yo po

Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research
Andreas Engelen ⁎, Malte Brettel
RWTH Aachen University, Templergraben 64, 52062 Aachen, Germany

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 May 2009
Received in revised form 1 March 2010
Accepted 1 April 2010
Available online 21 May 2010
Keywords:
Cross-cultural research
Cross-cultural marketing
Cultural dimensions
Literature review
Content analysis

a b s t r a c t
A content analysis of 99 articles focuses on the comparative cross-cultural marketing research in 14 leading marketing and business journals from 1990 to 2008. The content analysis indicates strong growth in crosscultural studies, especially in terms of studies on consumer attitudes and behavior and on promotion-related topics. This study classifies articles according to a series of conceptual (e.g., cultural dimensions employed in the study) and methodological (e.g., use of analytical technique) criteria. Although researchers have advanced in both conceptual and methodological respects, the studies still focus strongly on the dimensions from Hofstede (2001); methodologically, the dominance of two-country studies is problematic. Further, survey data from North America and Europe and researchers based and trained in North America and Europe are still dominant in the research field.
© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Marketing research ascribes a major role to the construct of national culture (Douglas & Craig, 2006) primarily because cultural values are powerful forces that shape perceptions and behaviors
(Triandis, 2000). In addition, comparative cross-cultural studies in marketing show that the cultural predispositions of US researchers who have dominated the field in the last few decades (Burgess &
Steenkamp, 2006, Steenkamp, 2005) shape traditional academic marketing knowledge. Further, national cultures are a powerful means by which to examine the generalizability of marketing theories and to reveal their boundary conditions (Clark, 1990, Triandis, 1994).
Overall, then, studies that incorporate the national culture construct in theoretical frameworks substantially advance marketing as an academic discipline (Steenkamp, 2005).
Because of the strong relevance of these comparative studies to the advancement of marketing science, the purpose of the present study is to provide a detailed content analysis of cross-cultural studies in marketing. A content analysis is important because, given the understanding of national culture as a force that impacts individual behavior, cross-cultural marketing 's numerous publication outlets are all likely to disseminate research reports, and this broad sourcing makes getting a basic overview difficult and time-consuming for researchers. This article reports a study that identifies and classifies 99 crosscultural studies in the major marketing and business journals from
1990 to 2008 according to their publication outlets, authorship,

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [e-mail] (A. Engelen).
0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2010.04.008 research streams, and major conceptual and methodological issues.
Building upon this literature review, the present study addresses two research questions: how has the field of cross-cultural marketing developed during the last two decades? How should it develop in the future in order to exploit its full potential for marketing science?
In the remainder of the study, Section 2 presents the methodology of the literature review. Section 3 lays out the development of the research in terms of published articles per journal and the pattern of authorship. Section 4 classifies cross-cultural studies according to a set of conceptual criteria (e.g., use of cultural dimensions). Section 5 classifies extant studies along several methodological criteria (e.g., use of analytical technique); these two sections describe the status quo for each criterion and provide recommendations for future crosscultural marketing research. Section 6 summarizes the findings.

2. Literature review
The comparative cross-cultural studies included in the present analysis meet the following criteria: first, the research model explicitly integrates national culture, so national culture must influence the topic of the study, which excludes studies that simply test the generalizibility of frameworks across nations or cultures without addressing a national cultural impact. Second, the study must empirically test its theoretical framework in at least two national cultures and must not be a pure replication of studies in another cultural context (e.g., Kuada & Buatsi, 2005) since they are methodologically comparable to any single-country study and tend to have a lower methodological complexity than truly comparative cross-cultural studies do. Included studies must not be purely conceptual studies, such as Nakata and Sivakumar (1996). In the

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

end, 99 identified studies fulfill these criteria. The authors can provide a list of the studies included in the content analysis upon request.
The period 1990–2008 is an appropriate time frame for detecting meaningful patterns in cross-cultural marketing over time. 1990 constitutes the starting point because, in that year, Clark (1990) evaluates methodological procedures in cross-cultural marketing research as unsatisfactory, so 1990 provides a line of demarcation from which to measure the progress of a research stream then in its infancy. Prestigious marketing journals and broader international business journals have published the relevant studies (Table 1). To track changes in the research over time, the study divides the 19 year period into four quartiles: 1990–1994 (Q1), 1995–1999 (Q2), 2000–
2004 (Q3), and 2005–2008 (Q4). Most classifications, such as the number of cultures in the study, are relatively straightforward.
However, in some cases, the primary focus of the study determines classifications. A third person familiar with the research field checked the classifications.
The method of the current study is content analysis, which literature reviews often use (e.g., Nakata & Huang, 2005; Page &
Schirr, 2008). Content analysis employs an objective coding system to condense and render data systematically comparable. The researchers use content analysis, especially classification, to analyze the relevant articles for this study and derive the criteria for study classifications from recent literature on cross-cultural research. The broad field of cross-cultural business research contains recent research that elaborates on conceptual and methodological issues in cross-cultural research (e.g., Hult et al., 2008; Leung et al., 2005). These contributions lead to the criteria for assessing the conceptual and methodological qualities of cross-cultural marketing studies. The objective is not to cover all possible criteria exhaustively but to classify crosscultural marketing using the most important criteria.
3. Development of the research field
3.1. Journals and authorship
Table 1 shows that the number of publications in cross-cultural marketing has increased markedly from Q1/Q2 (33 studies) to Q3/Q4
(66 studies). All marketing and business journals this study includes have published at least one cross-cultural marketing study in the period under consideration, but the combination of three journals contains more than half of all studies published: Journal of Business
Research (17 studies), International Marketing Review (19 studies) and Journal of International Marketing (20 studies). These journals have published the bulk of their cross-cultural marketing studies in

517

Q3 and Q4, so their propensity for publishing cross-cultural marketing studies has grown since 2000.
Measured by their current university affiliation, authors based and trained in North America have driven the research stream, since 59% of all authors of the relevant cross-cultural marketing reports are from
North American universities (Table 2). Authors based and trained in
Europe make up 20% of the authors, Asian authors 15%, and African authors 1%. While in Q1 and Q2, no more than 8% of the authors were from Asian universities, the number of articles by Asian authors has drawn even with the number of articles by European authors in Q3
(20%) and Q4 (16%).
Single-country teams have written about two-thirds of all published articles, and multi-country teams have written a third.
The percentage of multi-country teams have not changed significantly over the last two decades. Given that convenient communication and data transfer offer ever-increasing opportunities, this finding may seem surprising, but it is also problematic because their national cultural characteristics influence researchers themselves and this influence suggests ethnocentrism (Triandis, 1994). Ethnocentrism, which refers to the tendency to use one 's own group standard as the only standard when viewing other groups, results in the inability to perceive and interpret data from other cultures correctly (Hall, 1989;
Hickson & McMillan, 1981) because the researcher from culture B may filter his or her interpretation of data from culture A through the cultural pre-determination of culture B (Cavusgil & Das, 1997). Nisbet
(1971) even argues that the (culture-) comparative method, if researchers from one cultural context pursue it, is generally
“profoundly ethnocentric” (p. 95). Thus, and given the strong dominance of US- and Europe-based researchers working mostly in single-country teams, cross-cultural marketing research is likely to have a US- and Europe-centric bias.
The literature provides two major remedies for alleviating ethnocentrism in cross-cultural marketing research: First, Ricks
(1993) recommends engaging in cross-cultural research collaborations throughout the research process. The content analysis indicates that multi-country teams are still not the standard since singlecountry author teams dominate the research stream. However, future studies should engage in collaborations with researchers from markedly different cultures for all research stages (Boyacigiller &
Adler, 1991; Hofstede, 2001). Second, because even in cross-cultural research collaborations one researcher with a certain cultural predetermination is always dominant, Campbell (1970) recommends that cross-cultural studies on culture A and culture B have two steps: a researcher from culture A conducts the research first, followed by a researcher from culture B. The joint interpretation of these two

Table 1
Comparative cross-cultural studies according to journal.
Journal

1990–1994
(Q1)

1995–1999
(Q2)

2000–2004
(Q3)

2005–2008
(Q4)

Total

Business journals
Journal of International Business Studies
Journal of Business Research

2
1

14%
7%

4
4

21%
21%

–
8

–
24%

–
4

–
13%

6
17

6%
17%

Marketing journals
European Journal of Marketing
Int. Journal of Research in Marketing
International Marketing Review
Journal of Consumer Research
Journal of International Marketing
Journal of Marketing
Journal of Marketing Management
Journal of Marketing Research
Journal of Retailing
Journal of the Acad. of Mark. Science
Marketing Letters
Marketing Science
Total

1
1
5
1
2
1
–
–
–
–
–
–
14

7%
7%
36%
7%
14%
7%
–
–
–
–
–
–

3
–
–
1
2
2
2
–
–
1
–
–
19

16%
–
–
5%
11%
11%
11%
–
–
5%
–
–

5
5
6
1
2
–
1
–
2
2
1
1
34

15%
15%
18%
3%
6%
–
3%
–
6%
6%
3%
3%

–
–
8
1
14
1
–
1
–
2
1
–
32

–
–
25%
3%
44%
3%
–
3%
–
6%
3%
–

9
6
19
4
20
4
3
1
2
5
2
1
99

9%
6%
19%
4%
20%
4%
3%
1%
2%
5%
2%
1%

518

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

Table 2
The patterns of authorship by regional origina.
Origin of authors 1990–1994
(Q1)

Europe
North America
South America
Asia
Australasia
Africa
Single-country team
Multi-country team

1995–1999
(Q2)

4
28
–
3
1
–
10
4

11%
78%
–
8%
3%
–
71%
29%

11
29
–
3
2
–
15
4

2000–2004
(Q3)
24%
64%
–
7%
4%
–
79%
21%

17
42
–
16
6
1
20
14

2005–2008
(Q4)
21%
51%
–
20%
7%
1%
59%
41%

Total

15
54
–
14
5
–
19
13

17%
61%
–
16%
6%
–
59%
41%

47
140
–
36
14
1
64
35

20%
59%
–
15%
6%
0%
65%
35%

a

Regional origin was based on university affiliation.

independent studies leads to an understanding of which reported differences between cultures the researchers may trace back to the researchers ' ethnocentrism and which differences are the “real” differences that variations in national culture cause.

3.2. Research streams
Cross-cultural marketing studies address a variety of topics during the period under consideration (Table 3). One category is sufficient for the classification of most studies, although a few overlap two categories, in which case they occupy both categories of classification.
The focus of cross-cultural marketing studies lies on consumer behavior and attitudes, which together make up almost half of all studies in the area of cross-cultural marketing. The second most prevalent category is the promotion category (17% of all studies). The focus on consumer behavior and attitudes and promotion-related topics has grown consistently over time, studies on organization and management in Q4 (14%) (e.g., Brettel et al., 2008) and studies on the characteristics of marketers in Q4 (8%) (e.g., Singh et al., 2007) have increased slightly over time, but they are still on a relatively low level compared to those on consumer behavior and attitudes.
This analysis has implications for future research. There is evidence that some major research streams of the general marketing literature are under-represented in the cross-cultural perspective. A marketing manager in charge of market entry into a foreign country, for example, must understand whether his or her established distribution and pricing procedures are applicable to the other national culture. Managers typically address these two elements of the marketing mix very early in market entry strategy. (John & Weitz,

1988). As such, considerable literature exists on how consumers perceive prices (e.g., Grewal et al., 1998). However, although national culture is a construct that impacts the perceptions of individuals,
Nakata and Huang (2005) point out the paucity of research on pricing and distribution in their review of international marketing research.
This research gap is particularly relevant in the area of cross-cultural marketing. 4. Conceptual development
Previous research emphasizes as major conceptual issues in crosscultural business research the choice of cultural dimensions (Magnusson et al., 2008), the geographic level of the culture construct
(Leung et al., 2005), and interaction effects between national culture and situational moderators (Yaprak, 2008).
4.1. Cultural dimensions
Most studies build upon some type of cultural dimensions to derive cultural dependencies (Table 4), although the framework from
Hofstede (2001) dominates, since 60% of all studies apply at least one of Hofstede 's cultural dimensions. The percentage of studies that build upon these dimensions have increased continually from Q1 (36%) to
Q4 (78%), with the cultural dimension of individualism, which plays a part in 52% of all studies, having the strongest role. The second most frequent cultural dimensions are those of Hall (1989): low-context versus high-context communication and polychronic versus monochronic time understanding. Hall 's dimensions have gained relevance in Q3 (21%) and Q4 (16%). The dimensions from Schwartz (1994)

Table 3
Research streamsa.
Research streams

1995–1999
(Q2)

2000–2004
(Q3)

Consumer-related topics
Consumer behavior
Consumer attitudes
Decision-making

1
5
–

7%
36%
–

2
6
2

10%
29%
10%

11
9
2

Marketing mix elements
Distribution
Pricing
Product
Promotion
Sales

–
–
3
1
3

–
–
21%
7%
21%

–
–
–
4
1

–
–
–
19%
5%

Marketing at the organizational level
Organization and Management
Characteristics of marketers
Business-to-business relationships a 1990–1994
(Q1)

2005–2008
(Q4)

Total

29%
24%
5%

9
6
2

25%
17%
6%

23
26
6

21%
24%
6%

1
1
2
7
–

3%
3%
5%
18%
–

–
–
1
6
–

–
–
3%
17%
–

1
1
6
18
4

1%
1%
6%
17%
4%

–
1
–

–
7%
–

2
1
3

10%
5%
14%

2
2
1

5%
5%
3%

5
3
4

14%
8%
11%

9
7
8

8%
6%
7%

Few studies are at the intersection of two research stream categories, these studies were classified into two categories. Therefore, the total number of research streams does not add up to total number of studies.

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

519

Table 4
Cultural dimensionsa.
Cultural
dimensions

1990–1994
(Q1)

Hofstede (2001)b
Individualism
Power distance
Masculinity
Uncertainty avoidance
Long-term orientation
Schwartz (1994)b
GLOBE (e.g., House et al., 2001)b
Hall (1989)b
None specificc

5
5
4
1
1
–
–
–
–
9

1995–1999
(Q2)
36%
36%
29%
7%
7%
–
–
–
–
64%

8
5
2
2
3
1
1
–
2
10

2000–2004
(Q3)
42%
26%
11%
11%
16%
5%
5%
–
11%
53%

21
18
8
9
11
5
3
–
7
7

2005–2008
(Q4)
62%
53%
24%
26%
32%
15%
9%
–
21%
21%

25
23
11
14
12
7
2
1
5
6

Total
78%
72%
34%
44%
38%
22%
6%
3%
16%
19%

59
51
25
26
27
13
6
1
14
32

60%
52%
25%
26%
27%
13%
6%
1%
14%
32%

a
The percentages refer to the number of studies published, as noted in Table 1. Because some studies integrate cultural dimensions from more than one framework, percentages do not add up to 100%. b Studies that employ at least one cultural dimension from this framework. c In these cases, hypotheses were derived based on other research on national cultural properties, mainly from the field of anthropology.

and these shifts make the uncritical use of Hofstede 's (2001) classification problematic.

classify nations by means of more recent survey data than the classifications from Hofstede (2001) but, as Table 4 indicates, only 6% of the studies build their analysis on the dimensions from Schwartz
(1994) (e.g., Lenartowicz et al., 2003). The GLOBE project provides the most recent classifications and data. The GLOBE project builds upon some dimensions from Hofstede (2001) but adds further dimensions to the analysis, thereby providing more recent data on country classifications and a broader set of cultural dimensions (Javidan et al.,
2006). However, only one study draws on the GLOBE classifications
(Chan et al., 2007).
Going forward, following Magnusson et al. (2008), cross-cultural marketing researchers should extend the set of cultural dimensions beyond those of Hofstede (2001). Steenkamp (2001) finds that the cultural dimensions from Schwartz (1994) are broader than those from Hofstede (2001) because Schwartz (1994) covers all dimensions from Hofstede (2001) and he adds the dimensions of egalitarianism and hierarchy. These two dimensions might lead to the detection of cultural dependencies that Hofstede 's four traditional dimensions do not reveal. Steenkamp (2001) also highlights the theoretical foundation of Schwartz (1994) and concludes, “given its strong theoretical foundations, it offers great potential for international marketing research” (p. 33). The GLOBE study adopts a theory-based procedure and formulates a priori dimensions that it bases on dimensions from
Hofstede (2001); values described by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck
(1961) and McClelland (1961); and values from the interpersonal communication literature (Sarros & Woodman, 1993). In addition to the cultural dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance from Hofstede (2001), the GLOBE study includes the cultural dimensions of performance orientation, assertiveness, future orientation, human orientation, institutional collectivism, family collectivism and gender egalitarianism.
In addition to the broader choice of cultural dimensions, both
Schwartz (1994) and the GLOBE study build upon more recent survey data than do the classifications from Hofstede (2001). Future studies should integrate these more recent classifications. As such, China has undergone some substantial cultural shifts during the last decades,

4.2. Geographic level of analysis
Leung et al. (2005) identify three major geographic levels for cultures: global, national, and group. Only two studies measure different cultures within one nation, thereby giving up the assumption of national and cultural identity; Chen et al. (2005) examine cultural sub-groups within Singapore, and Lenartowicz et al. (2003) find that different cultures coexist within several South
American nations. Although using national cultures is convenient– and appropriate in many cases–strong variations in cultural properties within countries may be even greater than those between countries (Douglas & Craig, 2006). Future research in cross-cultural marketing should at least challenge the assumption of national cultural homogeneity. Doing so is especially important in cases in which one can expect no national cultural homogeneity, such as in
Canada or Switzerland (e.g., Cui & Liu, 2001). These cases require survey data on the cultural dimensions of national sub-cultures.
Studies should also reveal in detail the structure of their samples to address the issue of whiteness, which “takes the form of systematic preferential treatments for whites. Whiteness can take the form of whites ' ‘interests,’ ‘point of view,’ ‘material well-being,’ ‘self-image’ and notions of ‘appropriate behavior’ that are portrayed as the norm.”
(Thompson, 2004, p. 30). Burton (2009a) provides an overview of which societies ' history has considered white or non-white. As shown in Table 6, researchers have gathered data predominantly from white countries such as the US and the countries of Europe. However, as
Burton (2009b) points out, there are significant ethnic minorities in these countries and, as a facet of whiteness dominance, researchers have not included these ethnic minorities in survey data or, more likely, have ignored their existence in the survey data. Of the 99 studies included in the present content analysis, only three studies deal with this issue, and they serve as examples for future research in this area: Manrai et al. (2001) clarify that, in the street interviews they

Table 5
Number of national cultures per study.
Number of national cultures

1990–1994
(Q1)

2 national cultures
3 national cultures
4 national cultures
5–10 national cultures
11–20 national cultures
More than 20 national cultures

9
1
3
1
−
–

1995–1999
(Q2)
64%
7%
21%
7%
−
−

13
3
1
–
2
–

2000–2004
(Q3)
68%
16%
5%
–
11%
–

20
6
2
3
3
–

2005–2008
(Q4)
59%
18%
6%
9%
9%
–

22
4
3
1
1
1

Total
70%
12%
9%
3%
3%
3%

64
14
9
5
6
1

65%
15%
10%
5%
6%
0%

520

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

conduct for their study, only local nationals and not ethnic minorities serve as respondents. Monga and John (2007) test for differences between Caucasian Americans and Indian Americans in their sample.
Aaker and Williams (1998) report that their samples are 87%
Caucasian Americans and 100% native Chinese, respectively. Following Burton (2009b), future studies should always report the ethnic compositions of their samples of each culture or control for their effects in their findings.
4.3. Interactions with other situational moderators

assessment of the properties of national cultures (Lenartowicz & Roth,
2004), and the choice of analytical techniques (Garcia & Kandemir,
2006) as major methodological issues. A major methodological issue in cross-cultural research is the concept of equivalence, e.g., in terms of sample composition, measurement models and response styles.
Because of space restrictions and the extant studies on these issues in cross-cultural marketing research (e.g., He et al., 2008), this content analysis does not address the concept of equivalence.

5.1. Number and selection of national cultures

In the tradition of the contingency approach, cross-cultural studies typically examine whether national culture matters; however, a series of conceptual contributions in international business research recommend answering the question concerning under what circumstances national culture matters most (e.g., Kirkman et al., 2006; Leung et al., 2005). The contingency view of national culture may be oversimplistic, in part because this view does not allow for organizational characteristics such as size, age, or multinationality. The literature analysis identifies only articles that examine whether national culture matters and none that increase the precision of the theoretical model by investigating circumstances that might impact the influence of national culture.
A better choice for future cross-cultural marketing studies may be the configurational approach, which suggests that internal attributes need to be aligned with external attributes, just as national culture is (Leung et al.,
2005). Using this approach, studies could examine which types of organizations need to align to national cultural circumstances. One might argue, for example, that national cultural forces affect younger organizations more than they do established organizations because the younger organizations have not yet built strong internal organizational cultures
(Gruber, 2003). The consumers ' educational or professional level might impact the influence of the national culture as well. From a theoretical perspective, while researchers generally treat national culture as a boundary parameter for existing theories in marketing (Steenkamp,
2005), interaction effects can go one step further to show the boundaries of national cultural influences by determining when national culture matters and when it does not. Such research efforts could significantly improve the precision of cross-cultural marketing models.
5. Methodological development
Research in the area of cross-cultural research highlights the number and selection of national cultures (Leung et al., 2005), the

One of the major decisions in cross-cultural research is the selection of appropriate cultures to study (Lytle et al., 1995). Table 5 shows that researchers have based a strong majority of studies (65%) on two national cultures, a share that has remained relatively stable over the period under consideration; researchers have based 15% of the studies on three nations, 10% on four nations, and only 11% on 5 or more nations. Despite the growing opportunities in communication and data transfer, the percentage of studies that draws upon more than two national cultures has not increased over time. Cross-cultural studies that build on only two national cultures have some severe limitations, particularly since countries typically differ in terms of more than one cultural dimension, so researchers cannot trace differences between national cultures to one cultural dimension and cannot rule out other rival explanations for differences at the national level (e.g., the country 's macroeconomic development stage) (Tan,
2002).
Table 6 shows that many countries are part of one cross-cultural marketing study or another; however, the US is part of 66% of all studies, followed by China, especially in Q3 and Q4, with 30% of all studies and in 47% of the studies in Q4. A large percentage of the extant studies has focused on US–China comparisons, but these studies are problematic because these two countries differ in more than just cultural criteria; they also differ in their macroeconomic development stages and regulatory systems. In addition, while the US and China differ markedly in terms of power distance and collectivism, Hofstede (2001) finds commonalities regarding masculinity and uncertainty avoidance, so researchers have difficulty pinpointing the influences of these dimensions. Several studies compare Germany and
France, but African and South American countries are part of only 5% and 9% of the studies, respectively. Certainly, the shortage of empirical research on some African countries stems to a large degree from the lack of a research infrastructure on many parts of that continent (in

Table 6
National cultures examineda.
National cultures
North America
US
Canada
Europe
Germany
France
UK
Eastern Europe
Other
Asia
China
Japan
Other
Australia/New Zealand
Africa
South America

1990–1994
(Q1)

1995–1999
(Q2)

2000–2004
(Q3)

2005–2008
(Q4)

Total

10
3

71%
21%

9
1

47%
5%

23
4

68%
12%

23
2

72%
6%

65
10

66%
10%

2
1
–
–
12

14%
7%
–
–
86%

4
4
4
–
17

21%
21%
21%
–
89%

3
5
5
5
23

9%
15%
15%
15%
68%

7
3
2
9
25

22%
9%
6%
28%
78%

16
13
11
14
77

16%
13%
11%
14%
78%

–
–
8
2
–
–

–
–
57%
14%
–
–

4
5
4

21%
26%
21%
0%
5%
–

11
3
14
7
4
7

32%
9%
41%
21%
12%
21%

15
4
8
3
–
2

47%
13%
25%
9%
–
6%

30
12
34
12
5
9

30%
12%
34%
12%
5%
9%

1
–

a
The percentages reported in this table refer to the number of studies published, as noted in Table 1. Because all studies examined in this analysis draw upon at least two national cultures, percentages do not add up to 100%.

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

terms of researchers and reliable phone and email communication, as well as a generally low degree of literacy). While the use of African countries for cross-cultural comparisons is appealing, all these factors make practical implementation difficult. The underrepresentation of
African and South American countries, which earlier reviews (Nakata
& Huang, 2005) also report, is noteworthy given the high importance of some of these economies, especially those of Mexico, Brazil, and
Chile.
Overall, three major suggestions for future research emerge: first, future research in cross-cultural marketing should put effort into the choice of national cultures. Sivakumar and Nakata (2001) propose that, when researchers expect cultural differences to be due to one cultural dimension (e.g., the degree of power distance), they should use two national cultures that have strong differences in terms of this dimension and few differences in terms of the other cultural dimensions. When researchers expect differences to be due to two cultural dimensions, they should use four national cultures in the study, one to represent each of the four combinations of the two levels
(high and low) for each cultural dimension. The four national cultures should be similar in terms of the remaining cultural dimensions.
Second, while the Sivakumar and Nakata (2001) procedure helps researchers determine the appropriate types of national cultures with which to identify the roles of cultural dimensions, the procedure does not provide guidance on how to deal with rival drivers at the national level, such as the stage of macroeconomic development (Ralston et al.,
2008). In this sense, many cross-cultural studies in the marketing literature are cross-national studies that cannot definitively answer which driver at the national level causes the differences between the samples. Therefore, Adler (1983) considers two-country comparisons of cultural influences to be little more than pilot studies. In order to exclude rival explanations for national cultural differences, researchers should include even more national cultures. For example, Tan
(2002) creates a hybrid, quasi-experimental design to analyze whether the cultural or national effects prevail by drawing on three samples from two cultures and two countries: mainland Chinese,
Chinese Americans and Caucasian Americans. Steenkamp and Geyskens (2006) draw upon responses from more than 8000 consumers in
23 countries to isolate the effects of the regulatory system, the moral system (national identity) and the cultural system (degree of individualism) on the perceived value of websites. These studies could not have separated the co-effects on the national level with a two-country comparison. Such a design is better for isolating the real role culture plays, so researchers should use it in future cross-cultural marketing research.
Third, as Table 6 indicates, extant survey data comes mainly from developed, white countries, such as the US and the countries of
Western Europe, with other settings, such as the countries of Africa, strongly under-represented. Thus, current cross-cultural marketing

521

research has neglected an opportunity to detect stronger cultural dependencies, so future studies should work to extend the set of national cultures examined by putting a stronger focus on less developed, non-white settings. The cultural distances and distances in terms of other factors on the national level are more pronounced when non-white contexts are incorporated in the analysis than when the focus is solely on national cultures in the white world (Burton,
2009b). Burgess and Steenkamp (2006) point out that there are systematic and strong cultural differences between highly developed
(mostly white) countries and economically emerging (mostly nonwhite) countries. Researchers can identify these strong differences of drivers at the national level by integrating non-white countries into samples, thereby increasing the generalizability of their findings.
5.2. Assessment of national culture
The literature provides two major methods for assessing national culture. The indirect method uses data from existing research and assigns country scores on cultural dimensions to the sample under consideration (indirect value inference). Most of the studies that build upon the dimensions and country classifications of Hofstede (2001) use the indirect method; in fact, 80% of all the cross-cultural marketing studies that are part of the current study assess national culture on the basis of indirect value inference. The direct method, by contrast, employs aggregated primary data from the respondents in the sample (direct value inference) (Lenartowicz & Roth, 2004).
Although growing slightly in importance, only 20% of the studies in the current research use the direct value inference method for national culture assessment.
Direct value inference methods are necessary in situations where indirect value inferences do not provide reliable data for country classifications. National cultures that are composed of two or more subcultures are especially difficult to classify using national scores such as Hofstede 's (2001) classifications (Kirkman et al., 2006). Consequently, future cross-cultural marketing studies should extend the use of direct value inferences to analyze culturally heterogeneous settings.
With the direct value inference method, the question of how many respondents are necessary to evaluate cultural properties arises, given that national culture is a group-level, not an individual-level concept
(Triandis, 2004). None of the studies used in the current research raise this question, although Lenartowicz and Roth (2004) propose that a large sample is not necessary if a study uses a sample of highly representative respondents. Building upon the idea of a cultural consensus theory, Lenartowicz and Roth (2004) argue that there is only one correct answer (i.e., the truth) among many wrong answers, but when two independent individuals give the same answer, the probability that this answer is the correct one increases. If a study applies this idea to a limited number of respondents per cultural

Table 7
Analytical techniques.
Analytical techniques
Univariate/bivariate
Cross tabs t tests
ANOVA
Simple regression
Correlation analysis
Multivariate
ANCOVA
MANOVA/MANCOVA
Multiple regression
Disciminant analysis
Conjoint analysis
Structural equation modeling
Other

1990–1994
(Q1)

1995–1999
(Q2)

2000–2004
(Q3)

2005–2008
(Q4)

Total

3
1
2
2
1

21%
7%
14%
14%
7%

3
3
4
2
2

16%
16%
21%
11%
11%

2
3
8
3
–

6%
9%
24%
9%
–

1
2
7
–
–

3%
6%
22%
–
–

9
9
21
7
3

9%
9%
21%
7%
3%

–
1
–
1
1
2
–

–
7%
–
7%
7%
14%
–

–
2
–
2
–
1
–

–
11%
–
11%
–
5%
–

1
9
3
–
–
3
2

3%
26%
9%
–
–
9%
6%

1
4
–
–
–
12
5

3%
13%
–
–
–
38%
16%

2
16
3
3
1
18
7

2%
16%
3%
3%
1%
18%
7%

522

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523
Table 8 (continued)

Table 8
Overview of results from the literature analysis.
Problem area

Current status

Development of research field
Authorship pattern
– The majority of author teams are single-country teams. – The majority of authors originate from US and
Western Europe universities. Research streams

Conceptual aspects
Cultural dimensions

Geographic level of analysis Interaction with other moderators – A wide array of topics have been addressed cross-culturally. – Strong focus on consumer behavior, consumer attitude, and promotion topics

Problem area
Suggestions for future research – Future research projects should enforce collaborations across cultures for all research stages. – Cross-cultural studies on a culture A and a culture B should be conducted twice, once from the perspective of a researcher from culture A and once from a researcher from culture B, to detect ethnocentrism. – Given the broad field of marketing-related topics, many future research opportunities remain; major research gaps are, in particular, distributionrelated and pricing-related topics. – Research in the future should consider alternative frameworks (in particular the dimensions from Schwartz (1994) and the GLOBE dimensions) because of their broader sets of dimensions and more recent classifications of national cultures on these dimensions.
– Researchers should
– Studies have equated almost without exception critically challenge the cultural homogeneity of national and cultural nations in each study. geographical boundaries.
– Future research should report and control for ethnic minorities in survey data. – To date, national culture – Future studies should has been treated as single increase the precision of theoretical models with moderator in research national cultural elements models. by integrating situational moderators such as educational level, organization size, and environment of technological uncertainty.
– Most cross-cultural studies build on some set of cultural dimensions.
– The dimensions from
Hofstede (2001) clearly dominate. Methodological aspects
Number and selection of – The majority of studies national cultures are comparisons between two nations.

– Future research should derive appropriate national cultures for concrete research themes based on the approach from Sivakumar and
Nakata (2001)
– The US and China are the – Future studies should most widely used national extend national cultures implied in the study to cultural contexts. exclude rival or confounding influences at the national level (e.g., macroeconomic development stage).

Current status

Methodological aspects
Number and selection of national cultures

– South America and
Africa are rarely examined. Assessment of national cultures Analytical techniques

Suggestions for future research – Future research should integrate non-white settings such as South
America and compare them against predominately white settings such as Western
Europe and North America.
– Most studies use indirect – Direct value inferences method is appropriate value inferences; only when nations that are some build upon direct culturally heterogeneous value inferences. are examined.
– Structural equation
– ANOVA is the most modeling is the first choice widespread analytical for many cross-cultural technique. – Structural equation studies, especially because modeling has become of its potential in more important. measurement equivalence tests. group, analysis can detect the national cultural characteristics as long as there is a set of identical answers in the larger national group.
5.3. Analytical techniques
There is a shift toward multivariate techniques (especially
MANOVA/MANCOVA and structural equation modeling) in the period under study (Table 7). While structural equation modeling has played only a minor role from Q1 to Q3, studies from Q4 use it more frequently than any other (38%). Several studies also employ covariance-based methods (e.g., Durvasula et al., 1993) and variance-based methods (e.g., Money & Graham, 1999); 21% of studies from Q1 to Q4 apply ANOVAs.
The movement toward multivariate techniques is a positive one because structural equation modeling allows the depiction of more complex theoretical frameworks with mediating and moderating effects (Fornell & Bookstein, 1982), and it is the major method used in assessing the measurement equivalence of the constructs the studies employ (Garcia & Kandemir, 2006; Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1998).
Thus, research has made major progress in the use of analytical techniques in cross-cultural marketing.
6. Conclusion
This literature review indicates that cross-cultural marketing research is progressing on several fronts. Cross-cultural marketing research covers a wide array of topics and progresses in such areas as cross-cultural consumer behavior, consumer attitudes and promotion.
A major shift from univariate and bivariate to multivariate analytical techniques is a step forward and, although still clearly dominated by researchers based and trained in North America and Europe, crosscultural marketing research is seeing contributions from an increasing number of Asian researchers. Table 8 summarizes the current status of the field and suggestions for future research.
A major concern in terms of the general development of the research field is the strong dominance of single-country research teams. This focus suggests an ethnocentrism bias in cross-cultural marketing research. An ethnocentrism bias is likely to be present in the research field, as most researchers, being human, cannot help interpreting findings from other national cultures through their own cultural lenses.
Further, there is reason to believe that researchers neglect the opportunities that less developed, non-white cultural settings

A. Engelen, M. Brettel / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 516–523

provide. What it comes down to is that cross-cultural marketing research is cross-cultural predominantly within the setting of developed, white countries and thereby misses an important opportunity to test the real generalizibility of research frameworks in culturally more heterogeneous settings. One major objective of cross-cultural marketing research is to show the generalizibility or boundary conditions of marketing theories. The whiteness of the national cultures that extant studies examine suggests that research treats national cultural variations only within the limits of primarily white countries and does not exploit the full potential that other national cultures offer for cross-cultural marketing research. In other words, cross-cultural marketing research does not meet its own objective of finding boundary conditions or strong generalizibality of theories because it excludes the perspective of non-white survey data from these countries and limits its investigations to a particular part of the world. By focusing on white settings, this research stream ignores national cultural perspectives represented by non-white survey data.
A major conceptual concern relates to the over-use of the dimensions of Hofstede (2001). As Magnusson et al. (2008) point out, researchers should discuss the other alternative frameworks with broader sets of cultural dimensions and more recent country classifications that are available in terms of their superiority to the classical dimensions of Hofstede (2001). A major methodological concern refers to the dominance of two-country comparisons.
Comparing two countries does not isolate different national cultural forces because it is not possible to rule out completely the influence of other factors, such as the macroeconomic development stage or the system of law. Further, two-country comparisons do not allow researchers to trace differences back to particular national cultural dimensions. References
Aaker JL, Williams P. Empathy versus pride: the influence of emotional appeals across cultures. J Consum Res 1998;25(3):241–61.
Adler N. A typology of management studies involving culture. J Int Bus Stud 1983;14
(2):29–47.
Boyacigiller N, Adler N. The parochial dinosaur: organizational science in a global context. Acad Manag Rev 1991;16(2):262–90.
Brettel M, Engelen A, Heinemann F, Vadhanasindhu P. Antecedents of market orientation: a cross-cultural comparison. J Int Mark 2008;16(2):84-119.
Burgess S, Steenkamp J-B. Marketing renaissance: how research in emerging markets advances marketing science and practice. Int J Res Mark 2006;23(4):337–56.
Burton D. “Reading” whiteness in consumer research. Consumption Markets Culture
2009a;12(2):171–201.
Burton D. Cross-cultural marketing. Routledge; 2009b.
Campbell DT. Natural selection as an epistemological model. In: Naroll R, Cohen R, editors. Handbook of method in cultural anthropology; 1970. p. 51–85. New York.
Cavusgil ST, Das A. Methodological issues in empirical cross-cultural research: a survey of the management literature and a framework. Manage Int Rev (MIR) 1997;37(1):71–96.
Chan K, Lyann L, Diehl S, Terlutter R. Consumers ' response to offensive advertising:a cross cultural study. Int Mark Rev 2007;24(5):606–28.
Chen H, Ng S, Rao AR. Cultural differences in consumer impatience. J Mark Res (JMR)
2005;42(3):291–301.
Clark T. International marketing and national character: a review and proposal for an integrative theory. J Mark 1990;54(4):66–79.
Cui G, Liu Q. Emerging market segments in a transitional economy: a study of urban consumers in China. J Int Mark 2001;9(1):84-106.
Douglas S, Craig C. On improving the conceptual foundations of international marketing research. J Int Mark 2006;14(1):1-22.
Durvasula S, Andrews JC, Lysonski S, Netemeyer RG. Assessing the cross-national applicability of consumer behavior models: a model of attitude toward advertising in general. J Consum Res 1993;19(4):626–36.
Fornell C, Bookstein F. Two structural equation models: LISREL and PLS applied to consumer exit-voice theory. J Mark Res 1982;19(4):440–52.
Garcia R, Kandemir D. An illustration of modeling moderating variables in crossnational studies. Int Mark Rev 2006;23(4):371–89.
Grewal D, Monroe KB, Krishnan R. The effects of price-comparison advertising on buyers ' perceptions of acquisition value, transaction value, and behavioral intentions. J Mark 1998;62(2):46–59.
Gruber M. Research on marketing in emerging firms — key issues and open questions.
Int J Technol Manage 2003;26(5–6):600–20.
Hall E. The dance of life; 1989. New York.
He Y, Merz MA, Alden DL. Diffusion of measurement invariance assessment in crossnational empirical marketing research: perspectives from the literature and a survey of researchers. J Int Mark 2008;16(2):64–83.

523

Hickson D, McMillan C. Concluding comments on countries, context and culture. In:
Hickson D, McDaniel S, editors. Organization and nation — the Aston programme
IV; 1981. p. 187–96. Farnborough.
Hofstede G. Culture 's consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Thousand oaks; 2001.
House R, Javidan M, Dorfman P. Project GLOBE: an introduction. Appl Psychol: An Int
Rev 2001;50(4):489–505.
Hult T, Ketchen D, Griffith D, Finnegan C, Gonzalez-Padron T, Harmancioglu N, et al.
Data equivalence in cross-cultural international business research: assessment and guidelines. J Int Bus Stud 2008;39(6):1027–44.
Javidan M, House R, Dorfman P, Hanges P, Luque MD. Conceptualizing and measuring culture and their consequences: a comparative review of GLOBE 's and Hofstede 's approaches. J Int Bus Stud 2006;37:897–914.
John G, Weitz B. Forward integration into distribution: an empirical test of transaction cost analysis. J Law, Econ Organ 1988;4(2):337–55.
Kirkman B, Lowe K, Gibson CB. A quarter century of “culture 's consequences”: a review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede 's cultural values framework. J Int Bus
Stud 2006;37(3):285–320.
Kluckhohn F, Strodtbeck F. Variations in value orientations. Evanston; 1961.
Kuada J, Buatsi S. Market orientation and management practices in Ghanaian firms: revisiting the Jaworski and Kohli framework. J Int Mark 2005;13(1):58–88.
Lenartowicz T, Roth K. The selection of key informants in IB cross-cultural studies.
Manage Int Rev 2004;44(1):23–51.
Lenartowicz T, Johnson JP, White CT. The neglect of intracountry cultural variation in international management research. J Bus Res 2003;56(12):999.
Leung K, Bhagat RS, Buchan NR, Erez M, Gibson CB. Culture and international business: recent advances and their implications for future research. J Int Bus Stud 2005;36
(4):357–78.
Lytle A, Brett J, Barsness Z, Tinsley C, Janssens M. A paradigm for confirmatory crosscultural research in organizational behavior. Res Organ Behav 1995;17:167–214.
Magnusson P, Wilson RT, Zdravkovic S, Xin Zhou J, Westjohn SA. Breaking through the cultural clutter A comparative assessment of multiple cultural and institutional frameworks. Int Mark Rev 2008;25(2):183–201.
Manrai LA, Lascu DN, Manrai AK, Babb HW. A cross-cultural comparison of style in
Eastern European emerging markets. Int Mark Rev 2001;18(3):270.
McClelland D. The achieving society; 1961. Princeton.
Money RB, Graham JL. Salesperson performance, pay, and job satisfaction: tests of a model using data collected in the United States and Japan. J Int Bus Stud 1999;30
(1):149–72.
Monga AB, John DR. Cultural differences in brand extension evaluation: the influence of analytic versus holistic thinking. J Consum Res 2007;33(4):529–36.
Nakata C, Huang Y. Progress and promise: the last decade of international marketing research. J Bus Res 2005;58(5):611–8.
Nakata C, Sivakumar K. National culture and new product development: an integrative review. J Mark 1996;60(1):61–72.
Nisbet R. Ethnocentrism and the comparative method. In: Desai A, editor. Essays on modernization of underdeveloped societies; 1971. p. 95-114. Bombay.
Page AL, Schirr GR. Growth and development of a body of knowledge: 16 years of new product development research, 1989–2004. J Prod Innov Manage 2008;25(3):
233–48.
Ralston DA, Holt DH, Terpstra RH, Yu K-C. The impact of national culture and economic ideology on managerial work values: a study of the United States, Russia, Japan, and
China. J Int Bus Stud 2008;39(1):8-26.
Ricks D. International management research: past, present and future. In: Wong-Rieger
D, Rieger F, editors. International management research — looking to the future.
Berlin; 1993.
Sarros J, Woodman D. Leadership in Australia and its organizational outcomes. Leadersh
Organiz 1993;14:3–9.
Schwartz S. Beyond individualism/collectivism: new cultural dimensions of values. In:
Kim U, Triandis H, Kagitcibasi C, Choi S, Yoon G, editors. Individualism and collectivism: theory, methods and applications; 1994. p. 85-119. Thousand Oaks.
Singh JJ, Vitell SJ, Al-Khatib J, Clark I. The role of moral intensity and personal moral philosophies in the ethical decision making of marketers: a cross-cultural comparison of China and the United States. J Int Mark 2007;15(2):86-112.
Sivakumar K, Nakata C. The stampede toward Hofstede 's framework: avoiding the sample design pit in cross-cultural research. J Int Bus Stud 2001;32(3):555–74.
Steenkamp J. The role of national culture in international marketing research. Int Mark
Rev 2001;18(1):30–44.
Steenkamp J. Moving out of the U.S. Silo: a call to arms for conducting international marketing research. J Mark 2005;69(4):6–8.
Steenkamp JB, Baumgartner H. Assessing measurement invariance in cross-national consumer research. J Consum Res 1998;25:78–90.
Steenkamp J-BEM, Geyskens I. How country characteristics affect the perceived value of web sites. J Mark 2006;70(3):136–50.
Tan J. Culture, nation, and entrepreneurial strategic orientations: implications for an emerging economy. Entrepreneurship Theory Pract 2002;26(4):95-111.
Thompson A. Gentlemanly orthodoxy: critical race feminism, whiteness theory, and the
APA manual. Educational Theory 2004;54(1):27–57.
Triandis H. Culture and social behavior; 1994. New York.
Triandis H. Culture and conflict. Int J Psychol 2000;35(2):145–52.
Triandis H. The many dimensions of culture. Acad Manage Exec 2004;18(1):88–93.
Yaprak A. Culture study in international marketing: a critical review and suggestions for future research. Int Mark Rev 2008;25(2):215–29.

References: Page AL, Schirr GR. Growth and development of a body of knowledge: 16 years of new product development research, 1989–2004