Cross-Cultural Marketing Research

Market and Consumer Psychology

• The presentation is about perennial problems of cross-cultural marketing research practices.
• The presenter discusses the importance of cultural sensitivity in cross-cultural business research.
• A key point is that culture is becoming a leading theory in international marketing.

Cultural Sensitivity

• Cheryl Nakata, a professor of marketing, highlighted that publications about culture are increasing.
• This suggests that culture is becoming a leading theory in international marketing.
• The presentation gives examples of marketing blunders caused by a lack of cultural sensitivity. (e.g., KFC in China, Pepsi in China, Fiat ad with R. Gere, United Airlines (white flowers) and iPhone 7).

Today's Agenda

• The agenda includes what cross-cultural research is, its importance and development in marketing research, and perennial problems in cross-cultural marketing research with a study.
• Further, it outlines directions for cross-cultural marketing research practices.

A Call for Further Research

• Multinational companies spend billions globally on marketing.
• Some funding is wasted, harming reputations due to cultural or linguistic errors.
• The importance and need for effective marketing to varied ethnic and subcultural groups is vital in emerging and existing markets.

Some Bad Examples: Oops!

• KFC in China
• Pepsi in China
• A Fiat ad with actor R. Gere
• United Airlines (white flowers)
• iPhone 7

Question

• The presenter posed questions to the audience: Have you ever encountered such examples, and why did it happen?

Why do Cross-Cultural Research?

• Globalization increases the importance of cross-cultural research.
• It's a distinct field with its own phenomena, methods, and theories.
• Research facilitates understanding and learning between cultures.

What is Cross-Cultural Research?

• It helps understand how and why cultural and ethnic factors mask, mediate, or modify common aspects of human thought and behavior.
• It is conducted across nations or culture groups
• It aims to systematically compare behavioral and cognitive similarities and differences between cultures.
• It aims to identify the role of culture.
• It investigates empirical evidence for the incidence, distributions, and causes of cultural variation.
• It aims to test and document the universality and generality of methods, theories and concepts.
• It encourages the development of adequate methodologies, theories and concepts.

Cross Cultural Research: A Meta-Analysis

• Jensen-Lampiri (2017) reviewed existing reviews on cross-cultural business research practices.
• It identified advances and perennial problems.

Methodology of Jensen-Lampiri (2017)

• A meta-analysis—review of reviews— was conducted.
• A four-stage process was used.
• Grounded theory was used for analysis, identifying seven categories.

"The Making-of" 4-Stages-Process for a Systematic Meta-Analysis

• The stages for systematic meta-analysis includes defining the research area and time frame, selecting publication outlets, identifying publications, strategies used for coding and data analysis.

Selected Publication Outlets

• A list of journals used in the meta-analysis.
• Several journals are listed, organized by disciplines.
• Specific journals, like the Academy of Management Journal, and others are included in the analysis.

Identification of Review Publications

• Research in ISI Web of Knowledge and EBSCO search engines used.
• Key words (e.g., cross-cultural research, international research, comparative research) were used to identify relevant publications.
• 187 publications were initially identified from the searches.
• Further, 32 publications were identified from references and citations.
• Publications excluded if they didn't focus on straightforward cross-cultural processes or lack a clear disciplinary focus.
• The final sample contained 78 publications.

Reviews on Cross-Cultural CB Studies

• Several academic papers relating to cross-cultural marketing and consumer behavior published between 1950 and 2010 were summarized.
• Cross-cultural publication trends/themes are shown.

Analysis using Grounded Theory

• Grounded theory was used to analyze the reviewed publications.
• It involves allowing concepts to emerge during the analytical process, rather than being derived a priori.
• This approach aligns with the evolutionary nature of scientific research.

Coding in Grounded Theory

• Coding in grounded theory has three stages: open coding, axial coding, selective coding.

Example of a Coding Procedure

• Tables demonstrating how research is coded by themes.

Analysis of Practices: Finding categories

• The study analyzes research practices by examining research strategies, structure of the research team, theoretical foundations, and culture specifications.

Research Strategies (1960s to Date)

• This section presents a dominance of the "etic paradigm" and "ethnocentrism" across studies.
• This approach assumes universal values and beliefs guide behavior.

###Two Approaches of Modeling CCCB (Cultural Consumption, Culture, and Consumer Behavior)

• The Cultural Syndromes, or Dimensional approach, suggests that cultural differences could be explained by universal psychological dimensions.
• The Dynamic Constructivist Theory of Culture approach proposes that culture is stored in memory as an associative network that guides behavior based on salience.

Question: Behavioral Intention Models

• Behavioral intention models often assume attitudes and expectations influence intentions.
• The question posed is whether this holds cross-culturally and whether assumptions about consumer behavior intentions hold across cultures.

Structure and Role of Research Teams

• The analysis demonstrates a dominance of single-country research teams compared to those with cross-cultural research, implying a possible lack of cross-national team collaborations.

Potential Advantages of Cross-Cultural Research Teams

• The presenter raises questions about the benefits of having teams that include natives from the investigated cultures in consumer research. What are the potential advantages?

Literature

• List of academic sources used in the analysis.