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The need for an efficient provision of product variety has been widely established as a means of competing in the marketplace, yet previous studies into the management of product variety have commonly analysed products in isolated developed markets. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms manage their product variety in emerging markets. This paper aims to investigate the rationale underlying the restriction of variety in such settings, and define general mechanisms by which firms can adapt their product variety when operating in both emerging and developed markets simultaneously.

The paper uses the case of a global vehicle manufacturer that offers common products across developed and emerging markets to illustrate the difference between them in terms of product variety, and examine the process that underlies its management. The paper utilises …