorry to say that this book more than any other has stood out as "exceptionally bad" because of 1) its horrendous, awkward phraseology, and 2) its unnecessarily lengthy explanations of most concepts. Because of these shortcomings, it routinely took me much too long to read even a few pages, and when I was finally finished, I disappointedly discovered that I hadn't even learned that much about international marketing. It's like reading an essay from a student who is just trying to fill up space or impress his professor with length, while compounding his error with poor style.

On the other hand, there is a lot of good information in the text, for which it received a star. There are several charts, black and white pictures, and some supplementary material as well.

This is a comprehensive college text on the subject of international marketing. It is excellent in that it covers all relevant subject areas in some depth. The text also offers guidelines for student development of a "country notebook" international marketing project. There are also quite a few provocative and relevant cases. The only negatives are that the writing is a bit over the heads of most undergraduates, and the country notebook lends itself toward development of a multidomestic plan rather than a global plan. I use the text to teach international marketing. I have found no other book on the subject that offers an acceptable combination of project, cases, and material to be learned in a single source.

In 12e, they updated much of the information, tables, case studies, and data (although according to Cateora, the EU still has only 15 members...). I would recommend only for an MBA level class. There are easier textbooks for undergrad level. But I decided to keep Cateora for my class because of the update.

Version 11

I used this book for an MBA course in international marketing. I agree that some of the instructor materials are good. The video series has some good content. Some of the test questions are good, many are irrelevant (testing memorizing numbers vs. understanding concepts), others are ambiguous.
But the book is very hard to read, repetitive, and not well structured. Updates (e.g. Internet) seem to be added somewhat randomly. Economic fundamentals (currencies, international trade) are not well explained. Some of the data tables are very outdated. I spent over 300 hours preparing for a 3-hour credit course, to update the materials. I would recommend looking at alternatives.

This text is too focused on the complexities of doing business internationally. It dedicates too much time to culture and history and far too little on basic Marketing, extrapolated to the global scene. For example, the product and market planning sections are very superficial(one chapter)and do not explain to the student (preferably through case studies, which I use)how exactly Marketing is carried out in the global setting. Also, there are chapters on products for consumers and business, and middlemen in distribution which my advanced students found boring. I now use Kotabe, which has a stronger orienation toward the practice of global Marketing rather than business.

I used this book in an MBA International Marketing course. The text is a very cumbersome read. While the book contains adequate anecdotal information, the information is poorly organized and often fails to engage the reader. I routinely found myself searching for more concise supplemental materials for concepts the book failed to develop. The narratives are extremely wordy and consistently obfuscate salient points. If I were using the book as an instructor, I would use the country notebook section as a course guide and scrap the rest.

I bought this book instead of the regular edition. The international edition was almost exactly like the original version. I think some of the page numbers were different. Other than that, it was a great way to get a text book and save money!

I took an International Business class for my MBA. I read every chapter in this book. There was a lot of knowledge included but there is often too much wordy writing and the book drones on. The definitions need to be in the margins. The last chapters are more of a cross cultural study of doing business with Japanese. It was a boring read-but good before bedtime for those that do not fall asleep easily.