Global markets: does psychic distance matter? created by Carlos M. P. Sousa and Frank Bradley.

This paper examines the impact of psychic distance on the international marketing strategy of the firm, particularly the degree of adaptation of the marketing programme. The relationship between psychic distance and marketing strategy has received relatively little focused research attention despite the importance these two constructs separately enjoy in the literature. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling are used to substantiate the relationship between psychic distance and international marketing strategy. The research findings, which are based on a survey of more than 300 managers and owners responsible for the foreign markets of their firms, suggests that psychic distance explains a significant proportion of the variance of the degree of marketing programme adaptation. The paper concludes with the implications of these findings with respect to the explanatory power of the psychic distance concept in the context of the international marketing strategy.