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This paper aims to investigate whether the feedback managers receive from their work colleagues is based on a shared understanding of their leadership behaviours. This similarity in perception is called conceptual equivalence. The study also took into account the managers’ and their work colleagues’ expectations.

A total of 441 managers participated in a 360-degree feedback programme that sought responses from their bosses (n = 380), peers (n = 1,621) and subordinates (n = 1,680). The instrument used was the Competing Values Framework 16-item survey, which describes the leadership behaviours that managers must display to be effective. It also measures the behaviours they consider important. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the rating scores of the managers and the three hierarchical levels of their work colleagues to determine conceptual equivalence between self and work colleagues’ ratings. Conceptual models were formulated and compared by testing for factor form equivalence.

Conceptual equivalence was found across all rater groups for both leadership behaviours displayed and the importance of leadership behaviours.

This paper provides managers and human resource professionals with useful insights on how to improve the use of 360-degree feedback processes by ensuring that conceptual equivalence is established for feedback supplied by raters from different hierarchical levels. The findings also stress the importance of including expectations when receiving feedback on leadership behaviours.

This study contributes to the literature on the benefits of determining the conceptual equivalence of feedback received by managers from various work colleagues. A second contribution is the inclusion of expectations in the feedback process, as none of the previous work has included such a measure.

The links between quality and customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty in offline retail settings are well established. It therefore seems fair to posit that quality will also be a determinant of online retailer success. This assumption motivated Wolfinbarger and Gilly to develop a scale for the measurement of “eTail quality”. The paper's purpose is to validate that scale.

The study investigates the equivalence of the eTailQ scale across different product categories in three countries. Tests for both conceptual and psychometric equivalence are conducted.

Findings suggest that eTailQ exhibits conceptual equivalence. It also exhibits psychometric equivalence by providing acceptable levels of reliability, variance extracted and both discriminant and nomological validity.

eTailQ can be used with confidence by online goods and service retailers in English speaking countries outside the USA.

Notes that, while there have been periodic calls for comparative work in educational administration, few empirical studies have been designed specifically to compare principal leadership practices between contextual and cultural settings. Suggests that conducting such studies raises several conceptual and methodological problems with respect to underlying assumptions about knowledge, appropriate conceptualizations of principal leadership, and methods of inquiry. Proposes first to identify some of the salient conceptual and methodological issues involved in cross‐cultural research, and then to explore and elaborate on these issues in greater detail by investigating principal leadership across two cultural settings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine recent patterns and developments in the literature on cross‐cultural advertising research.

Citation analysis was performed for cross‐cultural advertising articles published in major marketing and business journals from 1995 to 2006.

Cultural values were the most studied topic area in cross‐cultural advertising research. Content analysis was the most widely employed methodology, followed by surveys. North America and the original European Union (EU) member states were the most frequently investigated, whereas there appears to exist a paucity of research in newer EU countries, and in Latin American, Middle Eastern, and African markets.

Based on findings from the citation analysis, the authors outline future directions for the advancement of cross‐cultural advertising research in theoretical foundations, methodological issues, and countries to be explored.

Cross-language qualitative research has gained momentum worldwide; yet, there is still a lack of consensus to guide researchers in ensuring the trustworthiness of the research. Several methodological dilemmas related to language differences between researchers and participants should be carefully addressed. Therefore, this study aims to (1) review qualitative literature addressing cross-language, (2) produce a list of methodological criteria and recommendations from the reviewed literature and (3) evaluate systematically published cross-language qualitative researches using the list.

This study employed a summative content analysis of 35 published curriculum and pedagogy researches from 2000–2018 that viewed language differences as methodological issue. A list of 20 criteria or recommendations was constructed and used to evaluate the selected researches.

The findings revealed that majority of the researches lacked understanding of language differences between researchers and participants causing multiple inconsistencies in reporting methodological issues. Failure to address these methodological issues could risk the trustworthiness of the data and the overall rigor of the research.

This study highlights the importance to minimize methodological issues related to language differences. It is hoped that the list of criteria or recommendations proposed by this study could support other cross-language qualitative researchers in overcoming these methodological dilemmas.

This paper demonstrates complexity surrounding cross-language research involving an interpreter and illustrates how the author attempted to ensure methodological rigor through modifying and applying Squires' criteria to the design and conduct of her education research.

This research employed Squires' recommendations for cross-language research as methodological guidelines for designing and conducting cross-language research. The research involved focus group discussions with teachers working in an ethnic minority boarding school in Laos and an interpreter who helped translating/transcribing interviews in Lao to English and data analysis.

From applying Squires' criteria, this paper introduces a reflexive set of recommendations for researchers conducting a wide range of qualitative cross-language research.

Most meta-criteria for cross-language research are developed to evaluate the quality of cross-language research. However, the soundness of a set of meta-criteria as one tool to evaluate all cross-language research might be questionable due to qualitative studies' diverse epistemological grounds. This paper argues that meta-criteria can serve as a critical and reflexive guide for cross-language researchers when used from the research design and on. The paper also suggests a new set of recommendations which may facilitate more reflexive approaches to cross-language research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a cross-cultural scale of customers’ perceived switching costs (PSCs). Customers’ PSCs function as a powerful defensive marketing tool that restrains customers from switching.

Four sets of survey data were collected in the UK, Egypt, Germany, and China. An overall response rate of 86 percent was achieved across the four countries. Cross-cultural equivalence of the PSCs scale was assessed using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis.

Tests of configural, metric, and factor variance invariance confirmed that the PSCs scale is appropriate for meaningful cross-cultural comparisons.

Data were collected in four countries from the financial service context. Future researchers should test the short-form PSCs (PSCs-S) scale across different cultural and industrial contexts to enhance its generalizability.

The cross-cultural PSCs-S scale presented here will enhance international marketing researchers’ ability to test theory containing customers’ PSCs as central variables, and provide managers with a measurement tool that they can use to better segment and manage their customers.

This study is one of the first to develop a cross-cultural PSCs scale. Despite the growth of research into customers’ PSCs, research on the topic has been limited by the lack of a cross-cultural measurement instrument. The latter now furnishes the research community with the opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of switching behavior, to establish the scale's generalizability, and to make meaningful comparisons of PSCs across cultures.

The purpose of this study is to examine the applicability of Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) in a Malaysian university context.

The CEQ was translated into Malay language using rigorous cross-cultural adaptation procedures. The Malay version CEQ was administered to 190 undergraduate students in one Malaysian public university. Statistical analyses were used to examine the reliability and factor structures of the Malay version CEQ scales using IBM SPSS version 20.0.

Findings raised serious questions about the reliability and construct validity of the CEQ for a Malaysian university sample. Findings revealed that only two out of five scales of CEQ showed satisfactory level of reliability. Six items failed to load on the intended scales.

The sample size is small with 190 university students and covered respondents from one local university, while the other 17 local universities were not included due to geographical distance.

The findings are particularly important for higher education policymakers to optimise and allocate the resources to improve university quality teaching. More attention should be paid toward how to furnish the university teaching staff to provide a high level of teaching quality that contributes to students’ generic skills for their employment in future. Researchers could extend the applicability of the Malay version CEQ in primary and secondary school context.

The vast majority of CEQ-related research has been undertaken in the Western context, thus raising the question of the applicability of CEQ for a Malaysian university context. The fall in the Times Higher Education and QS World University rankings as well as the limited research in assessment-related higher education has also accelerated the needs to examine the applicability of CEQ23 in Malaysian university context. This study has provided fundamental cross-validation empirical evidence to propose improvement in future studies.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a reliable and valid field survey research instrument to assess national cultural cognitive templates of preferred leader behaviour dimensions to facilitate education, development, and training of managerial leaders operating across diverse organisations.

The study consists of focus group evaluations of the validity and the translations to local languages of a survey instrument assessing leader behaviour preferences in business organisations.

The studies find that the survey instrument and its translations are valid and reliable for assessing preferred leader behaviour across national cultures. The length of the survey is problematic, and a new project is underway to produce a shorter version with equivalent reliability and validity.

As the research project is long term, at this point, a relatively long survey is available for research, with a shorter version planned for the future.

Practical implications include producing and validating a field survey research instrument that is reliable and valid across cultures and languages, and can be employed to improve the understanding, development, and education of managers and leaders of international business organisations.

Management and leadership processes are employed in all aspects of life, and can be better understood and improved through this research project.

The majority of cross-cultural research is leader-centric studies of implicit leader characteristics; this project expands the scope of studies further into follower-centric studies of observed leader behaviour.