Terms of abuse as expression and reinforcement of cultures

In this study terms of abuse are investigated in 11 different cultures. Spontaneous verbal aggression is to a certain extent reminiscent of the values of a certain culture. Almost 3000 subjects from Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Croatia, Poland, Great Britain, USA, Norway, Greece, and The Netherlands were asked to write down terms of abuse that they would use given a certain stimulus situation, and in addition, to give their rating of the offensive character of those terms. A total set of 12,000 expressions was collected. The frequencies of the expressions were established, and the total list of expressions was reduced to 16 categories. Results point to some etic taboos, like sexuality and lack of intelligence. On the other hand clear differences across cultures were found, which cannot easily be explained by existing classifications of national cultures. Explanations are provided in terms of dimensions on which the 11 cultures differ.

Hedonic shopping motivations in collectivistic and individualistic consumer cultures

We reinvestigate what constitutes hedonic customer experiences in collectivistic versus individualistic cultures using four country samples (N=2,336) in Germany and the U.S. as well as Oman and India. Across country samples, intrinsically enjoyable customer experiences are associated with the same underlying hedonic shopping motivations as shown in the original U.S. context. In comparison with individualistic cultures, we find that a hedonic shopping experience in collectivistic cultures is less strongly associated with selforiented gratification shopping, yet more strongly associated with others-oriented role shopping. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does the importance of value, brand and relationship equity for customer loyalty differ between Eastern and Western cultures?

The use of the customer equity framework as a focal marketing strategy to increase customer loyalty has emerged as an important topic. Despite a growing number of investigations, previous studies are limited by their strong U.S. and European orientations. Research into Western consumers cannot necessarily predict the behaviour of Eastern consumers though. Therefore, this study investigates whether the link between customer equity drivers (value equity, brand equity and relationship equity) and loyalty intentions is sensitive to the cultural environment. A sample of 1553 Chinese and 1085 Dutch consumers in the banking and supermarket industries reveals that all three customer equity drivers exert a greater impact in Western than in Eastern cultures. This study also shows that Eastern consumers in general have higher loyalty intentions than Western consumers. © 2013.

Measuring employee innovation:a review of existing scales and the development of the innovative behavior and innovation support inventories across cultures

Purpose - The paper develops a model of employee innovative behavior conceptualizing it as distinct from innovation outputs and as a multi-faceted behavior rather than a simple count of ‘innovative acts’ by employees. It understands individual employee innovative behaviors as a micro-foundation of firm intrapreneurship that is embedded in and influenced by contextual factors such as managerial, organizational and cultural support for innovation. Building from a review of existing employee innovative behavior scales and theoretical considerations we develop and validate the Innovative Behavior Inventory (IBI) and the Innovation Support Inventory (ISI). Design/methodology/approach – Two pilot studies, a third validation study in the Czech Republic and a fourth cross-cultural validation study using population representative samples from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic (N=2812 employees and 450 entrepreneurs) were conducted. Findings - Both inventories were reliable and showed factorial, criterion, convergent and discriminant validity as well as cross-cultural equivalence. Employee innovative behavior was supported as comprising of idea generation, idea search, idea communication, implementation starting activities, involving others and overcoming obstacles. Managerial support was the most proximal contextual influence on innovative behavior and mediated the effect of organizational support and national culture. Originality/value - The paper advances our understanding of employee innovative behavior as a multi-faceted phenomenon and the contextual factors influencing it. Where past research typically focuses on convenience samples within a particular country, we offer first robust evidence that our model of employee innovative behavior generalizes across cultures and types of samples. Our model and the IBI and ISI inventories enable researchers to build a deeper understanding of the important micro-foundation underpinning intrapreneurial behavior in organizations and allow practitioners to identify their organizations’ strengths and weaknesses related to intrapreneurship.

Empowerment effects across cultures

It is evident that empowerment is in widespread use as a management tool in international organisations. A comprehensive literature review identified that empowerment exists as two distinct constructs: relational empowerment and psychological empowerment. Building on this delineation, existing literature was used to develop a conceptual model of the antecedents and consequences of the two empowerment constructs. Furthermore, the impact of national culture was considered, resulting in a set of testable hypotheses concerning the cross-cultural differences in the relationships between empowerment and its antecedents and consequences. A quantitative study was undertaken to test the hypothesised conceptual model. Data were collected from India and the UK, via drop-off self-administered surveys from front-line employees of both an indigenous and multinational bank in the two cultures, achieving a total of 626 fully usable responses across the four samples. Rigorous scale development for all samples was undertaken and measurement invariance examined. Following this, the conceptual model was tested using latent variable path analysis. The results for the model were both encouraging and surprising. Similar results regarding the effects of relational empowerment and psychological empowerment were found across the two cultures. However, an examination of the antecedents to relational empowerment produced significantly different results across the cultures. Relational empowerment was found to have higher practical value as it had a significant positive effect on employee job satisfaction levels across both cultures.

Intercultural training for international placements

Despite its increasing popularity, much intercultural training is not developed with the same level of rigour as training in other areas. Further, research on intercultural training has brought inconsistent results about the effectiveness of such training. This PhD thesis develops a rigorous model of intercultural training and applies it to the preparation of British students going on work/study placements in France and Germany. It investigates the reasons for inconsistent training success by looking at the cognitive learning processes in intercultural training, relating them to training goals, and by examining the short- and long-term transfer of intercultural training into real-life encounters with people from other cultures. Two cognitive trainings based on critical incidents were designed for online delivery. The training content relied on cultural practice dimensions from the GWBE study (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman & Gupta, 2004). Of the two trainings, the 'singlemode training' aimed to develop declarative knowledge, which is necessary to analyse and understand other cultures. The 'concurrent training' aimed to develop declarative and procedural knowledge, which is needed to develop skills for dealing with difficult situations in a culturally appropriate way. Participants (N-48) were randomly assigned to one of the two training conditions. Declarative learning appeared as a process of steady knowledge increase, while procedural learning involved cognitive re-categorisation rather than knowledge increase. In a negotiation role play with host-country nationals directly after the online training, participants of the concurrent training exhibited a more initiative negotiation style than participants of the single-mode training. Comparing cultural adjustment and performance of training participants during their time abroad with an untrained control group, participants of the concurrent training showed the qualitatively best development in adjustment and performance. Besides intercultural training, multicultural personality traits were assessed and proved to be a powerful predictor of adjustment and, indirectly, of performance abroad.