Chip Miller

The effects of ethnocentrism and economic development on the formation of brand and ad attitudes in transitional economies

Purpose – The aim of this research was to investigate how ethnocentrism and economic development within transitional economies affects the formation of brand attitudes and attitude toward the ad.Design/methodology/approach – Kazakhstan and Slovenia were chosen as representative transitional economies – Kazakhstan in the early stages and Slovenia highly advanced. A random sample of adults was surveyed in both countries and in the USA, which served as a control group. Questionnaires were distributed that contained measures of ethnocentricity (CETSCALE), attitude toward the brand (Ab) and attitude towards the ad (Aad). Expectations based on theory and previous studies suggested the following: ethnocentricity leads to negative Aad and Ab for foreign products and ethnocentricity will have a greater effect on Aad and Ab in new transitioning economies. All hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (LISREL).Findings – Ethnocentricity did result in negative Aad, but only for Kazakhstan, not Sloveni...

Antismoking Messages for the International Teenage Segment: The Effectiveness of Message Valence and Intensity Across Different Cultures

Based on an experiment among more than 2000 students in nine culturally diverse countries, this article investigates how the cultural characteristic of uncertainty avoidance moderates the impact of valence and intensity on the effectiveness of antismoking messages. The results show that adolescents with high uncertainty avoidance respond more favorably to loss-framed advertisements than to benefit-framed advertisements, whereas the opposite holds for those with low uncertainty avoidance.

The Impact of Testing Frequency on Student Performance in a Marketing Course

Testing frequency has long been examined in the social sciences as an antecedent to student performance in the classroom. However, after nearly 70 years of study, the results are inconclusive. Given the developments in computerized testing over the last decade, professors now have the ability to create and conduct frequent tests without severely impinging on other duties. In this article, the authors reexamine the issue in a marketing context, and the findings suggest that, under certain conditions, students tend to perform better with more frequent testing. In addition, more frequent testing tends to increase student evaluations of faculty. The authors also discuss reasons for and limitations of these findings.

Optimal Class Length in Marketing Undergraduate Classes: An Examination of Preference, Instructor Evaluations, and Student Performance

Some believe that the longer the face to face classroom meeting time, the more effective the learning experience. Others point out disadvantages of lengthier classes (e.g., student attention problems). The authors assess which of three class formats (i.e., 1 hour/three times a week, 1½ hours/twice a week, or 3 hours/one time a week) is optimal in terms of student (a) perspectives, (b) grades, and (c) evaluations of instructor performance. The authors observed that regardless of major, students prefer the twice a week class format, and marketing majors had the strongest preference for that format. All students believed the once a week format would result in lower levels of learning. Instructors teaching in the twice a week format received higher evaluations from students. And finally, there appears to be slightly better student grade performance in shorter classes, especially evident with marketing majors attending the twice a week format.

Teenagers' response to self- and other-directed anti-smoking messages: a cross-cultural study

While the de-marketing of smoking among teenagers has received wide attention in the literature, few have examined the issue of whether messages should be uniform across cultures. Globally, the vast majority of anti-smoking messages are based on fear appeals to the negative effects on the (potential) smoker him/herself. This research suggests that such a global strategy may be suboptimal. Specifically, while ads portraying the negative consequences of smoking to oneself may work for teens from individualist cultures, they are less effective in collectivist cultures. In contrast, messages orientated towards the adverse effects on other people are more effective in collectivist environments. Given the astronomical amounts spent on anti-tobacco advertising, this finding offers significant advantages for creating effective anti-smoking messages.

The effect of response scale type on cross‐cultural construct measures

Purpose – Methodological advances in cross‐cultural scale development have addressed many concerns regarding the development of valid scales. However, several issues remain to be examined – including the potential problems of using language to measure communication phenomena using self‐reported studies and addressing the effect of response scale type on the validity of resultant measures. The purpose of this paper is to expand the cross‐cultural measurement paradigm by comprehensively examining these issues and suggesting a new response scale type that may potentially produce more valid cross‐cultural measures of communication‐based phenomena.Design/methodology/approach – Measures of Halls concept of context were developed using three types of response scales – Likert, semantic differential, and conceptual metaphoric. The last response scale type is developed within this research. Samples were gathered in 23 countries using existing scale development procedures. The response scales were compared for psyc...

Cultural antecedents to the normative, affective, and cognitive effects of domestic versus foreign purchase behavior

The paper aims to investigate simultaneous and independent effects of cognitive, affective, and normative (CAN) decision mechanisms and cultural elements on consumer purchase behavior of foreign and domestic products. The study uses a survey to collect data from 5 086 respondents across 19 nations. The findings suggest that CAN factors independently affect purchase decisions for domestic, but not always foreign goods. Collectivism and uncertainty avoidance directly and differentially affect the CAN mechanisms. By explaining the effects of CAN and cultural elements on foreign and domestic purchase behaviour and offering product positioning strategies to internationally operating business managers the study provides important research and practical implications. The originality and value of this research lies in the theoretically proposed and empirically tested model, which incorporates consumer ethnocentrism, quality importance, national identification, cultural antecedents (collectivism and uncertainty avoidance) and domestic/ foreign product purchase behaviour.

The effect of COO on retail buyers’ propensity to trial new products

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to theorize country-of-origin (COO) to be important to retail buyers in making purchase decisions. However, this question has not been addressed in the literature and leaves a critical gap in determining how COO ultimately affects consumer purchase options. Design/methodology/approach Retail buyer behavior is empirically tested with both premium and value brands from Italy. A sample retail buyers was taken from a LexisNexis database and provided 205 completed surveys. Construct scales were taken from existing literature and tested using composite reliability. SEM was used to analyze the data. Findings Results showed that retail buyers are affected by COO; that low involvement purchases are not differentially affected compared to high involvement; product typicality enhances likelihood of purchase and this typicality is more important for high involvement goods. Practical implications Retail buyers are affected by COO and will make product choices for their stores accordingly. Companies should be aware of this and take it into consideration to strengthen their acceptance by retail buyers. Trade organizations within countries may consider advertising approaches to distinguish themselves and stimulate positive COO among retail buyers. Originality/value This is the first time that retail buyer behavior has been studied with regard to COO effects using consumer models. Results showed that use of these models is more appropriate than only using industrial buying models. Retail buyers are found to indeed be affected by COO, which in turn influence buying choices for consumers and offerings from retailers.