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Empirically investigates predicted consumption pattern differences and the importance of brand name, related to specific product categories, between two distinct cultural groups – Hispanics and Anglos. The authors predicted that, due to differences in values and lifestyles of the two groups, intracultural differences would be observed in the level of importance members of each group attached to specific product attributes, the brand name of products, the influence of others on the purchase decision, and the price consumers expected to pay. Descriptive statistics, cross‐tabulations, bivariate correlations, ANOVA and MANOVA procedures provided support for three of the four hypotheses tested. Several managerial implications are drawn from the results and future research suggestions are provided.

Although internet growth has allowed producers to shift control of service transactions to the customer, little research has examined the effects of this shift. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the performance of different task types differentially affects consumer responses.

The paper is a field study using online data collection to examine the US Hispanic market, the fastest‐growing consumer group in the US as well as one of the fastest growing online user groups.

The paper finds that Hispanic consumers were less affected by the type of task than non‐Hispanic consumers, in terms of perceived quality, satisfaction, and intended patronage. Using constructs from the communications literature, task effects on three communication perceptions were shown to explain the differences.

The results provide support for the notion that more complex (transaction) tasks can lead to lower evaluations than less complex (information) tasks, while also providing some limiting conditions to this result.

The results in this paper suggest that services firms should consider, not only the environment in which the service encounter will be performed, but the type of service task, the type of consumer, and the potential interaction between them. As service organizations move from face‐to‐face to online service provision, they must consider how, online service provision is evaluated by consumers’, and how this affects patronage intentions.

The paper shows the usefulness of communications medium perceptions in explaining the interactive effects of service task and consumer type. It is pertinent to service providers, academic researchers, and consumer groups.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Hispanic consumers' use of personal and impersonal information sources and to examine age and gender differences in the use of those information sources.

A structured questionnaire was developed to collect the data. Pillai's trace multivariate analyses of variance were used to examine the main effects of age and gender differences in the use of personal and impersonal information sources.

The degree to which personal information sources were used varied across age groups. When making a purchase decision on clothing items, the respondents' use of their mothers and friends as personal information sources differed significantly across age groups. Males and females varied in their use of their fathers, sisters, and other female family members as personal information sources. The degree to which impersonal information sources were used also varied across age groups. When gathering ideas about what clothing items to purchase, the use of fashion magazines as impersonal information sources differed significantly across age groups. In addition, males and females varied in their use of store displays and television advertisements as impersonal information sources.

The study may provide guidance in developing effective and strategic promotion direction and in selecting proper media advertising in an effort to target Hispanic consumers in the USA. Marketers can use this information to determine advertising media allocation in effectively reaching Hispanic consumers.

Considering the unprecedented growth in the population and the purchasing power of Hispanics, marketers need to analyze Hispanic consumers' use of information sources in their shopping behaviors in order to determine effective marketing and media planning. However, little is known about how Hispanic consumers' use of information influences their shopping behaviors. This study offers insights for apparel retailers in building effective promotional strategies for reaching Hispanic consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Hispanic consumers' shopping orientations and their apparel retail store evaluation criteria and to examine age and gender differences in their shopping orientations and retail store evaluation criteria.

A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data on the variables in the study. The questionnaire was developed both in English and Spanish. Factor analysis was employed to identify Hispanic consumers' shopping orientations and their retail store evaluation criteria. Pillai's trace multivariate analyses of variance were used to examine the hypotheses.

Six shopping orientation constructs and three constructs of store evaluation criteria were identified. The results revealed that males and females have different shopping orientations and apparel retail store evaluation criteria. Shopping orientation and apparel retail store evaluation criteria also varied across the age groups.

This study has practical implications for apparel retailers regarding how to position their stores in targeting different groups of shoppers and how to allocate their resources and promote products. Additionally, the findings of the study will reveal how to provide an optimal shopping experience to Hispanic consumers so that apparel retailers can develop localized marketing strategies to target the areas with a large Hispanic population.

Despite the importance of understanding Hispanic consumers' apparel shopping behavior, little research has been conducted.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and begin to validate a scale to assess the shopping environment preferences of Hispanic consumers in the USA.

The sample consists of 160 Hispanic consumers attending a Hispanic festival in the southeast USA. A questionnaire contained items to measure shopping environment preferences and scales to measure materialism, hedonic shopping motivations, and perceived discrimination.

The findings suggest a second-order model where three factors (familiarity, price, and experience) load onto a single second-order construct of shopping environment preferences. The result is a scale consisting of three factors permitting the exploration of the retail environmental preferences of Hispanic consumers in the USA.

The study develops a scale that can be applied by US retailers to gain additional knowledge of their Hispanic consumers, thus enabling strategies to be developed that potentially enhance their engagement in retail environments.

Given the size of this segment and its increasing impact on the retail market, surprisingly, Hispanic consumers in the USA have received relatively little research attention.

The fact that young Hispanic consumers spend even more than others in their age category suggests the strategic importance of a deeper understanding of these consumers. To what extent do they resemble their U.S. non-Hispanic counterparts as opposed to those in Mexico? Has the acculturation process affected their cultural values? What role might watching television have played in that process? In the present study, we investigate these key questions across three segments – U.S. non-Hispanic, U.S. Hispanic, and Mexican college students. Hispanic students fall between the non-Hispanic and Mexican respondents in terms of self-reported levels of religiosity and materialism; they more closely mirror their Mexican peers in higher levels of life satisfaction. There are no significant differences between the groups in terms of quantity of television viewing. Overall, Hispanics seem to be slowly adopting American values, while the acculturation process does not seem to be affecting satisfaction with their lives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate cultural variations in the qualities that White Americans and Hispanic Americans believe power-holders should embody, and the situations in which these norms influence consumer satisfaction.

Two experimental studies (n1=130 and n2=121) and one field study (n=241) were conducted with White American and Hispanic participants. Results were analysed using ANOVA and regression.

White Americans are predisposed to apply to power-holders injunctive norms of treating others justly and equitably, whereas Hispanics are predisposed to apply injunctive norms of treating others compassionately. These cultural variations in the use of injunctive norms were more evident in business or service contexts in which power was made salient, and emerged in the norms more likely to be endorsed by White American and Hispanic participants (Study 1), their approval of hypothetical negotiators who treated suppliers equitably or compassionately (Study 2), and their evaluations of powerful service providers in a real-life, on-going and consequential interaction (Study 3).

This research suggests key implications for our theoretical understanding of the role of social norms in carrying cultural patterns, as well as for cross-cultural theories of consumer satisfaction with service providers.

Marketers should pay attention to signals of fairness (compassion) in their services, as perceptions of fairness (compassion) by White American (Hispanic) consumers can boost satisfaction ratings. This is particularly important in service encounters that might be characterized by power differentials, such as those in health care and financial services.

As consumer markets grow more culturally diverse, it is important for marketers to understand how distinct notions of power impact the attitudes and behaviors of consumers from different cultures. This research investigates the implications of distinct power concepts for multi-cultural consumers’ evaluations of service providers, an important and under-researched area with implications for global service management.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the personality characteristics Hispanic shoppers ascribe to US retailers. This study is an exploratory attempt to uncover inconsistencies between Hispanic shoppers' views of US retailers and how those retailers believe they are identified.

Focus group methodology used in the study allowed Hispanic shoppers to attribute personality characteristics to some of the most prevalent retailers in the USA.

Analysis revealed Hispanic shoppers' personification did affect their beliefs about retailers.

There are many implications for retailers wishing to capture more of the Hispanic market segment including the importance of brand identity of the retailer and the buyer's self‐image.

This paper explores Hispanic shoppers' actual beliefs about US retailers, and is unique because of the different type of data collection techniques utilized to capture the data. The personification technique allowed individual, detailed descriptions of US retailers to emerge.

The purpose of this paper is to report research which explores the effects of a hybrid cultural identity on the fashion clothing behavior of Hispanic – particularly, later aged – teenage girls. The study examines differences in need for uniqueness and family referent influence among Hispanic and non‐Hispanic teenagers. In addition, the relevant impact of acculturation processes is examined.

A survey of 76 Hispanic and 52 non‐Hispanic later aged teenagers was administered in March 2006 to a sample of girls at a Catholic (all girls) high school in a large, ethnically diverse US metropolitan area (New York) with a high Hispanic population.

The empirical results show a significantly higher need for uniqueness for Hispanic teenagers. Furthermore, Hispanic teenagers exhibited a lower family influence than non‐Hispanics. Finally, high‐acculturated Hispanics exhibited a relatively lower family referent influence than low‐acculturated Hispanics.

Future cross‐cultural studies should examine the robustness of this finding among various other Hispanic and ethnic (i.e. Chinese‐American) markets in the USA and other nations.

The advanced model and empirical findings hold important managerial implications for marketers that target teenagers. The higher need for uniqueness observed for Hispanic teenage girls could lead to successful advertising appeals to non‐conformity and independence from both family and non‐Hispanic peers.

The higher need for uniqueness exhibited by the Hispanic teenagers is a novel and counter‐intuitive finding that holds important theoretical and practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of acculturation on immigrant consumers’ loyalty. The authors posit that the acculturation orientation of immigrants determines their consumer loyalty to both ethnic and mainstream brands and stores.

Using a sample of Hispanic consumers in the USA and consumers from the former Soviet Union in Israel, this study tests a model in which two acculturation continua, original culture maintenance and host culture adaptation, serve as antecedents for immigrants’ consumer loyalty.

Acculturation determines the extent of immigrants’ consumer loyalty. Both acculturation continua are associated with distinct loyalty patterns that are similar across the two immigrant groups.

Despite sampling limitations, the paper demonstrates that immigrants’ acculturation orientation influences their loyalty to ethnic and mainstream brands and stores. Shared by ethnic consumers in two culturally diverse markets, this relationship transcends geographic boundaries.

The results provide insights for marketers with respect to the development of segmentation and positioning strategies and tactical implementations that address the preferences of ethnic consumers.

This paper highlights the importance of understanding the unique needs of ethnic consumers and addressing them. Successful integration of immigrant consumers into the marketplace can also help in their integration into the host society at large.

Findings shed light on the commonalities and differences among immigrant groups in different national settings. The paper highlights the role of cultural transition as a key experience that affects immigrants regardless of specific environmental or situational circumstances.