The Evolution of U.S. Trade Intermediaries: The Changing International Environment

This text aims to fill a gap in our knowledge of the practise of international marketing. The functions provided by international trade intermediaries (ITIs) on behalf of manufacturers unable or unwilling to assume them has been studied before. However, their evolution in the context of the challenging international environment, which is traced and analysed here by Anne C. Perry, has not been previously addressed. New empirical data on ITIs and their survival strategies is reported, and a conceptual model of their evolution based on organisation, marketing and international-business theories is developed. This model represents a step toward a theory of international trade intermediation in the US. First, Perry introduces the evolutionary model, which guided the field study of ITIs and formed the basis of the questionnaire, and a comprehensive conceptual framework that considers ITIs in terms of actors, their environment, their processes (activities), their structure (organisation), and their function (contribution). The new business environment, its effects on ITIs, and their strategic adaptations are analysed next. Changes in the products carried, the markets served, and the services provided by ITIs are investigated - while challenges to the US industry of international trade intermediation are assessed. Successful and unsuccessful ITI strategies are contrasted to draw concrete implications for practitioners. Further implications for policymakers and researchers are also discussed.