IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v22y2013i5p814-827.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do culture-dependent response styles distort substantial relationships?

Author

Listed:
  • Hoffmann, Stefan
  • Mai, Robert
  • Cristescu, Anamaria

Abstract

Survey data are frequently distorted by answering tendencies, such as acquiescence, disacquiescence, midpoint and extreme response style. Cross-cultural research projects may be particularly vulnerable to misinterpretations. This paper provides empirical insights into the manner and degree to which culture systematically distorts findings from survey data. The study is based on data from 1027 respondents from Austria, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Russia, Spain, and the United States. The investigation firstly demonstrates that Hofstede's and project GLOBE's cultural dimensions explain variations in response styles across different countries. Secondly, and most importantly, the paper explores the impact of culture-dependent response styles on findings. Remarkably, the extent of distortion in correlation analysis and mean comparisons is less severe than expected. Nonetheless, cross-cultural researchers would be well advised to control at least for (dis-)acquiescence before analyzing and interpreting their data.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoffmann, Stefan & Mai, Robert & Cristescu, Anamaria, 2013. "Do culture-dependent response styles distort substantial relationships?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 814-827.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:22:y:2013:i:5:p:814-827
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2013.01.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593113000097
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2013.01.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. House, Robert & Javidan, Mansour & Hanges, Paul & Dorfman, Peter, 2002. "Understanding cultures and implicit leadership theories across the globe: an introduction to project GLOBE," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-10, April.
    2. Nakata, Cheryl & Huang, Yili, 2005. "Progress and promise: the last decade of international marketing research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(5), pages 611-618, May.
    3. Ravi Pappu & Pascale G Quester & Ray W Cooksey, 2007. "Country image and consumer-based brand equity: relationships and implications for international marketing," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(5), pages 726-745, September.
    4. Cleveland, Mark & Laroche, Michel, 2007. "Acculturaton to the global consumer culture: Scale development and research paradigm," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 249-259, March.
    5. Harzing, Anne-Wil & Baldueza, Joyce & Barner-Rasmussen, Wilhelm & Barzantny, Cordula & Canabal, Anne & Davila, Anabella & Espejo, Alvaro & Ferreira, Rita & Giroud, Axele & Koester, Kathrin & Liang, Yu, 2009. "Rating versus ranking: What is the best way to reduce response and language bias in cross-national research?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 417-432, August.
    6. Okazaki, Shintaro & Taylor, Charles R. & Doh, Jonathan P., 2007. "Market convergence and advertising standardization in the European Union," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 384-400, December.
    7. Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E M & Baumgartner, Hans, 1998. "Assessing Measurement Invariance in Cross-National Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(1), pages 78-90, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fregidou-Malama, Maria & Hyder, Akmal S., 2015. "Impact of culture on marketing of health services – Elekta in Brazil," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 530-540.
    2. Aschemann-Witzel, Jessica & de Hooge, Ilona E. & Almli, Valérie L., 2021. "My style, my food, my waste! Consumer food waste-related lifestyle segments," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    3. Len J. Treviño & Carolyn P. Egri & David A. Ralston & Irina Naoumova & Olivier Furrer & Yongjuan Li & Fidel León Darder & María Teresa Garza Carranza, 2021. "A multi-country, multi-sector replication challenge to the validity of the cultural tightness-looseness measure," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 735-764, June.
    4. Richard Fellows & Anita M.M. Liu, 2013. "Use and misuse of the concept of culture," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 401-422, May.
    5. Yingbin Zhang & Zhaoxi Yang & Yehui Wang, 2022. "The Impact of Extreme Response Style on the Mean Comparison of Two Independent Samples," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, June.
    6. Mukherjee, Debmalya & Kumar, Satish & Mukherjee, Deepraj & Goyal, Kirti, 2022. "Mapping five decades of international business and management research on India: A bibliometric analysis and future directions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 864-891.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yeung, Matthew C.H. & Ramasamy, Bala & Chen, Junsong & Paliwoda, Stan, 2013. "Customer satisfaction and consumer expenditure in selected European countries," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 406-416.
    2. Kipnis, Eva & Demangeot, Catherine & Pullig, Chris & Broderick, Amanda J., 2019. "Consumer Multicultural Identity Affiliation: Reassessing identity segmentation in multicultural markets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 126-141.
    3. Kolar, Tomaž & Zabkar, Vesna, 2014. "The effect of general consumer attitudes and personality traits on attitudes towards domestic and multinational products in the Balkan region," Journal of East European Management Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 19(1), pages 58-80.
    4. Jin, Zhongqi & Lynch, Richard & Attia, Samaa & Chansarkar, Bal & Gülsoy, Tanses & Lapoule, Paul & Liu, Xueyuan & Newburry, William & Nooraini, Mohamad Sheriff & Parente, Ronaldo & Purani, Keyoor & Ung, 2015. "The relationship between consumer ethnocentrism, cosmopolitanism and product country image among younger generation consumers: The moderating role of country development status," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 380-393.
    5. Bartikowski, Boris & Taieb, Besma & Chandon, Jean-Louis, 2016. "Targeting without alienating on the Internet: Ethnic minority and majority consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 1082-1089.
    6. Rašković, Matevž & Ding, Zhonghui & Škare, Vatroslav & Ozretić Došen, Đurđana & Žabkar, Vesna, 2016. "Comparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism of young-adult consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3682-3686.
    7. Crawford, Heather J. & Gregory, Gary D., 2015. "Humorous advertising that travels: A review and call for research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 569-577.
    8. Polsa, Pia, 2013. "The crossover-dialog approach: The importance of multiple methods for international business," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 288-297.
    9. Roth, Katharina P. & Diamantopoulos, Adamantios, 2009. "Advancing the country image construct," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 726-740, July.
    10. Cleveland, Mark & Laroche, Michel & Takahashi, Ikuo & Erdoğan, Seçil, 2014. "Cross-linguistic validation of a unidimensional scale for cosmopolitanism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 268-277.
    11. Diamantopoulos, Adamantios & Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, Maja & Moschik, Nicole, 2020. "Are consumers' minds or hearts guiding country of origin effects? Conditioning roles of need for cognition and need for affect," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 487-495.
    12. Paul, Justin, 2019. "Masstige model and measure for brand management," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 299-312.
    13. Gilboa, Shaked & Vilnai-Yavetz, Iris & Mitchell, Vince & Borges, Adilson & Frimpong, Kwabena & Belhsen, Nourdine, 2020. "Mall experiences are not universal: The moderating roles of national culture and mall industry age," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    14. Arilova A. Randrianasolo, 2017. "Global brand value in developed, emerging, and least developed country markets," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(5), pages 489-507, October.
    15. Baldauf, Artur & Cravens, Karen S. & Diamantopoulos, Adamantios & Zeugner-Roth, Katharina Petra, 2009. "The Impact of Product-Country Image and Marketing Efforts on Retailer-Perceived Brand Equity: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(4), pages 437-452.
    16. Strizhakova, Yuliya & Coulter, Robin A., 2013. "The “green” side of materialism in emerging BRIC and developed markets: The moderating role of global cultural identity," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 69-82.
    17. Gupta, Manjul & Esmaeilzadeh, Pouyan & Uz, Irem & Tennant, Vanesa M., 2019. "The effects of national cultural values on individuals' intention to participate in peer-to-peer sharing economy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 20-29.
    18. Cleveland, Mark & Laroche, Michel & Papadopoulos, Nicolas, 2015. "You are what you speak? Globalization, multilingualism, consumer dispositions and consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 542-552.
    19. Swoboda, Bernhard & Sinning, Carolina, 2020. "How country development and national culture affect the paths of perceived brand globalness to consumer behavior across nations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 58-73.
    20. Maxwell Chipulu & Alasdair Marshall & Udechukwu Ojiako & Caroline Mota, 2018. "Reasoned Ethical Engagement: Ethical Values of Consumers as Primary Antecedents of Instrumental Actions Towards Multinationals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 221-238, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:22:y:2013:i:5:p:814-827. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.