From Global to Local: Adapting International Marketing Agency Cultures to the Belgian Context

Details

Supervisors

Verardi, Vincenzo

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enIn a globalized yet culturally fragmented business environment, the ability of marketing agencies to adapt their organizational practices to local markets has become a key competitive lever. This thesis investigates how the cultural and communicational practices of leading global marketing agencies can be meaningfully transposed into a Belgian SME such as Social Sky, a digital marketing agency specialized in social media and community engagement. The research relies on an interpretivist qualitative design combining a comparative benchmark of six agencies (Mother, Buzzman, Jung von Matt, AKQA, Wieden+Kennedy, Sid Lee) and a field corpus of eight semi-structured interviews conducted with Social Sky collaborators. The theoretical framework draws on Schein, Robertson, Earley and Ang, Hofstede, Muniz and O'Guinn, Cova and Cova, Barney and Hatch, analysed through Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis. The benchmark highlights six decisive dimensions: operational independence, creative-client proximity, cultural artefacts and rituals, glocalization, cultural intelligence, and growth without dilution. The field data confirms that transposition requires active adaptation to Belgium's linguistic and cultural plurality, and that practices must be translated into principles rather than reproduced as signs. The thesis concludes with a modular cultural framework applicable to Belgian SMEs navigating rapid growth in culturally sensitive sectors. Keywords: organizational culture; glocalization; cultural intelligence; brand community; SME; Belgium; creative agencies; benchmark; thematic analysis; semi-structured interviews.