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Mark Vandenbosch; participants at research seminars at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Minnesota; and the three anonymous JMR reviewers for valuable comments on previous drafts. To interact with colleagues on specific articles in this issue, see "Feedback" on the JMR Web site at www.ama.org/pubs/jmr.

Marketing universals are defined as consumer behaviors within a segment and toward a particular product category that are invariant across cultures. Using several definitions of culture and three different criteria for universality, the authors evaluate whether the use of brand, price, retailer reputation, and physical product appearance as signals of quality are marketing universals for consumer electronics products. Using a sample representing 38 nationalities, they find that there are few differences in the use of quality signals across cultures for a high priority segment of consumers. They draw conclusions for the adaptation versus standardization debate and argue that certain behaviors are likely to be universal, whereas others are not. Understanding such differences is essential to designing international marketing strategies.

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Research conducted primarily in the United States has shown that interpersonal influences are more important than most other factors in consumera' product adoption and brand choice decisions. Is the level of information giving and seeking behavior dependent on culture? In a study representing over 35 nationalities, we examine the importance of interpersonal influences across cultures. Consistent with arguments which favor the globalization of marketing efforts, our study indicates that individual factors (information search behavior, risk aversion, and category interest) better explain differences in interpersonal information seeking and giving than one's culture, or country of origin.