Cross-Cultural Variations in Consumer Behavior: A Literature Review of International Studies

Abstract

The timeliness of studying the behavior of consumers from different cultures in an increasingly fragmented world is demonstrated by the dynamic growth of the number of published cross-cultural studies and the rise of special issues of consumer behavior-related journals. Researchers challenging consumer behavior variations from a cross-cultural standpoint encounter substantial challenges, including issues that arise from the diversity of domains and interdisciplinary approaches, such as the variety of methods for the collection, processing, analysis and interpretation of data, and issues related to method biases and scale equivalence (Steenkamp et al. 1998).In order to mitigate these challenges for cross-cultural research and to define future research streams, AbstractThis study presents a review of 85 peer-reviewed publications of cross-cultural variations in consumer behavior. The objectives of this study are to systemize conceptual and methodological approaches to research of cross-cultural variations in consumer behavior; to present an extended understanding of consumer behavior in related industries; to identify conceptual and methodological gaps and empirical issues in these studies; and by fulfilling the objective of this paper to develop an agenda guiding further research in a systematic manner. This literature review reveals the lack of a unified conceptual approach to defining cross-cultural variations and the absence of a unified terminology related to cross-cultural research. It also highlights methodological areas susceptible to common method bias, which hinders the establishment of equivalence in studies of cross-cultural variations in consumer behavior. This review accentuates the "cross-cultural variations" concept in consumer behavior research, covering both the differences and similarities that are the subject of cross-cultural studies. Furthermore, the current study outlines relevant contributions for theoretical and potentially managerial implications based on the study's insights.

Parents’ literacy on mobile advertising aimed at children: a cross - cultural approach

“…Concerning the different strategies used to carry out inferential analysis and multivariate analysis in cross-cultural studies, it should be noted that the study by Sin et al (1999) established analysis of variance and factor analysis as the most common for this type of study. Afterward, in Galina et al (2018), although there is a greater variety of statistical techniques applied to the area of knowledge, these techniques continue to be the most widely used to observe differences and similarities in the countries under analysis. Based on the above, the following analyses were carried out to answer the research questions.…”

“…In terms of the comparability of samples, although participants’ inclusion criteria were applied as rigorously as possible in the three countries to obtain homogeneous samples, a significant aspect in this type of study is that results must be interpreted considering their exploratory and descriptive scope. Furthermore, although the techniques suggested in the literature were used to conduct cross-cultural studies, conceptual frameworks and criteria for identifying cross-cultural variations still need to be developed further in the absence of a unified terminology for this type of research (Galina et al , 2018).…”

“…The approach to the research problem involved pragmatism, with a deductive approach (Creswell, 2013), in which the main strategy to address the research questions was a cross-sectional survey applied simultaneously to the three countries of interest, giving this study a cross-cultural nature (Saunders et al , 2016; Galina et al , 2018). Other methodological aspects of interest are described below.…”

“…This age range corresponds with those reported in the literature regarding differences in children’s and adolescents’ interpretation of advertising (Robertson and Rossiter, 1974; Boush et al , 1994; John, 1999). Concerning the sampling design, it should first be noted that Galina et al (2018) found that more than 43% of cross-cultural studies reporting their sampling design strategy used non-probability strategies. Similarly, Reynolds et al (2003) indicated that for sample designs in cross-national comparative studies that are deliberately sampled for heterogeneity, having a non-probability design is an acceptable feature.…”

Cultivate customer loyalty in national culture: a meta-analysis of electronic banking customer loyalty

“…The development of the Internet has provided global marketers with more opportunities to interact with customers online, and cross-cultural marketing research has received extensive attention from scholars. Studies have suggested that global culture has a significant influence on customer behavior(Cruz-C ardenas et al, 2019;Galina et al, …”