International Marketing and Spirituality: is there a relationship?

Defined by Cleveland et al. (2013) as the most pervasive and thorny element which affects consumer behavior, culture has significantly emerged as a decisive factor in international business. In fact, awareness of cultural differences across the world is essential in order to successfully penetrate different markets in the world (Steenkamp, 2001): on one side, international marketing strategies cannot be implemented, especially in some areas, with a lack of knowledge of local cultures; on the other, disregarding these differences can cause damages to a product or brand image. This research aims at systematically reviewing current research on international marketing and faith, considering the role of religion in driving marketplaces dynamics. Once selected the keywords, we established the following inclusion and exclusion criteria, in coherence with the leading systematic review (Vrontis and Christofi, 2019): 1) academic peer-reviewed articles related to marketing area were included, excluding books, book chapters, magazines, and editorials; 2) academic papers written in English and published on peer-reviewed top journals were selected, with reference to ABS (Association of Business Schools’Academic Journal Guide, www.charteredabs.org) 3, 4 and 4* ranking. This, in order to be methodologically rigorous and guarantee the selected papers are the best in terms of quality and in terms of debate among scholars (Christofi et al., 2019). Finally, all the data were extracted and analyzed systematically by an analytical and deductive approach. This suggests that research is at an early stage (Younis et al, 2022; Kumar et al., 2022). Our final sample consists in 36 articles.