Proceedings of the 1996 Multicultural Marketing Conference

A brand name is the foundation of a brand’s image. Successful brands are often a copmpany’s most valuable assets. The substantial and ever increasing cost associated with new brand introductions has prompted companies to take great care in the creation and development of new brand names. Creating a new brand name is not an easy task. A brand name should appeal to the customer while at the same time clear trademark registration-two goals thai can be conflicting. The overabundance of brand names in the marketplace complicates this task even further. The increasing globalization represents still another challenge. Managers can either standardize brand names or adapt brands to fit local markets. Research on global versus local marketing strategies, however, has been slow to address the issue of international branding.

Whether to research consumers in the same way in countries with cultural and environmental differences is explored. Analysis of survey data describes East/West advertising-influence, price-influence and age segments. Results suggest different East/West research methods and marketing strategies for cameras and similar recreational durables with nondurable components.

Communication within corporations is often a challenge, as the large size of firms and conflicting goals of individuals are manifested by miscommunications. This situation is exacerbated in multinational corporations (MNC’s). This paper reviews the extant literature on intercultural communication within MNC’s from a societal perspective, and furnishes propositions that will detail methods marketing managers can use to facilitate effective communication.

This study examines the influence of external, internal and organizational factors on marketing adoption among small and medium scale Malay entrepreneurs in Peninsular Malaysia. Marketing adoption was operationalized as a firm behavior manifested by the number of marketing activities being carried out by the entrepreneur. From a survey of 249 Malay entrepeneurs in the manufacturing and service sectors, it was found that the three external factors of demand condition, competitiveness, and seasonality played an insignificant role in explaining the different levels of marketing adoption by the entrepreneurs. Similarly, the three internal factors of business aspiration, marketing importance, and business success also failed to exert a significant influence on marketing adoption. The only significant antecedent of marketing adoption was that of business sector suggesting that Malay entrepreneurs tended to cany out a set of marketing activities that seemed to be dominant in a particular sector.

If the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Sarawak’s heritage as tourism product could be identified, marketers (planners) of the industry would be more efficient in the development of a more concerted strategy in the tourism market. The study reveals that the strengths of Sarawak as a tourist destination are the marketing of “Mother Nature” (the heritage) which includes heritage appeals, facilities and services, unique sites, cultural and food, special appeal, cost and environmental considerations, and information center.

Globalization of business is leading to an increased awareness among academics and practitioners alike, that variations in business practices are perhaps as common as similarities across the world. While a tendency toward homogenization of business practices around the world is predicted by the so-called “convergence hypothesis” (Hofstede 1983), significant differences persist at the moment. That culture, especially, national culture, influences managerial practices is currently a widely accepted view (Hofstede 1983, Kale and Barnes 1992).

This study considers the relative influence of black and white husbands and wives in purchasing decision-making behavior for various product categories. This study attempts to develop a more accurate consumer profile of blade families. Comparisons are made between black and white families based on social class.

This paper explores some of the psychological influences on excessive participation in state lotteries by African Americans. The impact of racism and poverty, and African American beliefs, and learning are discussed in an effort to explain African American compulsive lottery participation. Finally, an approach to treatment is proposed.

This Florida-based study expels the common misconception that poor minorities purchase a disproportionate amount of lottery tickets when compared to their white counterparts. Lottery participation across race, income, and education levels is analyzed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate consumer ethnocentric tendencies and brand name familiarity as potential antecedents of actual purchase behavior of domestic vs. foreign goods within product categories recently subjected to foreign competition. Empirical results confirmed most of the postulated relationships. Implications for domestic and international marketers are outlined in the conclusions.

This paper contains an empirical analysis of cross-cultural differences in the appreciation of different art forms and art periods. We describe how appreciation varies over the country of origin of the consumer, controlling for personal characteristics. We pay particular attention to testing hypotheses on interactions between the country of origin and personal characteristics. The results give insight into cross-cultural differences in art preferences, and they are useful for marketing strategies of art museums.

As a consequence of the increasing popularity of multi-national or even global manufacturing strategies, the number of products for which the countiy of production is different from the original home country of the brand has been increasing rapidly. Such products may be referred to as bi-national products -- as opposed to uni-national products, which are manufactured in the brand’s original country of origin.

The impact of 6 types of closing techniques as well as buyer gender on purchasing agents’ attitude toward the salesperson was examined in this paper. The study utilized scenario methodology in a 6 x 2 factorial after-only field experiment that included 241 purchasing executives. The closing techniques utilized were as follows: the (1) assumed close; the (2) either-or close; the (3) testamonial close; (4) the if-then close; (5) the impending event close; (6) a no close condition. The assumed close and the either-or close are both derivatives of the consistency principle of persuasion. The testamonial close is based on the strong tendency for individuals to model their behavior on referent others. The if-then close utilizes the norm of reciprocity which obligates people to repay gifts, favors, invitations, and concessions. The impending event close encourages the buyer to buy now before some known future event occurs which will make the terms of the exchange less favorable to the buyer. This close is based on the scarcity principle of persuasion which posits that as resources become scarce they become more valuable and there arises a penalty for waiting. The no close condition provided a test of whether closing in general affected attitude toward the salesperson.

Today’s sales managers need comprehensive multicultural training to successfully prepare their sales forces to sell in increasingly diverse domestic and foreign markets. Yet, the sparse literature on sales management training indicates that most sales managers do not receive any training for their multicultural roles. Unless sales managers begin receiving multicultural training, their sales forces and their companies will have difficulty competing in the 21st Century.

In this study, African—American students preferred public relations as a career, followed by marketing research, marketing management, international and consumer product sales. Caucasian students selected international sales as a marketing career path, followed by public relations and marketing research. Unlike earlier studies, grade-point average did not correlate with sales career preference. Negative descriptors of sales suggest that neither group of students possess an accurate understanding of the role played by the salesperson. Findings and implications are presented for marketing educators.

The changing product life-cycle is having a significant effect on successful international business planning. Strategic planning that correctly predicts the life-cycle of the products of a business has the potential to be much more effective than planning that does not The forces that are causing a general shortening of the product life-cycle, from both the global and domestic points of view, are examined. In the past, many companies in differing industries sold their products in their home country until the market was saturated. At that point, the company branched into other countries to gain new customers. Eventually, production was begun in the new market. This process was carried out in a slow manner, often one country at a time. The practicality of this strategy, in general, has been lessening as product life-cycles have been shrinking. An alternative strategy of simultaneous penetration of multiple markets in conjunction with a dispersed global strategy is proposed. The strengths and drawbacks of such a strategy are discussed.

This paper seeks to piece together the connection between religion and a country’s decision making habits. A model is then developed that allows managers to capture and synthesize information that will provide the necessary elements for establishing successful exporting strategies.

In a pilot study, It conduced that gender probably does not make a difference in satisfaction with the services of an HMO, with the willingness to recommend their HMO to others, with the perceived satisfaction with the medical service provided, and wiih the list of doctors provided by their HMO. Satisfaction with one HMO probably is not significantly different than with the other HMO.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of age and race on the attitude towards abortion. Changes between 1977 and 1993 in white and black’s abortion attitude were analyzed using National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey data. Attitudes toward abortion were based on six questions that were asked in the survey. An attitude index was constructed from these six items (alpha = 0.85). In general, as the cohorts aged attitudes became slightly less favorable. Whites and males were more pro-abortion than blacks and females. Multi-variate techniques were used to evaluate the determinants of attitudes, trends over time, and patterns of change for cohorts. The frequency of attending religious services was the strongest predictor of White’s abortion attitudes while the place of residence was the strongest predictor of Black’s abortion attitudes in the regression model.

The escalating cost of health care is viewed by many Americans as one of the major problems facing this country as the 21st Century approaches. The type of health care plan adopted on the Federal or State level and the cost of providing a plan to employees, could have a major effect on the competitiveness of businesses. The purposes of this paper are to describe the Canadian health care system, identify current criticisms of the Canadian and U.S. health care systems, identify criticisms of the Canadian system, briefly review alternatives currently being proposed in the United States, and consider some of the issues relative to strategic choice for U.S. health care.

This paper examines the Malaysian consumers attitudes and purchases toward local versus imported made goods. More specifically, this paper investigates the consumers preference for local and imported products, types of products preferred, and the country-of-origin, and the factors determining the consumers preference for local and imported products. Based on a sample of 116 respondents, the results showed that Malaysian consumers preferred local made products to imported ones, the implications are also discussed.

The objectives of this study are to investigate the degree of wives’ involvement and the effects of sex role orientation. The findings of the study revealed that the wives are more involved in the decision making with regards to the purchase of furniture relative to the purchase of cars. Wives’ sex role orientation was found to vary with their education level, occupation, and household income. There were no differences in sex role orientation based on wives’ involvement in the purchase decisions.

This Paper focuses on the structure of consumer attitudes toward advertising. Specifically, this research examines differences, if any, between American and Latvian consumers on the factors that determine attitudes toward advertising.

This research addresses the standardization versus adaptation of international advertising. It is suggested that Hofstede’s (1980)framework may be used as a segmentation tool to standardize advertising across clusters of the population that share common cultural attributes. Propositions are offered Limitations are discussed.

International marketing involves the art of adapting marketing concepts to fit the environment created by foreign societies, and economies that bind the nations of the world together. Organisations that have strong culturally bounded strategies in place will tend to be mote successful in their international marketing endeavours. Kirpalani (1984) suggest that successful companies are the ones that have put substantial emphasis on research and development in the target countries in order to identify the requirements of new markets and alter their strategies accordingly.

The diverse cultural composition of the Australian society poses great potential and challenge for marketers. Multicultural marketing has been ignored by most private companies in Australia. Using the Chinese community as an example, this paper demonstrates that good research and planning are key factors to the success in multicultural marketing.

This study examines the perceptions of a sample of 100 Japanese adult women regarding their general perceptions of sex role portrayals in advertising. The findings indicate that: 1) Japanese women are not critical of their role portrayals in Japanese advertisements, although they also do not necessarily believe that they are accurate, 2) Japanese women would develop a negative image of a company which used offensive depictions in its advertisements, and 3) Japanese women would not necessarily boycott the products of a company which used offensive advertisements.

Idealized images of very shapely models are often used in advertisements to try to stimulate consumption. In a survey, only 12% of the subjects became interested in purchasing light-foods after being exposed to such an advertisement Subjects were categorized according to their desire to emulate or ignore these idealized images.

This study examines the perceptions of a comparative sample of African American and Caucasian American Business Students regarding their general perceptions of sex role portrayals in advertising. The findings indicated that African American female students were not as critical as their Caucasian counterparts, and there was greater agreement between the African American and Caucasian American male respondents with less criticality indicated than for the female respondents.

The dramatic advances in technology, decreased restrictions on transportation and financial flows has facilitated the rapid growth of international business in the last decade. While global marketing poses several challenges in designing and developing marketing strategies, it has also created new challenges in dealing with ethical/unethical issues. Several studies examined the pervasiveness of unethical marketing practices in different cultures (Armstrong 1992; Dubinsky et al. 1991) and concluded that the pervasiveness of unethical behavior in international marketing arena creates an urgent need for a common global code of conduct. The ethical/unethical issues have brought the role of multinational corporations to the forefront. Multinational corporations are faced with a choice between designing a code of conduct uniform across all the subsidiaries in different nations or develop individual code suited for each country. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the two choices - global code of ethics and individualized code of ethics. We will examine the pertinent literature in discussing the challenges in developing code of ethics in an international marketing arena.

Towards generating a holistic view of business ethics, a set of seven Islamic ethical constructs is used to explore Malaysian marketers’ ethical behaviour. This set of conceptually-driven measures comprises sincerity, commitment, fulfillment of promise, accountability, thankfulness, honesty and charitability. 377 useable questionnaires from managers across the industrial government and services sectors throughout Malaysia were analysed. Issues explored are the marketers’ individual work ethical behaviour, their personal and job-related characteristics, their systems of beliefs and factors moderating on their work ethics, as well as their perceptions on ‘ethical, business’ measures.

Faced with a decline in advertising effectiveness, marketers have resorted to relationship marketing. This marketing school provides some theoretical foundations for how to market on the Internet. However, the Internet is not a mass market Marketers have to develop real human relations in this new multicultural environment.

This paper presents a model for introducing an African American cultural presence into the emerging electronic marketplace. The author addresses three dominant themes; (1) symbolic consumption, (2) ethnic segmentation, and (3) the relevance of African American ethnic values and esthetics in electronically mediated environments. The proposed model draws from the fields of semiotics, computer science, communication, psychology, sociology, philosophy, art, as well as marketing.

The multicultural South African environment poses significant challenges for South African business organizations. This paper reviews the initial results of a research project in progress, with major objective to analyze and compare emerging South African business strategies in dealing with the complexities of its multicultural environment. A comparative approach by way of cross-sectional corporate case study analyses is being followed.

The black population in South Africa represents the “Main Market” when it comes to fast-moving consumer goods. This paper attempts to show how Coca-Cola Sabco has adopted innovative marketing and distribution strategies to penetrate the Main Market in South Africa and to fulfil its vision and mission.

Prisoner’s dilemma and Samaritan’s dilemma have been used to explain duopolistic competitive behavior within the context of game theory. This paper combines both dilemmas to present a dominant marketing strategy for firms who must face a tradeoff between revenues and socially responsible behavior.

Subcultural-based differences were found in the country and product images held by respondents of the home country and its regions. More positive images appear to be based on the subcultural affiliations of respondents to ethnically linked regions. Mixed findings were found for more distantly linked countries with historical colonial ties.

Social scientists have long believed in the profound and widespread effects of acculturation (De León and Mùndes, 19%; Keefe and Padilla. 1987; Rogier, Cortes, and Malgady, 1991). The diversity of its effects is made apparent by the variable’s potential impact on many areas of inquiry in the social sciences which include consumer behavior (Lee, 1989; O'Guinn Lee, and Faber, 1986; Stayman and Deshpande, 1989; Wallendorf and Reilly, 1983). Traditionally, the process of immigrant adaptation has been represented by a unidimensional or bipolar continuum ranging from ‘unaoculturated’ or ‘igh ethnic identity’ at one end to ‘acculturated’ or ‘low ethnic identity’ at the other. Underlying such a perspective is the notion of assimilation (Phinney, 1990). Canadian society, on the other hand, is characterized by Multiculturalism (Lambert and Taylor, 1988). This implies a form of adaptation that is by fer more complex. The broader multicultural view leaves open the possibility that immigrants in the process of acquiring aspects of a host or dominant culture (i.e., acculturation) may also independently retain aspects of their culture of origin (i.e., ethnic identity maintenance). These two processes are presumed to constitute separate yet correlated aspects of a higher order concept intimated by ‘ethnic change’ (Keefe and Padilla, 1987; Laroche, Kim, Hui, and Joy, 1996; Mendoza, 1989; Mendoza and Martinez, 1981; Phinney, 1990).

International students are important in bringing diversity to higher education. This is true whether a college is a large, well-known school or a smaller regional university. Recruiting students from other countries, however, is no simple matter. A starting point is to determine reasons why international students select one school over another. The present research reveals that there are many differences in college selection factors between international and domestic students.

Most principles of marketing courses in the United States are structured around the marketing strategy concept Use of this conceptual framework implicitly and explicitly includes some topics and excludes others. We propose structuring the principlcs course around the concept of

exchange

. We outline how this framework will broaden course content and give instructors more flexibility in instituting a truly multicultural curriculum.

Hospitality management faculty are facing the challenge of developing a comprehensive international program using theory from the field of international education. The vision and goals, the hierarchical framework upon which actions plans have been implemented, progress to date, and future objectives are presented as a model for other programs.

Chi-square analysis, Spearman Rank Correlation, and Kruskal- Wallis One-Way ANOVA are utilized to examine the impact of ethnicity and income on respondent’s values, as measured by the List of Values. Both similarities and differences are found between the groups. Intragroup differences are also evident.

This paper argues that a self-report model that specifically incorporates the cultural pluralism be adopted. It also presents empirical evidence from Muslim immigrants to the United States that some immigrants do maintain both U.S. and ethnic identities. Moreover, for some, their religious identity may actually replace ethnic or U.S. identity.

This paper describes the measurement of different levels of consumer awareness observed in an empirical investigation in Kenya. The findings confirm the existence of five factors of consumer awareness. Different levels of the construct emerged from the sample which can be attributed to bio-demographical variables ie household size, income and area.

This paper identifies the major factors which are likely to constrain the implementation of marketing (and consequently, marketing effectiveness) in transitionaiy economies. It does this through a case-study approach focusing on Sub-Sahara Africa. Weak institutional framework encompassing inefficient economic infrastructures, large size of the public sector, absence of marketing institutions, wider socio-cultural actors account for the sub optimal development of marketing in this region. The paper provides guidelines for effective marketing in Sub-Saharan African economies which are at the threshold of (or already) introducing market-responsive systems.

This study relates health care services marketing to culturally sensitive physician’s duties of information disclosure on HIV/AIDS and Cancer. An ethical scale to assess multicultural ethical imperatives of medical residents to information disclosure is developed, validated and checked for convergent, discriminant and nomological validities. Health care marketing implications are discussed.

Against the backdrop of the growing ethnic minority population in Britain and dearth of information in relation to marketing to this segment of the population, this paper adresses the underpinning factors inhibiting marketing practices in this area. It does this by scanning and crystallizing key ethno-environmental issues and providing a schema for clearer segmentation and targeting.

Amid the recent furor over the issue of cigarette smoking by underage youth, the role of cigarette advertising and promotion continues to occupy a central position in this controversy. While smoking among white teens has increased slightly, leveled off, or decreased (depending upon which measure of smoking is used and which years are compared), there remain a huge gap between white and black teenagers, especially between whites of both sexes and black teenage females.

Culture along with demographic profile, life style and economic well being of consumers effects product choices. The most important difference between Western, Eastern and Pacific cultures may be the economic factors which determine the buying power of consumers. Many products which are available to consumers in Western cultures may not be available in Eastern cultures because of lack of buying power. As a result, consumers in different regions may not be able to satisfy their needs although they are willing to do so.

This article identifies such basic Chinese values and cultural aspects as piety, honor, modesty, respect to elders, g-uanshi, saving free, consensus building, and formality among co-workers. An awareness of such cultural factors is useful for people who would like to go into joint ventures with Chinese both nationally and internationally.

Assesses the key cultural factors which impact on the organisation and management of international retailing. Explains how identifying and classifying these factors can enable retailers to increase effective market entry and penetration overseas. Includes corporate culture in international retailing, and topical case histories. Concludes with aspects requiring more research.

In a business environment where globalization is fast becoming he norm it becomes exceedingly important that businesses understand the cultural differences which shape consumer behaviour patterns outside the domestic market. This is especially true for service firms given the lack of tangible, objective cues upon which consumers can base their purchase evaluations. This paper examines the applicability of a number of inter-cultural communication theories to the service marketing area in an effort to illustrate how an understanding of cultural differences can help firms effectively compete in foreign markets.

Evidence suggests that most companies encounter difficulties when segmenting the Black Market. An alternative perspective is given for a selection of the basis for segmentation. It is suggested that segmenting based on cultural context will ultimately result in greater precision and effectiveness in market segmentation

The frequency and content of alcoholic advertisements in five African American magazines are examined and documented. Differences were found in the frequency of alcoholic ads, the type of alcohol being advertised, the presentation of models and the advertising appeals employed in the magazines surveyed for this study.

A construct in marketing literature is “Opportunism,” which has been defined as “self-interest seeking with guile.”

A sample of 311 real estate agents were evaluated as to differences between men and women in opportunism, using a scale along the lines of John (1984). While men were found to be more opportunistic, there was little explained variance.

Credibility’s role in persuasion has prompted a wealth of research that spans many disciplines and includes a variety of factors that may impinge on credibility. Credibility has been described as the doorway to persuasion. In the field of communication, credibility is a substantive part of persuasion research. Since marketing is largely concerned with persuasive appeals, source credibility should be of significant interest to academicians and practitioners in this area as well. Surprisingly, very little marketing research has been directed toward understanding this component of a persuasive communication, and much of what has been studied about source credibility and marketing has relied on unsupported truisms (Tybout 1978). As a topic of interest to researchers in marketing, communications, consumer behavior, and social psychology, it would seem that some definitive conclusions could be researched regarding the nature of source credibility. This paper looks at one area of credibility that has been largely ignored, gender’s possible effect on source credibility.

Tajfel (1981) predicts that a spokesperson who is a member of the majority group will be the most influential for minority group members who identify with the majority group (DeShields, 1992; DeShields, Kara, and Kaynak, 1996). However, there is contradictory evidence to suggest that there arc instances when a minority spokesperson will be more effective for minority group members even when they identify with the majority (Williams and Quails, 1989; Deshpande, and Stayman, 1994.). Using Hunt’s (1991) criteria for theory development, a corollary to Tajfel’s theory is developed that specifies the conditions for which an ethnic spokesperson will be more influential than a spokesperson from the majority group. Based on the corollary to the theory, an individual will prefer a spokesperson from his or her ethnic group with which he or she identifies if that spokesperson's credibility is greater than or equal to another spokesperson from a different ethnic group, it was hypothesized that a trustworthy Mexican-English-accented spokesman will have a greater positive impact on purchase intentions of Mexican-Americans who identify with the Mexican culture than a trustworthy American-English-accented spokesman (DeShields, 1995). The three-way interaction term of spokesperson accent and trustworthiness, and respondent ethnicity was significant, F(l, 123) = 7.55, pX).007. An analysis of the means shows that there is a significant difference between the impact of an American-English and Mexican-English-accented spokesman on the purchase intentions of a Mexican-American who identifies with the Mexican culture (means 1.00 versus 3.06, p 0.01). Consequently, these preliminary results support the theory.

Prior research has found that bilingualism can result in cognitive advantages for young children. In this study, several hypotheses are developed concerning the effect that Spanish-English bilingualism would have on young children’s understanding and recall of consumer-related messages (e.g., advertisements). A research design is outlined to test the hypotheses.

This study will attempt to provide background information and insight into the following question: Should global consumer goods companies targeting women standardize their marketing programs worldwide or adapt them to local/regional markets? There has been much research in the general area of standardization versus adaptation. Levitt (1983) and others concluded that markets have become so homogenized that MNCs can market the same services and products worldwide by utilizing standardized marketing programs. The opposing school of thought, proffered by Boddewyn, Soehl and Picard (1986), among others, states that long-standing economic, cultural and political differences among countries require marketing programs to be adapted to specific market conditions.

A great concern for marketing researchers is the development of equivalent and comparable instruments that can be useful in assessing attitudes and preferences across cultures. One important issue in the construction of scales is the determination of the optimum number of response categories that will let us discriminate between rated items and that will give us consistent and reliable responses. National studies related to this issue have indicated that reliability and consistency are independent of the number of scale points (Boole 1981; Matell and Jacoby 1972), but cross-cultural studies indicate that the same scale may have different reliabilities in different countries. In this regard, Parameswaran and Yaprak (1987) have stated that the same research instrument used in a cross-national survey may lead to different levels of response reliabilities among various country samples due to difference in knowledge, perceptions, familiarity with the research instrument and the national propensity for certain response style. The present paper explores this issue by comparing the consistency of responses to different Likert scale formats and different Graphic rating scale formats among Hispanics in the United States, Puerto Ricans and non-Hispanics. The study also examines the effect of level of acculturation on the reliability of responses among Hispanics in the United States.

Typically researchers have viewed culture from a country perspective. This ignores the very real fact that virtually all cultures consists of distinct subcultures. In fact, societies, to a large degree are subculturally detennined (Wood and Howell, 1991). In the United States, for example, "social indicators suggest that our society is becoming increasingly multicultural...26% of the U.S. population will be composed of distinct ethnic minorities by the year 2000...a multicultural society is becoming an acceptable norm" (Lee and Tse, 1994, p. 57). Multiculturalism, however, is not restricted solely to the United States. Many other countries, including Australia, Malaysia, and South Africa, are comprised of varied and distinct cultural groupings. O’Guinn, Imperia and Mac Adams (1987) noted that ethnicity has been used as a criterion for segmenting markets and its use by marketers and advertisers will become increasingly important. Although many studies that are reported in the literature deal with between country-type cultural differences, increased research efforts are being directed in looking at the cultural differences that exist within a country’s borders. In order to conduct effective research, however, care must be taken in the development and utilization of questionnaire instruments that are sensitive to the problems unique to multicultural research.

This paper investigates the influence of language of questionnaire and culturally value laden items on the responses of respondents answering a marketing research questionnaire. In order to test these hypotheses, 4 groups of students at the Vaal Triangle Technikon were asked to complete a typical marketing research questionnaire inquiring into the consuming and buying behaviour of students. Twenty-nine of the students answered questionnaires in Sesotho (their mother tongue) and 29 Sesotho speakers answered questionnaires in English (their second language). Twenty-five Afrikaans speaking students answered questionnaires in Afrikaans (their mother tongue) and 28 Afrikaans speaking students answered questionnaires in English (their second language). It was found language of questionnaire had no influence on the responses of students to typically marketing research. T-tests however indicated that respondents’ responses varied when “culturally value laden” were involved.

Under the multi-attribute model, consumers’ preferences related to foreign products would be affected by their images of foreign made products. Over one thousand Korean consumers were questioned about their images of foreign electronic products as well as their consumer characteristics. Multiple regression results showed that consumers’ characteristics were better predictors of their foreign products preferences and actual ownership as compared to consumers’ product images.

Focus group interviews with Korean TV consumers and marketing research staff helped generate 17 facets of consumer satisfaction. Using a principal components factor analysis with the varimax rotation, 17 items were loaded on five factors: purchase, service, features, image, and performance. The rank of factors in terms of the perceived importance for Korean consumers’ buying and consuming TV products lies in the following sequence of product performance (two items), services (three items), image (three items), purchase (five items), and features (four items). A fourth-order partial correlation revealed that Korean consumers’ brand switching intention was significantly affected by Korean TV customers’ perceived gaps in service items only.

Battels (1967) proposed that values and customs, religion, laws, patriotism, respect for individuality, and properly rights were factors influencing ethics decisions. Ferrell and Gresham (1985), in their contingency framework for understanding ethical decision- making, recognize that the social/cultural environment influences ethical behavior. Hunt and Vitell (1986, 1992) contend that the resolution of an ethical dilemma depends on the philosophical perspective the decision maker employs and postulate that the cultural environment (religion, legal system, and political system) is one of the important predictors of an individual’s ethical decision-making process. Unfortunately, these theoretical models of ethical decision-making do not tell us

how

culture influences ethical decision-making (Vitell, Nwachykwu, and Barnes 1993).

Altruism

provides a useful framework for understanding the psychological basis of consumer product choice in a global economy. The exact relationship between the variables of altruism and product choice has not been fully investigated, This paper reviews the literature and proposes a research framework to explore the influence of altruistic behavior on product choice.

Asian-Americans are recognized as a significant part of the multicultural U. S. economy. Since culture affects the behaviors of individuals, an understanding of culturally conditioned behaviors of Asian-Americans can serve as a valuable tool for U. S. maiketers. This paper identifies universal psycho-cultural profile of Asian-Americans and suggests marketing initiatives to reach this market.

We think we know how to manage salesforces in the United States. But what about in high context cultures such as Japan or Greece? This paper draws from theory and many examples from our own experiences to reinforce, dispute, or change traditional thinking about sales management.

This paper provides an overview of the evolution of marketing in Nigeria It lays the foundation for a two culture comparison (Nigeria and the UK) with the aim of working out a framework for assessing the problems and prospects of marketing within the Nigerian multicultural context

A concept and scale of Consumer Shopping Responsibility in four measures:

normative

and

actual, conscientious

versus

honest

shopper is developed. The scale is tested for its multicultural sensitivities across three samples of "Generation X" Whites, African-Americans and Asians. No significant multicultural differences were found, but using LISREL-7 some group differences were identiffied.

This paper identifies inputs intc the decision-making process used by Asian travelers when purchasing vacation packages. Based on these inputs, a model is created that accounts for both the subjective and objective dialectics that make up the buying decision. Throughout, the paper uses elements of the model to create culture-specific appeals.

Indian immigrants in the U.S. offer marketers an appealing array of demographic characteristics. Yet few of them target the segment. The paper is an exploratory attempt to understand the apparent paradox. Discussion that follows includes a review of the Indian-American segment along with an assessment of its marketing strengths and weaknesses.

Mort African American households that can afford to purchase a home do not do so. In part, this results from their lack of knowledge of the home buying process. This papers outlines the steps in the home purchasing process and provides suggestions designed to increase an African American’s chances of uwning a home.