Nina Reynolds

Affect and cognition as predictors of behavioral intentions towards services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine alternative approaches to measuring service evaluation across cultures. This paper aims to assess: differences between cognitive and affective measures and their ability to predict behavioral intentions and the impact of service features on these measures.Design/methodology/approach – A self‐completion survey of African (East/West), Chinese, and English higher education students includes service quality, satisfaction, affect (emotions/feelings), and behavioral intentions scales relating to retail banking.Findings – For all groups, overall quality, satisfaction, and positive affect predict behavioral intentions. Negative affect is significant for English consumers. Differences across cultures are identified in the determinants of service evaluation, for example, assurance and responsiveness, but these are antecedents of affect and not of overall service quality or satisfaction.Research limitations/implications – The sample is drawn from cultural groups (bas...

Assessing the Impact of Response Styles on Cross-Cultural Service Quality Evaluation: A Simplified Approach to Eliminating the Problem

With the proliferation of comparative research, it is important to recognize some of the inherent limitations of cross-cultural measurement. This article examines the impact of response styles on substantive conclusions of cross-cultural service quality research. The authors use relatively simple analysis methods in conditions where more sophisticated approaches are unlikely to be robust. They demonstrate how analysis of covariance and partial regression can be used to assess both differences in mean scores and differences in relationships. Their results demonstrate that conclusions drawn from analysis that ignores the potential impact of response styles differ from those drawn when response styles are considered. For researchers, their findings imply that attempts to understand and explain cultural differences in service quality expectations, and relationships between perceptions and overall quality assessments, may be impeded by the presence of response styles. A further impact relates to the assessment of “gaps” or a “zone of tolerance” in service quality evaluation. For managers, their conclusions have implications relating to the use of research findings as a basis for market segmentation, service design, staff training, and other resource allocation decisions. In particular, the authors question the use of such research as a basis for comparative service evaluation across cultures.

The impact of complexity and perceived difficulty on consumer revisit intentions

Abstract Many consumer tasks that are facilitated by technology are inherently complex. More complex tasks are generally perceived by consumers as more difficult. Complexity and perceived difficulty can impact on the consumers intention to revisit a website. This paper uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to compare directly the impact of both task complexity and perceived task difficulty on consumers’ revisit intentions. Data collected from 298 European consumers were analysed using structural equation modelling to address these objectives. The findings show that both complexity and perceived difficulty impact on consumers’ revisit intentions. Consequently, website designers and marketing managers need to evaluate both when considering consumers’ online interactions with their organisation.

Learning from a wiki way of learning

There is a growing need to design learning experiences in higher education that develop collaborative and mediated social writing practices. A wiki way of learning addresses these needs. This paper reports findings from a case study involving 58 postgraduate students who in small groups participated over eight weeks in a mediated collaborative writing project with and through wiki contexts. The project was not assessed but designed for task-based domain learning. Evaluation of the project was conducted using data drawn from multiple sources collected before, during and after the project. Findings show that participation in the project had a positive relationship with student exam performance, and web familiarity. Patterns of individual and group wiki project participation, and sex differences in participation, are discussed.

Cross-cultural and cross-national consumer research: psychology, behavior and beyond

Globalization leads to a need to understand consumer behavior across national boundaries. The call for this special issue noted: “Consumers from different countries and cultures may be similar on some dimensions but differ on others. This provides researchers with the opportunity to explore how changes in multiple aspects of the cultural and national context can influence consumer theory.” This special issue is particularly relevant given the blurring of geographic cultural boundaries and the reshaping of society though global flows relating to mediascapes, ethnoscapes, ideoscapes, technoscapes, and finanscapes (Appadurai, 1990). The blurring of boundaries and the associated emergence of a ‘global consumer culture’ (Cleveland and Laroche, 2007; Zhou et al., 2008) allows companies to standardize their branding and communication strategies. Nevertheless, meaningful cultural differences can still be found in consumer psychology and behavior across countries (e.g., Walsh et al., 2014).

Product deletion: a critical overview and empirical insight into this process

With organisations as diverse as Heinz, Kraft, Polygram and Sony reducing the scope of their product portfolios, it appears that the issue of product deletion is currently exercising managerial minds. Those keen to pursue their interest in this area will find a concise body of work spanning nearly six decades. However, missing from this work is an understanding of the recurring tactical, strategic and cultural variables involved in deletion decision-making. This research sought to alleviate this shortcoming through conducting an in-depth literature review and considering the deletion experiences of three world-renowned organisations. The results of this exploratory study provide an initial insight into the core product deletion variables, providing managers and academics with valuable up-to-date information on this contemporary subject matter.

Toward an Understanding of the Role of Cross-Cultural Equivalence in International Personal Selling

In this paper the authors argue that the internationalisation of business requires, amongst other things, a sound knowledge of the impact of cross-cultural equivalence on international sales negotiations. A literature review provides evidence that there is little or scant attention paid on the nature, role and impact of equivalence on the cross-cultural negotiation process. By using the negotiation process as a coherent framework, the purpose of this paper is: (i) to examine various types of cross-cultural equivalence that are related to the negotiation process; (ii) to identify the relationship and likely impact of each type of equivalence on each stage of the negotiation process and its outcome; and, (iii) to offer propositions for further research, and propose a research method by which these propositions can be investigated.

The changing roles of researchers and participants in digital and social media research: ethics challenges and forward directions

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to situate how the digitalized research environment is changing the roles of researchers and participants, and how these changes lead to more complex and less discrete ethics challenges. Incorporating contemporary examples from the social sciences, we outline the core challenges of the changing research landscape that embrace both research actors (researcher, participant, and research users) and data issues. The ethical implications related to research actors’ roles are discussed by considering how data is accessed, how people can now participate in research, and issues related to accessing participants. Digital data and associated ethical issues are explored through examining authorship and ownership, how digital data is produced, and how research transparency can be achieved. Following on from this consideration of research actors and data issues, we suggest which challenges have been re-contextualized by the digital environment, and which are novel to the digital research context, outlining six practical yet reflective questions for researchers to ask as a way to navigate ethics in the digital research territory.

Researching the Ever-Changing World: Reflections on Big Data and Questions for Researchers in Marketing: An Abstract

With the rise in data quantity, computational power, and storage capacity, Big Data is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous term within the lexicon of marketing academics and practitioners. Big Data is a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon that rests on the interplay of technology (maximising computational power/algorithmic accuracy to gather, analyse, link, and compare large data sets), analysis (using large data sets to identify patterns and make economic, social, technical, and/or legal claims), and mythology (belief that large data sets provide a higher form of intelligence/knowledge that can generate previously impossible insights with the aura of truth, objectivity, and accuracy) (boyd and Crawford 2012).

Is Preference for Global Brands in Emerging Markets Determined by “True” Globalness or “Mere” Foreignness?

The complementary literatures on perceived brand globalness and brand origin posit that consumers in emerging markets prefer nonlocal over local brands because they perceive such brands as being global and foreign, respectively. This study bridges these two literatures by disentangling the effects that perceptions of brand globalness and foreignness have on brand preference with consumers in emerging markets, i.e., consumers for whom most global brands are also foreign. Specifically, we present two alternative models of how perceived brand globalness and perceived brand foreignness interact to impact purchase likelihood. In model 1, perceived brand foreignness mediates the impact of perceived brand globalness on purchase likelihood. In model 2, perceived brand globalness and perceived brand foreignness impact purchase likelihood independently but through shared mediators. We use categorization theory to justify the expectation that consumers in emerging markets will prefer global brands because of their foreignness rather than their globalness.