Exploring the influence of media exposure and cultural values on Korean immigrants’ advertising evaluations

This study investigated how mass media exposure and cultural values influence Korean immigrants’ responses to models in print advertising. In a between-subject design, participants viewed advertisements featuring either Caucasian or Asian models. The results of structural equation modelling show that there are significant relationships between mass media exposure, cultural values, and attitudes towards advertising models. Media exposure and cultural values predict attitudes towards advertising models, such that Korean immigrants who are exposed to Korean mass media and demonstrate Korean values show positive evaluations of Asian models, whereas Korean immigrants who are exposed to American mass media tend to show positive evaluations of Caucasian models. Results are explained according to acculturation processes within the Social Cognitive Theory and Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT).     

The relationship between cultural values and learning preference: the impact of acculturation experiences upon East Asians

Globalization and technology advancement are creating more biculturalism at workplaces and learning settings. However, little is known about acculturation experience and its influence on a person's cultural values and learning preference. The research reported in this study investigates the impact of acculturation experiences upon the relationship between cultural values and learning preference of 292 Far East Asians (from Confucian‐influenced societies) and Asian Americans. Different preferences for learning methods and different levels of traditional cultural values were found between these two groups of adult learners. Acculturation experience was identified as the influential factor for the differences. However, they all still retain their traditional cultural values in various degrees regardless of the length of time the individual had been exposed to the acculturation experience. The impact of cultural values on an adult's learning preference is an area of concern in cross‐cultural training and development.     

The Influence of Acculturation and In-Group Bias on Source Credibility: The Case of Asian American Female Consumers

While research on cultural variables influencing source credibility has been called for by scholars, very few studies have made attempts thus far. In this study, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of acculturation and in-group bias on Asian Americans’ perceived source credibility and advertising effectiveness. The results indicate that while acculturation had some effects on the subcomponents of credibility, in-group bias did not have an effect on credibility and Asian Americans’ advertising responses.     

Explaining Financial Management Behavior for Koreans Living in the United States

Using a cross‐cultural conceptualization with a targeted sample of Americans and Koreans, it was noted that Koreans exhibited more responsible financial management behavior than Americans after controlling for locus of control, financial knowledge, and income interactions. Overall, financial knowledge was positively related to responsible financial behavior. No direct effects on financial management behavior were noted for locus of control or household income. Locus of control was found to mediate the effect of financial knowledge on financial behavior for Koreans. Being Korean did moderate between financial knowledge and financial behavior.     

Acculturation,Ethnic Consumers,and Food Consumption Patterns

This article describes an investigation of the impact of acculturation on consumer behavior. The relationship between a four-phased acculturation process and ethnic consumer behavior was studied. Korean immigrants were found to be venturesome in trying new foods during their early acculturation stages, but deferred large adoption until the assimilation stage. This careful adoption process if reflected in the increasing consumption frequency of both American food items and traditional ethnic food items through the first three acculturation stages.     

Theoretical and Applied Relevance of Consumer Limits to Processing Advertising

Abstract

This study investigates (1) how immigrant consumers change their media consumption when they move across cultural boundaries and (2) whether media exposure relates to consumers' acculturation of the new social norms. A total of 938 respondents from four sample groups including Hong Kong residents, long-time and new Hong Kong immigrants to Canada and English-speaking Caucasian Canadians responded to a predesigned questionnaire. It was found that while the immigrant groups did not increase their total media consumption, their consumption across different media types followed both assimilation and ethnic affirmation models. This acculturation process seemed to be affected by immigrants' original media consumption behavior and language ability. Media exposure was found to relate significantly to immigrants' acculturation of the new social norms after influences due to personal characteristics were removed.     

Calling It Out: The Impact of National Identity on Consumer Response to Ads With a Patriotic Theme

This study examined how ethnic minorities negotiate between ethnic and national identities and respond to ads that intend to appeal to consumers through patriotism. Specifically, this study proposed that activating ethnic minorities' national identity through a prime would affect their evaluation of ads with a patriotic theme. Further, this effect among ethnic minorities would be different from that among the majority. Findings from this study suggest that (1) Caucasian Americans (the majority group) responded more favorably to ads with a patriotic theme than did Asian Americans (ethnic minorities); (2) both Caucasian and Asian Americans became more positive in their ad evaluations when their American national identity was made momentarily salient through a national identity prime; and (3) the effect of national identity activation on evaluation of ads was greater among Asian Americans than among Caucasian Americans.     

Sex Appeal in Advertising: What Consumers Think

This study examined consumers’ attitude toward the use of sexual content in advertisements among there different cultural groups; i.e., individualistic sample (White American), collectivistic sample (US temporal visitors from Asia), and acculturation sample (Asian immigrants). Sixty participants were asked about cultural acceptability of sexual content ads and the favorable attitude toward those ads by using Q-methodology. Asian participants reported less cultural acceptability for sexuality, than either Asian American or North American participants. The findings also revealed that North Americans are more likely to prefer the use of sexual content in advertisement than Asians. Asian-American participants agreed with North American participants in regard to sexually explicit advertising. Implications and limitations were discussed.     

HALF THE SKY: The Moderating Role of Cultural Collectivism in Job Turnover Among Chinese Female Workers

The present study examines how collectivism, an important cultural value, plays a moderating role in the association between job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and actual turnover in a sample of 781 Chinese female workers. Results show that collectivism moderates the relationships between job attitude variables and turnover intention. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment are more powerful in predicting turnover intention when levels of collectivism are high rather than low. However, collectivism only moderates the mediation of turnover intention in the relationship between job satisfaction and actual turnover. The study deepens the understanding of the moderating effect of cultural values in organizational behavioral outcomes as Taras et al. (J Appl Psychol 95:405–439, 2010) suggest. Also discussed are the practical implications on how to control the voluntary termination of female laborers who constitute an important part in Chinese manufacturing.     

The Influence of Confucian Ethics and Collectivism on Whistleblowing Intentions: A Study of South Korean Public Employees

The current study presents the findings of an empirical inquiry into the effects of Confucian ethics and collectivism, on individual whistleblowing intentions. Confucian Ethics and Individualism–Collectivism were measured in a questionnaire completed by 343 public officials in South Korea. This study found that Confucian ethics had significant but mixed effects on whistleblowing intentions. The affection between father and son had a negative effect on internal and external whistleblowing intentions, while the distinction between the roles of husband and wife had a positive effect on those intentions. The effects of collectivism were also different depending on the specific types of collectivism. Horizontal collectivism had a positive effect on both types of whistleblowing intentions, whereas vertical collectivism did not show any significant effects on whistleblowing intentions. These results indicate that cultural traits such as Confucian ethics and collectivism may affect an individual’s whistleblowing intentions in degree and direction, making blanket predictions about cultural effects on whistleblowing difficult.     

The impact of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs on physician visits and drug requests: Empirical findings and public policy implications

This study analyzes the effect of DTCA expenditures for anti-hyperlipidemia drugs on patient behaviors. The key findings are: (a) DTCA expenditures have a positive and long-term effect on the number of visits to physicians by newly diagnosed hyperlipidemia patients. (b) The effectiveness of DTCA in generating new patient visits varies substantially across patient sub-groups. (c) The effect of DTCA is larger on drug visits than on non-drug-only visits. (d) Own-brand DTCA expenditures increase the number of patient requests for Lipitor and Zocor, but have no effect on patient requests for Pravachol. Competing drugs’ DTCA expenditures have a positive effect only on patient requests for the leading brand, Lipitor. (e) A cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that the economic benefits of DTCA in terms of life years saved by preventing cardiovascular disease are considerably larger than the costs of advertising. (f) DTCA on TV has strong effects on underserved segments of the population, such as those on Medicaid. We believe this finding should be carefully considered by proponents of a complete ban or stricter regulations on DTCA.     

Approaching Korean Business and Management Ideals through the Lens of Yongo: A Scholar–Practitioner Perspective

By adopting the insider perspective based on participant observations, this article explores a new dimension of management ideals in South Korea. In particular, it proposes an important cultural context extension to the conventional collectivism paradigm that is often used to explain Korean management. By introducing the term yongo, which denotes exclusive and informal social networks based on (pseudo-) family, university alumni, and regional connections, challenges for management practices can be reported, including, for example, the difficulties that foreign managers face in accessing these networks to establish high-trust ties and influence business decisions.     

The agentic body in immigrant maternal identity reconstruction: embodiment,consumption, acculturation

Drawing from Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the agentic body, this research uses phenomenological in-depth interviews and auto-ethnographic journaling to explore South Korean immigrant women’s experiences of body changes in consumption over the course of pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood in the U.S. The findings trace women’s experiences of disembodiment as they defer and alter their consumption, detail multicultural embodiment favoring South Korean cultural knowledge and traditions, and elaborate how their self-sacrificial and compensatory consumption aids in re-embodiment. The paper contributes to theoretical understandings by elaborating the force and layered dynamics of the agentic body in opposing and supporting women’s maternal identity construction, and as a powerful, gendered agent that orients consumer acculturation processes.     

Identity salience and shifts in product preferences of Hispanic consumers: Cultural relevance of product attributes as a moderator

Culturally relevant products, services, and communications play a crucial role in the success of ethnic targeted marketing. Employing a bi-dimensional approach, two studies examine how cultural relevance of product attributes interacts with acculturation level, and situational and contextual factors to affect product attribute evaluations (PAE) of Hispanic consumers. Across both studies, cultural relevance had main effects on PAE. In Study 1, cultural relevance interacted with cultural situations to affect PAE. Hispanic consumers evaluated Hispanic (or Mainstream) relevant product attributes more favorably when exposed to a Hispanic (or Mainstream) cultural situation. In Study 2, cultural relevance interacted independently with cultural primes and acculturation level to significantly affect PAE. PAE shifted as a result of cultural primes and moved toward being typical to the activated cultural identity. Results are discussed in the context of consumer acculturation, social identity-based consumption, biculturalism, and cultural frame shifting.     

Culturally Customizing Websites for Immigrant Communities in the United States

Recent research suggests that the customization of online marketing messages to meet the cultural preferences of immigrant communities increases preferences for those messages. Level of acculturation may be used as a segmentation variable that accounts for this effect, with lower levels of acculturation matching the preference for the home country's culture in marketing messages. Comparisons between Asian- and Hispanic-American preferences across levels of acculturation are made, and possible convergences in preferences through acculturation are examined. The results indicate that Taiwanese-Americans have culturally-rooted preferences for web content based on their acculturation levels. Furthermore, the study shows that the web content preferences of Taiwanese- and Hispanic-American consumers converge as members of these groups acculturate.     

Capturing intranational cultural variation in international business research: Microsocietal differences in collectivism across Turkey

We introduce an approach toward predicting intranational variance in individualism-collectivism, via utilization of ecological cultural practices and psychological cultural values. Using the climato-economic theory of culture, we modeled intranational collectivism using four measures, including normative behavioral and spatial collectivism practices, and the mean and dispersion of collectivism values, in one country, Turkey. Results evidenced confluence of findings based on both ecological measures and dispersion-based collectivism values. Conversely, mean collectivism values fared poorly. Study predictors explained up to ≈87% of the variance in intranational collectivism. Richer provinces with harsher climates were less collectivistic; vice-versa for poorer provinces with harsher climates.     

Organizational acculturation in foreign subsidiaries

Organizational acculturation refers to the influence of parent organizational culture resulting in change of work values of local employees in foreign subsidiaries. A study of host country national middle managers in Southeast Asia explored the impact of organizational acculturation. In the first phase, the work-related cultural values of managers employed by Swedish subsidiaries in Singapore were compared with those of a control group of managers employed by non-Swedish companies. The second phase investigated the work values of managers in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand, based on Hofstede's four cultural dimensions. The findings clearly indicated that local managers in Swedish subsidiaries had experienced organizational acculturation, as distinct Swedish values had been adopted. However, cultural change did not occur to an equal extent among the three countries nor between different cultural values. Implications of the findings for international human resource management are discussed. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Culture and Consumer Ethics

Disparity in consumer ethics reflects cultural variations; these are differences in the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one culture from another. This study explores the differences in consumer ethics across cultural dimensions using Hofstede??s (in Culture??s consequences: international differences in work-related values, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1980) model (collectivism, masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance) and Muncy and Vitell (in J Bus Res 24(4):297?C311, 1992) consumer ethics model (i.e., illegal, active, passive, and no harm). This is the first study to empirically explore consumer ethics using these two major constructs. Seven hundred sixty one African American consumers were used to test the four major hypotheses developed in this study. Current research has revealed that there are significant differences in ethics between consumers who score high and consumers who score low on Hofstede??s four cultural dimensions. In general, this research revealed that consumers who score high on collectivism, high on uncertainty avoidance, low on masculinity, and low on power distance scales reject questionable activities more than consumers who score low on collectivism, low on uncertainty avoidance, high on masculinity, and high on power distance. This study should prove valuable to international marketers because the Hofstede cultural model allows managers to identify differences in consumer ethics across different cultures and thus provides a theoretical base for designing effective marketing strategies.