Cultural effects in East Asian strategic decision-making

This article asks whether Asian businesses take strategic decisions in distinctively Asian ways. It develops hypotheses about Asian decisionmaking from a consideration of theoretical cultural dimensions and empirical data in the literature. Contrary to expectations, an analysis of data from a survey of top Asian managers indicates that East Asian managers take decisions in a more rational manner relative to their Western counterparts. A distinction between social and cognitive dimensions of decision-making processes is suggested to explain some of these findings. Important unresolved questions are raised about the interpretation of cultural dimensions and about potential biases in empirical reports of East Asian decision-making characteristics. Implications for cultural differences research are discussed.     

Cultural Perspective Taking in Cross-Cultural Negotiation

This study introduces the construct cultural perspective taking in negotiation, the active consideration of the other party’s culturally-normative negotiation behaviors prior to negotiation, and compares the effect of cultural perspective taking (CPT) versus alternative-focused perspective taking (PT) in cross-cultural negotiations. 160 undergraduate students of North American and East Asian ethnicity in the United States and Canada participated in a simulated cross-cultural buyer-seller negotiation in a laboratory study. Participants were randomly assigned to CPT or PT condition. Results show that negotiators who engaged in CPT claimed more value than those who engaged in PT. And when both East Asian and North American negotiators engaged in CPT, East Asian negotiators claimed more value. CPT had no effect on value creation. This study highlights that learning about the other culture before a cross-cultural encounter benefits value claiming, but not necessarily value creation.     

A cross-cultural perspective on the role of emotion in negative service encounters

The purpose of this research is to examine cross-cultural differences in emotional responses to negative service encounters and the consequent impact on behavioural intentions. Focus groups of UK and West African consumers discussed two video scenarios, described employee and consumer behaviour, and projected emotional responses. Although anger was a major emotion, African consumers emphasised feelings of ‘sadness’ (humiliation and embarrassment). Such feelings were more likely to influence switching and other behavioural intentions when attributable to employee behaviour. Differences were also identified in interpretations of employee behaviour and perceived attribution of negative emotions.     

Cultural context and its influence on managerial leadership in Thailand

In this paper, we explore excellence in leadership in Thailand, a nation that has strong roots in Theravada Buddhism. Summated scales and a structural model were constructed to explain the relationships between the excellences in leadership constructs. A sample frame of 401 Thai managers employed in organizations in Bangkok, North Thailand, and East Thailand participated in this research. The findings suggest that there are strong cultural factors such as non-confrontation, respect, and deference for authority mediating the perceptions of Thai managers with regards to perceptions of an excellent leader. Age and gender are also demonstrated as key differentiating factors in the perceptions of Thai managers.     

The impact of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and their interactions with customer equity drivers

Customer equity drivers (CEDs) include value, brand, and relationship equity, which have a strong link with loyalty intentions. This study aims to examine the incremental effects of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and to determine whether these emotions moderate the positive link between CEDs and loyalty intentions. We use customer data with 102 leading firms across eighteen services industries in the Netherlands. The results show that (1) positive and negative emotions have incremental effects on loyalty intentions, (2) positive emotions weaken the positive link (negative interaction), and (3) negative emotions strengthen the positive link, but only for brand and relationship equity (positive interaction). Thus, positive and negative emotions also explain loyalty intentions. However, managers should be cautious when combining CEDs with positive and negative emotions. We provide a strategic matrix to help managers arrive at effective combinations.     

Feedback as a two-way street: when and why rating consumers fails

In efforts to keep ill-behaving consumers in check, managers are increasingly implementing the practice of rating consumers. We develop and test an account of when and why the practice of rating consumers backfires. Study 1 shows that consumers are more likely to misbehave toward service providers after receiving a low rating (versus those who receive a high rating or those who are merely aware that they are being rated). These findings are robust to consumer inexperience. The negative impact of low ratings on subsequent behavior is especially likely to emerge when directed toward consumers (versus service providers; Study 2). Study 3 situates our findings in a real-world context through a survey of Uber customers. Taken together, we offer insight into how firms can realize the benefits of the practice of rating consumers while mitigating its risks.

     

Evaluating International Ethical Climates: A Goal Programming Model

A critical concern for firms pursuing international expansion strategies involves identifying countries that offer a good fit with the firm's overall ethical orientation. Unfortunately, little has been written to aid firms in identifying countries that offer this type of fit. This paper presents a model that combines the concepts of strategic management, cross-cultural management, business ethics, and the management science technique of goal programming. The purpose of the model is to aid managers in identifying countries for international expansion that offer the best fit with the firm's ethical orientation. The paper also extends the existing literature on cross-cultural management and business ethics by applying a computer optimization model to evaluate potential countries for international expansion in a way that has not been done before.     

Globalization and the Business Schools: Toward Business and World-Sustainable Leadership

Globalization is a force that produces deep changes in business and society. Business schools face great challenges and opportunities in educating future leaders who can work across countries and cultures. This article presents some strategic issues regarding the type of education that business schools should offer from a global perspective, aimed at developing business leaders/managers endowed with knowledge, values, and cross-cultural intelligence to seek progress for their communities, their businesses, and society at large. These goals must be achieved in a world of multilevel access to education and jobs with a more equitable array of opportunities for both developed and developing markets.     

The effect of signage and emotions on satisfaction with the servicescape: An empirical investigation in a healthcare service setting

Marketing and environmental psychology studies have long emphasized the importance of signage in large and dispersive service settings but have focused little on utilitarian service contexts. Previous studies have also analyzed the role of emotions in customer satisfaction with the servicescape, particularly in hedonic service environments such as malls, hotels, and restaurants, but a limited research has been conducted on the role of emotions in utilitarian service settings such as healthcare services. This study draws from the environmental psychology and service marketing literature to investigate the effects of signage and emotions on satisfaction with the servicescape in the hospital setting. In addition, it explores the moderating effect of emotions on the relationship between signage and satisfaction with the servicescape. The findings show that signage has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction with the servicescape. Negative emotions have a significant negative effect on satisfaction, while positive emotions have no significant effect. Differently from what was expected, emotions do not moderate the relationship between signage and satisfaction. Managerial implications are provided for service managers who wish to design a utilitarian service setting to effectively increase user satisfaction with the servicescape.     

Negative emotions,value and relationships: Differences between women and men

Service experiences are characterized by emotions that help shape the value in use received by the customer. Negative emotion plays an important role in all of consumer psychology and all too often consumers experience some degree of negative emotion during a consumption experience. This research sheds light on how these negative shopping emotions experienced by men and women in a typical shopping environment affect value and relationships in the form of shopper behavior, commitment and share of wallet. A theoretical process is explained and modeled with a sample of mall shoppers. Results overall suggest that negative emotions affect the shopping experience more for women than for men in terms of perceived value and loyalty. In contrast, the behavior–commitment relationship is stronger for men.     

Professional Development for Cross-Border Managers: New Growth Opportunities for Executive Education

The need of business enterprises for professionals trained for the challenges of cross-border assignments will increase exponentially through the decade. Business schools will be hard pressed to deliver programs with the scope, scale, and effectiveness necessary to address the unique competencies required for cross-cultural understanding and communication, and the complexity of global business operations. This article reviews the existing literature in order to identify the competencies that are needed by global managers and the training approaches that can successfully build those competencies. A template of 10 criteria that should be addressed by training programs for cross-border professionals is proposed and applied to a sample of business schools that currently offer executive programs. Although there are good examples of programs that meet one or more of the 10 criteria, most business schools will be required to expand and to innovate their programs in order to meet the projected demand for training.     

Ups and Downs: Emotional Dynamics in Negotiations and Their Effects on (In)Equity

Organizational scholars now acknowledge the relevance of emotions in virtually every aspect of organizational life, including negotiations and conflict resolution. Integrating negotiation phase model theory with social functional models of emotion, we test hypotheses about the development of emotions in negotiations and their effects on the degree of economic (in)equity of the counterpart’s subsequent offer during the actual negotiation process. By comparing stalemate dyads with efficient settlement dyads, the study identifies emotional dynamics that characterize successful as opposed to unsuccessful negotiations. Results show that observed differences are primarily the result of impasse dyads spiraling into a negative emotional climate rather than efficient settlement dyads having overall higher levels of positive emotions or increasing them throughout the negotiation process. As predicted by social functional models, the study further confirms that emotions are not only a reaction to the economic (un)fairness of a proposed offer, but their display also influences the payoff (in)equity of the counterpart’s subsequent offer. Whether a specific emotional expression increases or decreases the economic fairness of the counterpart’s subsequent offer, however, differs across negotiation phases and between dyads that reached an agreement or not. Furthermore, the results show distinct differences between emotions that address individual goal realization in negotiations and emotions that focus on the relational, interpersonal aspect of negotiations, both with regard to their development as well as their function. Taken together, the results shed light on the mechanisms leading to the emergence of conflict spirals.     

Research for Practice: The Management of Expatriates

The objective of this article is to identify expatriate management research questions of interest to international human resource (IHR) managers. We conducted an in‐depth literature review, interviewed a small sample of IHR managers, and reviewed commercially available large sample surveys of IHR managers. Results suggest that IHR managers are concerned about determinants of the decision to accept an offer of expatriation, why expatriates show so little interest in training, perceived equity in rewards, and other areas not well studied to date. The article discusses implications for academics wishing to make their research more relevant to IHR managers and global organizations. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Calm before the Storm: Examining Emotion Regulation Consumption in the Face of an Impending Disaster

In the midst of the physical damage and collective stress created by natural disasters, individuals come to terms with their utter lack of control. In the process, a myriad of emotions are experienced, with many of them being negative in nature. Research suggests that during moderately challenging situations individuals experiencing negative emotions may engage in coping attempts to improve their emotional state. Consumption has been one strategy used by individuals to mitigate negative emotions. This research extends previous research by exploring whether such emotion regulation processes occur in extreme conditions such as natural disasters. Specifically, it examines the emotions experienced by individuals, the antecedents of these emotions, as well as how individuals regulate their emotions through consumption. A conceptual model is proposed and tested in Study 1 and findings are once again corroborated in a follow‐up study. Implications for mitigating negative emotions and improving subjective well‐being during extreme crisis situations are discussed.     

Global managers’ perceptions of cultural competence

To work effectively in the global business arena, managers need a strong set of intercultural management skills. When dealing with clients, co-workers, and other stakeholders at home or abroad, managers with cross-cultural competence have a distinct competitive advantage in the multicultural marketplace. Although generally accepted as a valuable asset for doing business, cross-cultural competence defies easy definition. This study attempts to conceptualize the complex term from the practitioner's point of view. What does cross-cultural competence mean to global managers? From their perspective, which aspects of culture do business people need to understand? From the universe of cultural beliefs, values, attitudes, and country-specific information, what should an executive, with limited time, focus on to develop a basic level of cultural competence? This study asked Mexican managers what they needed to know about culture to do business with the U.S. In the process, they consistently identified certain basic components of cultural competence. Responses were surprisingly similar among the managers, indicating they had a clear picture of which cultural essentials were most important for global executives to learn. The results of the study reveal a working definition of cultural competence for global managers. This research also provides trainers and business educators a content framework for a short-term training program, based on the global managers’ perceptions of cross-cultural competence.     

Can sales leaders with humility create adaptive retail salespersons?

Although humility in leadership has been recognized as vital in leading salespeople to cope with unpredictability and unknowability in customers, the role of sales leader humility in promoting sales behaviors has remained underexplored. Our research aims to unfold how and when sales managers’ leadership humility nurtures retail salespersons’ adaptive selling behavior. Grounded on the dataset from managers and employees working in retail shops of a large telecommunication and computer company in Vietnam, the results reveal the role of retail salespersons’ customer knowledge, adaptive self-efficacy, and customer-oriented harmonious passion as the mediation paths for the linkage between sales leader humility and retail salespeople's adaptive selling behavior. The findings further provide evidence for the role of sales managers’ adaptive selling as an enhancer for the impacts of sales leader humility on these mediators.     

Managerial competency appraisal: A cross-cultural study of American and East Asian managers

This paper reports on the use of managerial commpetency assessment method to appraise 1436 managers from four East Asian countries and 3193 managers from the United States. The results of this research suggest that the assessed competencies of managers from the different nationalities are subject to cultural factors that shape personality and behavioural choices. Outcomes of assessed managerial competencies are likely to be influenced by perceptions of status, the need for consultation and the degree of openness of communication between managers and their subordinates. The study also points to the need for organisations to distinguish the more stable technical skills from the culturally-sensitive people skills when assessing and developing managers of different nationalities and cultures.     

An Exploration of Frequent Service Failures in the Brazilian Airline Industry

This study explores how customer evaluations of service failures and failure recurrence impact negative emotions and intent to complain. A survey of 589 Brazilian airline passengers demonstrates the meditational effect of negative emotions such that customers who perceive failures as severe and/or preventable by the airline develop more negative emotions, which subsequently increases intent to complain. We also demonstrate the moderating role of failure recurrence such that failure recurrence reduces the effect of failure severity on negative emotions. Our findings have important implications for managers and airlines in order to mitigate negative outcomes following a service failure.     

Adapting adaptation: Expanding adaptive strategy theory to account for the East Asian business context

This paper extends international business theory by providing insights into contextual boundaries of the dominant strategic adaptation model, based on assumptions of low power distance and a bottom-up management style. We challenge them by examining the context of Asian organizations with contrasting management style and ask how it is possible for them to adapt. We propose a supplementary “top-down” model of adaptation, supported by empirical data from East Asian organizations. The model involves low autonomy of lower- and middle-level managers, but fluid communication from bottom to top, enabling informed but authoritarian adaptive decision-making exclusively at the behest of top management.     

Justifications Offered,Questions Asked,and Linguistic Patterns in Deceptive and Truthful Monetary Interactions

In this study, we investigate verbal production in people playing a monetary negotiation game who freely chose to lie or tell the truth. Participants were randomly assigned to the role of allocator or recipient; the allocator divided a small amount of money and was tasked with convincing the recipient to accept their share. Allocators were free to lie, and 30 % did. Our goal is to investigate the use of justifications, questions, and linguistics to assess if these factors differ between those telling the truth, lying by omission, and lying by commission. We find that liars were more likely to use some types of justifications, while truth-tellers were more likely to assert that their offer was fair. Recipient questions were unrelated to successful detection of deception, and linguistic patterns were largely non-significant, with the exception of liars using more negations. We also find no connection between emotions felt by allocators (more guilt for liars) and linguistic patterns, replicating past results. We discuss how these results mesh with past findings, offer discussion about what this means for the field, and consider where research on linguistic differences between liars and truth-tellers should go next.