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This chapter examines the underlying concerns people have for relative status within their group (i.e., intragroup status) and their group's relative status to that of other groups (i.e., intergroup status). I adopt a deductive approach using arguments and evidence in the cross-cultural research and literature. I begin by reviewing the basic findings in social psychology and organizational behavior literatures, which suggest that both intragroup status and intergroup status will have positive impact on important group outcomes such as people's evaluation of, and commitment to, the group. Moreover, consistent with the notion of the fishpond phenomenon, past findings also suggest that those with high-intragroup status and low-intergroup status show more group-oriented reactions than those with low-intragroup status and high-intergroup status (i.e., people prefer to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond). Next, I provide both psychological and structural reasoning to argue that the fishpond phenomenon will be less likely to emerge in collectivistic than individualistic cultures. I close by considering the implications from the cross-cultural analysis to the broader conceptual understanding of mechanisms underlying people's concerns for intragroup status vs. intergroup status in work groups and organizations.

This study aims to examine the ethical beliefs and moral philosophical typologies, the relative effect of religiosity on personal ethical beliefs and behavior of the collectivist and individualistic business executives.

This research assesses the relative impact of significant cultural factors on the business ethical decision-making process in a Western and individualistic cultural context (the USA) in comparison to a non-Western and collective cultural context (Morocco). To understand how cultural variations influence business ethical practices, this study adopts Hofstede’s cultural framework for comparison of business executives’ ethical decisions within a cross-cultural context. Hypotheses are tested on survey data on 172 business executives.

Results show that most collective business executives are “Situationists”. The findings reveal a strong, positive relationship between business managers’ religiosity and their idealism degrees. This study also reveals mixed findings in examining the correlation of religiosity with various components of ethical intentions.

The link between religiosity and ethical intentions needs to be viewed with caution. This calls for expanding the scope of this study into other cultures and religions.

Differences of the findings in ethical typologies between collective and individualistic business executives may lead to different negotiation styles on ethical business decisions and issues. Managers from a collective culture are not as likely to exhibit much change in their initial ethical orientation(s). There is a strong positive relationship between a business manager’s religiosity and his/her degree of idealism. Thus, the more religious business managers are, the more Absolutist they are when making ethical and moral judgments.

This research works to fill the gap by examining the impact of culture on the business/marketing ethical decision-making processes within the contexts of a Western cultural and developed nation and a non-Western cultural, and developing/Mediterranean/North African nation. The findings clarify the influence of culture on business ethical decisions. Such an understanding can assist corporate managers in developing and successfully implementing business ethical codes that lead to enhanced moral conduct in their organizations.

The advent of digitalization and the trend of social distancing coincide with the individualized lifestyle that is emerging among contemporary shoppers. This study explores the unique market of “smart solo shoppers”. Two empirical studies are conducted, which aim to identify the major dimensions of multi-channel shopping activities that are engaged by the shoppers (Study 1, n = 64) and to differentiate the shoppers' valuation of time invested in the distinct dimensions under different cultural influences (Study 2, n = 519).

A survey questionnaire is used for data collection, and data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that the shopping activities converge into four principal dimensions: offline shopping, online shopping, post-shopping delivery and product return activities. Shoppers who perceive offline shopping activities as a time burden and online shopping and delivery activities as venues of value creation are more strongly self-identified as smart solo shoppers. Furthermore, smart solo shoppers who are under a strong influence of individualistic culture are found to spend time on multi-channel shopping to make the right purchase the first time, whereas shoppers perceiving being in a weak individualistic culture prefer to engage online channels while being prepared to return the unwanted purchases.

This study highlights an emerging research field in the nexus of solo consumption and smart shopping. Emphasizing the utility-driven and ego-expressive nature of smart solo shoppers, the authors provide an initial profile of these shoppers based on their time-valuation patterns and the contextual impacts of individualistic culture.

Previous research on brand crisis has introduced the difference between a values-related crisis and a performance-related crisis. However, little remains known regarding consumers’ varying negative responses towards these two different types of brand misconduct. This paper aims to investigate and compare consumers’ affective and behavioural negative reactions (i.e. negative word of mouth and purchase intention) towards a faulty brand during a values-related crisis and a performance-related crisis by testing the mediation of negative emotions and introducing the moderating role of cultural belongingness (collectivistic vs individualistic).

The authors tested a model of moderated mediation in a cross-cultural investigation on a sample of 229 Italian and Asian consumers. The study is a 2 (cultures: collectivistic vs individualistic) × 2 (crisis: performance-related vs values-related) between-subjects experimental design. The moderated mediation model shows that consumers’ negative reactions (negative word of mouth and negative purchase intention) towards a faulty brand involved in different crisis typologies is explained by the mediating role of negative emotions, and that this mediation depends on a consumer’s cultural belongingness.

The results suggest that consumers belonging to a collectivistic culture (e.g. Asian culture) tend to react in a more severe and strict manner when faced with a values-related brand crisis event then when faced with a performance-related crisis. The arousal of negative emotion towards a brand represents the mediating variable in behavioural responses (i.e. negative word of mouth and purchase intention).

The present study extends current knowledge in the field of consumers’ negative response to brand irresponsibility behaviours while introducing the role of crisis typology and cultural belongingness. In particular, individualistic people are more sensitive to a values-related crisis in comparison with a performance-related one. The findings of this study have strong managerial implications for defining effective response strategies to negative events involving brands in different markets.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of culture and future orientation in lenders’ prosocial microlending behaviors.

Three experiments examine how different cultural backgrounds, either individualistic or collectivistic, influenced microlenders’ prosocial behaviors, including the amount of microlending, the willingness to help and the length of commitment. Further, the moderating role of future orientation among individualists is investigated.

Results indicate that cultural differences influence prosocial microlending differently such that individualists give less to people in need compared to collectivists. Further, the author found that future orientation helps lenders in individualistic culture to improve prosocial microlending behaviors.

This paper emphasizes the role of cultural background and future orientation in promoting lenders’ prosocial giving in the context of microlending. The results assist social marketers to understand how to motivate giving behaviors via microlending among lenders in different cultures depending on future orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of national culture on herding behavior across international financial markets.

The relation between national culture and investor behavior, and how it impacts overall market volatility is studied by examining synchronized stock price movements and stock market volatility in 47 countries around the world over the period of January 2003–May 2012.

The author finds that nations with lower values of individualistic culture are more likely to have a higher number of synchronized stock price movements. Further, the correlation between stock price movements apparently increases stock market volatility. Nations with high individualistic culture have a lower number of synchronized stock price movements and, thus, have lower levels of stock market volatility. The positive relationship between synchronized stock price movements and stock market volatility is stronger for emerging markets during the financial crisis from June 2007 to December 2008.

The empirical results in this paper indicate that a portion of the difference in market level volatility is attributed to the investor bias of different cultures. Investor behavior bias creates excess volatility that drives stock prices away from fundamentals. This impact is strong in nations with lower individualistic culture. The result from this research could also have a wide implication in the investment industry.

Although firm growth through the acquisition of independent players is at a record high, market reports reveal a parallel increase in independent firms that enjoy noticeable consumer support across industries and threaten MNC-owned brands in several countries. Despite this evident contrast, no research has investigated how independent firms stack up against their non-independent counterparts from a consumer perspective. This study examines this standoff and proposes that independent firms outperform their non-independent contenders in fostering perceptions of product craftmanship and warmth in specific product categories and cultures.

Three experimental studies were conducted across five countries (Study 1: N = 360; USA and China – Study 2: N = 487; UK and India – Study 3: N = 323; Italy). Data were analysed using experimental techniques (Analysis of Variance) and conditional process analyses (Moderated Mediation) using PROCESS.

The findings suggest that (1) firm independence fosters perceptions of product craftmanship and warmth in individualistic cultures, (2) consumers view products sold by independent firms as warmer and more authentic than products sold by non-independent firms in hedonic but not in utilitarian product categories, (3) the positive effects of firm independence on product craftmanship and warmth are neutralized for vertically collectivist cultures (India) and reversed in horizontally collectivist cultures (China), (4) loss of firm independence leads to higher drops in perceived craftmanship and product preference when it is caused by a takeover from a foreign multinational (compared to a domestic corporation).

This research provides a first account of how perceptions of firm independence drive assessments of product craftmanship and authenticity, elicit feelings of warmth and build product preference. The findings inform decisions of multinational corporations regarding (1) how to communicate the acquisition of independent firms in local markets, (2) how to balance an international brand portfolio in culturally diverging markets and different product industries, (3) how to optimize brand architecture through the relative exposure of the corporate brand image vis-à-vis the image of standalone brands owned by the corporation and (4) offer smaller independent players an alternative positioning strategy to differentiate from global competitors enjoying the resources or support of bigger corporations.

Increased global air travel and competition in the airline industry entail better service delivery and failure management. This study examines how airline type, failure criticality and the traveller's culture influence travellers' airline evaluations of service failure.

The study uses a large data set of customers' online reviews and incorporates quantitative and qualitative feedback from 20 major airlines across the world. Semantic tagging, sentiment and multivariate analyses have been used to analyse the data.

Failure criticality and travellers' cultural backgrounds significantly affect airline evaluations after service failures. Moreover, failure criticality influences evaluations of travellers from individualistic cultures more severely. Contrary to expectations, full-service airlines were evaluated positively after less critical service failures.

The findings support that customers undergo different emotional states when they experience service failure. Understanding these internal emotional sensitivities and how services would be judged by travellers across cultures can help airlines to better manage their service recovery efforts and to strategise prioritisation of scarce resources.

Though airline service failure has been well researched, this study examines the role of culture in service failure evaluations. The study uses a novel method to analyse a large data set of both quantitative and qualitative traveller feedback useful in service recovery management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of brand gender on brand equity across countries and cultures in various product domains.

Consumers from ten countries on four continents rated 20 global brands, leading to a total of 16,934 cross-clustered observations. Linear mixed effect models examined a series of nested models, testing three novel brand gender effects with respect to the impact of androgynous brands on brand equity and the moderating role of consumers’ biological sex as well as individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Additional robustness tests provide support on form, metric, and scalar invariance of the measurements and the robustness of the observed effects across countries and cultures.

The current research reveals that androgynous brands generate higher brand equity relative to exclusively masculine, exclusively feminine, and undifferentiated brands. The authors also show a brand gender congruence effect such that male consumers value masculine brands higher than females while female consumers value more feminine brands higher than males. Finally, highly masculine brands generate higher brand equity in more individualistic countries whereas highly feminine brands generate higher brand equity in more collectivistic countries.

This is the first research examining and demonstrating the positive influence of androgynous brand gender perceptions on brand equity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first paper examining brand gender effects across countries and cultures.