Multinational Enterprises, Sociopolitical Constraints and Intermediaries : A Sociopolitically Informed Network Approach

Sammanfattning: International Marketing research conceptualizes modern advanced markets into three rather separate systems; the political, the business, and the intermediary, based on the dichotomous notion of the distinct political, business, and intermediary systems constituting modern society. However international marketing literature seems to have adopted this conceptualization rather unproblematically for other types of markets. Whereas the political and business systems have been problematized rather extensively in the literature, the intermediary system has attracted less attention whilst having been conceptualized and treated mainly as straightforward and homogeneous. This study sheds light upon the problematic, complex, and heterogeneous nature of the intermediary system through a critical case study involving Swedish MNEs (Multinational Enterprises) in the heavily constrained Iranian market. The study introduces a number of novel concepts into the international marketing field by highlighting the importance of supranational political actors in terms of influencing the main comprising systems of markets, while elucidating the problematic in the multiple roles performed by intermediaries as result, and the implications for the involved MNEs.