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Theoretical justification of sampling choices in international marketing research: key issues and guidelines for researchers

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Abstract

Sampling in the international environment needs to satisfy the same requirements as sampling in the domestic environment, but there are additional issues to consider, such as the need to balance within-country representativeness with cross-national comparability. However, most international marketing research studies fail to provide theoretical justification for their choice of sampling approach. This is because research design theory and sampling theory have not been well integrated in the context of international research. This paper seeks to fill the gap by developing a framework for determining a sampling approach in international studies. The framework is based on an assessment of the way in which sampling affects the validity of research results, and shows how different research objectives impact upon (a) the desired sampling method and (b) the desired sample characteristics. The aim is to provide researchers with operational guidance in choosing a sampling approach that is theoretically appropriate to their particular research aims.

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Notes

  1. 1 Validity here refers to the validity of the findings (i.e. as in internal and external validity), not the validity of measurement (as in convergent/discriminant validity).

  2. 2 Given our emphasis on theoretical considerations, and because of space limitations, we do not address in any detail practical problems associated with sampling in an international setting (e.g. lack of suitable sampling frames) or issues surrounding sampling size determination, survey implementation, etc. However, all these issues need to be addressed by researchers when designing and executing an international research project (see Malhotra et al., 1996).

  3. 3 Internal validity refers to the degree to which one can draw correct inferences about a phenomenon within a study: that is, the extent to which the researcher can be sure that the observed effect is because of the variable(s) of interest. External validity refers to the degree to which one can draw correct inferences when generalizing beyond a study: that is, the extent to which the researcher can generalize the research across the whole population of interest (Heiman, 1998).

  4. 4 While we acknowledge that the meanings of such terms as nationality, nation, country and culture are not strictly interchangeable (e.g. nationality is a legal term whereas country is a geographic term), the theoretical sampling problems that arise when research is conducted across national, ‘country’ or cultural boundaries are largely shared, and so for the purposes of this paper the terms are used interchangeably.

  5. 5 Note that, in international studies, sampling needs to take account of the appropriate unit of analysis. This can be quite complex, as its delineation may involve elements at both a macrocultural and microcultural level: for example, ‘a Catholic French Swiss teenager is a member of the French Swiss culture, the Catholic French culture, and the European teen culture’ (Douglas and Craig, 1997, p. 388). The problems associated with defining the unit of analysis and sampling at the country level have previously been discussed in the literature, but the underlying theoretical issues associated with the sampling of individual respondents have received much less attention.

  6. 6 Probability sampling involves procedures in which each element in the population has a known chance of being selected for the sample; with nonprobability sampling, this chance is unknown (Lohr, 1999).

  7. 7 Within-country representativeness reflects the degree to which each country's sample reflects the population of interest in that country; between-country comparability denotes the cross-national equivalence of the country samples involved (Lonner and Berry, 1986).

  8. 8 Even though a researcher cannot be certain that a given probability sample is actually representative of the population of interest, one can statistically estimate the likelihood of the sample being representative: thus the researcher is able to state how confident he/she is that the research results reflect the situation in the underlying population (Lohr, 1999).

  9. 9 For example, assuming a single dependent variable, the former study would require an analysis of covariance with respondent type, country and sex as factors (main effects) and age as a covariate, whereas in the latter study a simple t-test would suffice. The sample size requirements of each analysis would thus be markedly different (e.g. Hair et al., 1998).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers and the JIBS editor for their helpful suggestions on a previous version of this paper.

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Correspondence to N L Reynolds.

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Accepted by Tom Brewer, outgoing Editor, 4 Sept 2002. This paper has been with the author for 1 revision.

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Reynolds, N., Simintiras, A. & Diamantopoulos, A. Theoretical justification of sampling choices in international marketing research: key issues and guidelines for researchers. J Int Bus Stud 34, 80–89 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400000

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