Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research: Reply to Craig and Douglas' commentary

This article responds to the major concerns Craig and Douglas (2011) raise in their commentary essay on the content analysis of cross-cultural marketing research from Engelen and Brettel (2011). Based upon theoretical arguments and empirical findings in the extant literature, this reply argues that national borders are an appropriate major level at which to study the culture construct. This reply also shows that empirical research on consumer acculturation supports the idea that “whiteness” is present in cross-cultural marketing research.     

Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research

A content analysis of 99 articles focuses on the comparative cross-cultural marketing research in 14 leading marketing and business journals from 1990 to 2008. The content analysis indicates strong growth in cross-cultural studies, especially in terms of studies on consumer attitudes and behavior and on promotion-related topics. This study classifies articles according to a series of conceptual (e.g., cultural dimensions employed in the study) and methodological (e.g., use of analytical technique) criteria. Although researchers have advanced in both conceptual and methodological respects, the studies still focus strongly on the dimensions from Hofstede (2001); methodologically, the dominance of two-country studies is problematic. Further, survey data from North America and Europe and researchers based and trained in North America and Europe are still dominant in the research field.     

Historical research in marketing theory and practice: a review essay

Abstract

This paper reviews 30 years of interdisciplinary scholarship that deals with marketing history or the history of marketing thought. We have ranged across the humanities and social sciences to review the very best scholarship that these domains have produced which speaks to issues likely to concern the readers of the Journal of Marketing Management (JMM). These domains include: the history of marketing management, history of market research, history of market segmentation, product management history, retailing and channels history, promotion history, advertising history, the history of marketing thought, and marketing and the management of subjectivity, among others. Given obvious page limitations we have nevertheless tried to appeal to the paradigmatic span of the readers of the JMM. With this in mind, we have critically reviewed material that will be of interest to managerially oriented academics, as well as those who subscribe to consumer culture theoretics and critical marketing studies.     

Dynamic learning and strategic alliances: A commentary essay

Strategic alliances and the learning benefits they foster in partner firms inspire a rich literature in the organizational sciences. Part of this literature asks whether or not alliances drive dynamic learning opportunities and thus help partner firms create or enhance dynamic competitive capabilities. Chen, Lee, and Lay (2010) show that alliances do foster the development of dynamic competitive capabilities and do this through dynamic learning mechanisms. This commentary essay critiques the merits of the authors' potential contributions to extant theory and managerial practice and offers new questions for further research.     

Review and future directions of cross-cultural consumer services research

It is widely recognized that an increasing number of service firms are expanding into international markets. Many studies in the services marketing literature have focused on the identification and discussion of similarities and/or differences in consumer service experiences across nations and cultures. In this paper we review the relevant literature, address conceptual and methodological issues associated with extant cross-cultural consumer services research and suggest theories and approaches in regards to future research in the area. In addition, we introduce and discuss the concept of “cultural service personality” as a potential new theoretical perspective.     

Cultural influences on global firms' decisions to cut the strategic brand ties that bind: A commentary essay

Today's global firms face increasing pressure to protect their brand identity from encroachments of copycat brands that seek to benefit from associations firms have established in the minds of consumers. This essay is a commentary to the article “Marking your trade: cultural factors in the prolongation of trademarks” by Melnyk, Giarratana and Torres that raises several important issues warranting further attention by researchers. This essay comments on the paper's contributions, limitations, and opportunities contributing to future research about trademark practices and strategies. Furthermore, the essay suggests useful extensions relative to the more general strategic issue of prolongation or abandonment of intangible brand assets in global markets and the dynamic interface between firm-created and consumer-created brand meaning.     

Managerial ownership and performance: A commentary essay

Florackis, Kostakis, and Ozkan [Florackis, C., Kostakis, A., and Ozkan, A., 2008. Managerial ownership and performance, Journal of Business Research, forthcoming] empirically examine the exact nature of the relationship between managerial ownership and corporate performance in the framework of semi-parametric regression. This commentary explores the authors' contribution to the corporate governance literature in the light of recent advances in semi-parametric regression. The commentary also considers how Florackis et al.'s findings align with important, emerging work in the corporate governance literature.     

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.     

Cosmopolitanism, individual-level values and cultural-level values: A cross-cultural study

Cosmopolitanism (COS) is an important consumer characteristic for international market segmentation. To date, no empirical studies investigate how COS relates to consumer values. This research, involving samples of Canadians and Turks, focuses on the associations of individual- and cultural-level values to COS dispositions, and compares these relationships cross-culturally. The findings support the cross-cultural applicability of these constructs. While some of the COS-values relationships are consistent across the two cultures, others differ. Overall, COS is much more strongly associated with Schwartz's individual and cultural level values than with either Hofstede's cultural dimensions or demographics.     

International marketing research: A global project management perspective

As organizations continue to pursue more global strategies, the need to be able to understand consumers in far away places is increasing. Marketing research is the primary mechanism through which companies understand their current, as well as potential, customers. As companies contemplate the global marketplace, they must consider how domestic market research differs when conducted in international markets. In an effort to help internal client side marketing research managers design and implement improved international research studies, we briefly discuss the context for international market research and provide a framework for conducting international market research projects. Additionally, we present several factors that should be considered by marketers who engage in global market research studies. These factors represent the variety of challenges that must be addressed in order to conduct research across national borders. Particular attention is paid to the nuances related to primary data collection and questionnaire construction.     

Reflective and formative metrics of relationship value: A commentary essay

The Journal of Business Research special issue (61/12) covers controversy about formative versus reflective model specification. This essay comments on that special issue and illustrates specific points relating to the controversy by discussing recent studies of business-to-business relationship value, comparing their differing specifications, and noting that the variations of specification result from quite distinct conceptualizations. The essay makes the more substantive conclusion that the differences in conceptualization result from more than one underlying streams of research and that each stream is conceptually quite distinct and needs to follow its own direction for future research. The specific case of relationship value illustrates the broad necessity for researchers to consider in-depth how they conceptualize models. Other research areas have distinct research streams that lie behind different conceptualizations and specifications that researchers must nurture explicitly if useful ontology is to develop effectively.     

Culture and International business research: A review and research agenda

This study explores the role of culture and international business in internationalization outcomes through a systematic review and analysis of articles published between 2009 and 2019. By mapping the current research domain, this review reflects the avenues for future research in theory development, context, characteristics, and methodology (TCCM) in eight research clusters identified as national culture, external uncertainty avoidance, knowledge transfer & collaboration, HRM & management practices, international diversification research, entrepreneurial mindset, interaction, and firm performance. The clusters were grouped into independent factors and internationalization outcome factors. This framework provided deeper insights into the theoretical implications which will lead to further advancement in these research areas.     

Experience and a firm's performance in foreign markets: A commentary essay

Wu and Lin (2010) extend several prominent themes in the experience and subsidiary performance literature in their empirical examination of the foreign expansion of Taiwanese MNEs. This commentary essay considers the themes in Wu and Lin (2010) against the backdrop of the considerable volume of research that has been conducted on experiential learning and firm performance in both the international business and strategy literatures. Five weak axioms about the relationships between experience, foreign market entry strategy, and performance emerge in this review. Based on these weak axioms, the commentary concludes that scholars need to concentrate future research on understanding the management and process-related issues that concern the effective management of a firm's experiential learning processes to foster better capability and knowledge development from a firm's experience, as well as translate such developments into improved performance prospects for a firm.     

Parental responsiveness and adolescent susceptibility to peer influence: A cross-cultural investigation

From a developmental perspective, this research focuses on how parental responsiveness affects adolescent susceptibility to peer influence both directly, and indirectly, through the key elements of adolescent self-concept (i.e., interdependent self-construal, self-esteem, and self-monitoring). The proposed parent-self-peer model incorporates culture as a moderator. The overarching finding is that in individualist cultures such as Canada, responsiveness reduces susceptibility mainly through an indirect effect by undermining interdependent self-construal, fostering self-esteem, and impairing self-monitoring. However, in collectivist cultures such as China, responsive parenting reduces susceptibility primarily through a direct effect. These findings are largely due to the cultural differences in socialization goals oriented toward individualism vs. collectivism.     

Advances in strategic marketing and the advancement of the marketing discipline: the promise of theory

ABSTRACT

Hunt (2018, Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: From promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment, (to promise?). Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 16–51. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2017.1326973) provides a synthesis and critical review of over 100 years of marketing literature organised into four eras. In his prognosis of the outlook for Era V, Hunt notes that there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for both the marketing discipline, broadly, and the field of strategic marketing, specifically. However, he also draws attention to the concerns voiced by a number of marketing scholars regarding the current state of the field and the future outlook for the field. Hunt argues that the prospects for the marketing discipline and the field of strategic marketing are closely intertwined, and that the health of the latter contributes significantly to that of the former. Against this backdrop, this commentary focuses on the promise of theory for advances in strategic marketing and the advancement of the marketing discipline.     

Focusing ethnography: theory and recommendations for effectively combining video and ethnographic research

ABSTRACT

Building theory with ethnography and filmic research increasingly requires focussing on key practices or settings, instead of painting a broad panorama of a culture. But few authors discuss why and how to focus. This article provides a systematic discussion of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of focusing ethnographic research by comparing different schools of thought and suggesting a practice theory-based approach. It argues that many research projects are focused but do not reflect on the process of focusing, describes how to identify focal settings or practices, and introduces sequential analysis as a tool for studying them. Analysing videos, documents and language are discussed in turn, and methods for ensuring quality in focused ethnography are suggested. Finally, the article provides recommendations for publishing focused ethnography as text or film.     

Heart rate variability in marketing research: A systematic review and methodological perspectives

Heart rate variability is a promising physiological measurement that accesses psychophysiological variations in response to a marketing stimulus. While its application spans diverse fields, there is a limited understanding of the usability and interpretation of heart rate variability in marketing research. Therefore, this hybrid literature review provides an overview of the emerging use of heart rate variability in marketing research, along with essential methodological considerations. In this context, we blend marketing mix framework with stimulus-organism-response theory, segregating the use of heart rate variability in various marketing research contexts. We follow the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) framework to reflect on 33 records obtained from six databases. Our findings suggest that 42% of studies used heart rate variability to investigate promotion-related topics. Overall, heart rate variability is mostly used in combination with Galvanic skin response (48%). Further, 39% of studies used non-portable systems for data collection. Last, using the theory characteristics methodology (TCM) framework, we identified six research avenues: (1) affective, cognitive, and sensorial constructs; (2) personality, thinking style, and demographics; (3) product experience; (4) advertising and branding; (5) correlation with immersive technologies; and (6) triangulation with other neurophysiological tools.     

Modeling behavioral intention to use travel reservation apps: A cross-cultural examination between US and China

We advance literature by developing a conceptual framework and cross-culturally validates it in US and Chinese cultural settings. Specifically, we extend unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) by incorporating user experience (UX) and perceived distrust into original UTAUT framework. The Schwartz's four higher-order value domains are employed as cultural moderators. We test our developed framework in US (n = 522) and China (n = 439) among online travelers. Overall, the framework holds true for both samples. The findings reveal that travelers in two countries show significant cultural differences while using travel reservation apps. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Finally, we identify areas for future academic contributions.     

Critical historical research method and marketing scholarship

As a research toolkit grounded in the philosophy and practice of critical analysis, critical ‘historical research method’ (critical HRM) can help explain marketing-related phenomena that shape and are shaped by social context and human agency. The value to marketing scholarship of critical HRM, which relies on critical realism (CR) and abductive reasoning (AR), is shown by (1) presenting elements of effective historical research, and (2) arguing historical research that entails social factors and their interactions compels a methodology for capturing the social and dynamic features of research objects. Implications of critical HRM for theory building and marketing practice are then summarised.