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Economic globalization is leading large companies to focus on international strategic management. Nowadays, the assets referred to as “corporate intangibles,” such as corporate reputation, are becoming increasingly important because they are considered a key factor for the viability of an organization, and companies therefore need to incorporate them into their scorecards for management. The problem is that their measurement is subjective and latent. These two characteristics impede direct international comparison and require demonstrating the accuracy of comparison via a minimum of two tests – construct equivalence and metric equivalence. As regards corporate reputation, construct equivalence was verified by Naomi Gardberg (2006). However, the subsequent studies did not address metric equivalence. Based on the results of a survey provided by the Reputation Institute (n = 5,950, 50 firms evaluated in 17 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia), the degree of RepTrak metric equivalence has been tested, using two different methodologies, multigroup analysis (structural equation model), and a new technique from 2016, the Measurement Invariance of Composite Model procedure from the Partial Least Square Path Modeling family. As one would expect from other cross-cultural studies, reputation metrics do not meet the full metric equivalence, which is why they require standardization processes to ensure international comparability. Both methodologies have identified the same correction parameters, which have allowed validation of the mean and variance of response style by country.

The trend towards internationalisation in many service industries has increased the need for both managers and academics to collect cross‐cultural/national consumer‐perceived service quality data. Failure to establish cross‐cultural equivalence and to detect differences in cross‐national response bias will, however, affect data comparability, may invalidate the research results and could therefore lead to incorrect inferences about attitudes and behaviours across national groups. By initially focussing on developments in the mono‐cultural service quality literature, a framework is presented whereby academics and managers can assess the potential impact of these international measurement issues. Existing cross‐cultural service quality literature is reviewed and the extent to which these issues are addressed is highlighted. Methods for detecting and correcting cross‐national response biases are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review past recommendations to correct for cultural biases in empirical survey data sets, and propose a framework that enables the researcher to assess the robustness of empirical findings from culture‐specific response styles (CSRS).

The paper proposes to analyze a set of derived data sets, including the original data as well as data corrected for response styles using theoretically plausible correction methods for the empirical data at hand. The level of agreement of results across correction methods indicates the robustness of findings to possible contamination of data by cross‐cultural response styles.

The proposed method can be used to inform researchers and data analysts about the extent to which the validity of their conclusions is threatened by data contamination and provides guidance regarding the results that can safely be reported.

Response styles can distort survey findings. CSRS are particularly problematic for researchers using multicultural samples because the resulting data contamination can lead to inaccurate conclusions about the research question under study.

The proposed approach avoids the disadvantages of ignoring the problem and interpreting spurious results or choosing one single correction technique that potentially introduces new kinds of data contamination.

This study investigates national trends in students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupational expectations by using Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000, 2003, and 2006 data. The analyses in this study revealed several noteworthy national trends in STEM occupational expectations. In many countries students’ computing or engineering (CE) occupational expectations changed between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006, while students’ health service (HS) occupational expectations remained constant. In particular, many developed countries experienced downward national trends in CE occupational expectations among top performers in science. This study also found gender differences in national trends in STEM occupational expectations. In many countries boys’ CE occupational expectations decreased between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006, while girls’ occupational expectations remained unchanged in both CE and HS fields. Finally, the gender gaps in CE occupational expectations converged in many countries, but this convergence was not due to increases in CE occupational expectations among girls, but rather decreases in expectations among boys. Because one of the policy goals in many countries is to promote engagement in STEM education and occupations among students, especially academically talented students, the current findings – national declines in CE occupational expectations among top academic performers – will most likely be viewed as problematic in several countries. Future research should use data collected over longer periods to investigate whether students’ interest in STEM education and occupations increased or decreased in a variety of countries, and whether these patterns varied by student characteristics and performance levels. Moreover, future research must focus on factors that can explain the national trends in student interest in STEM education and occupations.

Considers the issue that Chinese people are more confident than Americans when answering general knowledge questions. Suggests that this over‐confidence may be indicative of other biases, such as over‐confidence in the ability to retrieve information accurately from memory. Presents empirical results demonstrating that the Chinese subjects were not over‐confident in their estimate of retrieval accuracy. Suggests the accuracy‐confidence correlation for Chinese subjects was significantly higher than the correlation for Western subjects. Discusses implications for current theories of judgement research and consequences for marketing.

Work values and attitudes were compared for 117 African and 82 British managers and management students. It was predicted that Africans would place more importance on status, prestige and position as motivators, would be less likely to accept criticism, and rate courtesy, social approval and loyalty more favourably than British respondents. Existing scales of social approval and derived need satisfaction were modified and a third one constructed in order to obtain the measurements. The results confirmed the hypothesis relating to status, prestige, position, tentatively supported that relating to social approval, partly confirmed the hypothesis for loyalty and the results for courtesy and acceptance of criticism were not proven. These results are discussed in terms of the methodological issues associated with cross‐cultural comparisons and the implications for motivation and management activities.

Pioneer advantage is derived from two sources: producer‐based advantages and consumer‐based advantages. The latter is relatively under‐researched. This research replicates and extends Alpert and Kamins’ (1995) research, which was the first to directly survey consumers. Since their research occurred only in the USA, cross‐cultural replication is appropriate, (Hubbard and Armstrong, 1994). Key results show that: consumers are able to recall a brand’s pioneering status; pioneer brands generally have higher recall or retrieval than other brands including the market leader; communication of pioneer status may enhance purchase interest, both at the time of the product’s introduction and years after its introduction. These results support the US findings, and are rather more positive. However, British consumers did not agree that, if all other things were equal, they would prefer the pioneer brand. This research also shows for the first time that identification of pioneer status is related to actual purchase of that brand.

In this chapter, the authors studied cognitive biases such as certainty effect, isolating effect, and overconfidence effect in the Turkish version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” TV show. The research was carried out by watching the show during different dates between September 2013 and April 2015 and filling in a questionnaire, which consists of 25 questions. A total of 408 contestants were observed and evidence was found for both certainty and isolation effects.