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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between national cultural values and retail structure.

The authors use a panel data set of 67 countries over the period 1999-2012.

The results demonstrate that national cultural values, measured with the World Values Survey’s traditional/secular-rational and survival/self-expression dimensions, affect retail structure.

While marketing scholars have examined the relationship between demographic and competitive factors and retail structure, there has been a substantial body of anecdotal evidence showing that national culture can also drive retail structure development. In order to enhance the understanding of the relationship between national culture and retail structure, the authors empirically examine the impact of national cultural values on retail structure.

This study is the first one to empirically examine the impact of national culture on retail structure. The authors thus help advance retail structure research the primary focus of which has been on investigating the impact of demographic and competitive factors on retail structure. This study is especially relevant to international retail managers who coordinate retail operations in multiple countries around the world. These managers need insight into the impact of national cultural values on retail structure in order to devise effective retail strategies for each host market.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact that country connectedness and cultural values have on the equity afforded to a country’s workforce in today’s global economy.

Drawing upon a number of large international surveys of national-level metrics, e-readiness is identified as a proxy measure for country connectedness. Cultural variables are proxied by the World Values Survey’s national-level scores on “survival/self-expression” and “traditional/secular-rational” values. Workforce equity is captured via three measures: per capita Gross National Income (GNI) based on purchasing power parity (PPP), a Gini-coefficient, and the prevalence of child labor. Stepwise regression analysis is employed to investigate expected relationships.

Results suggest an interesting link between the constructs investigated. A negative and significant effect of e-readiness and a negative and significant effect of traditional/secular-rational values on workforce equity are reported. In addition, the impact of e-readiness appears to be absolutely larger while thee impact of survival/self-expression values on the workforce equity is not found to be significant.

The research is primarily exploratory in nature thereby providing a foundation but not an end product. Next, the data used in the research is aggregate-level data providing broad generalizations about each country. Does a country have a single culture? Is the connectivity of a country a valid measure of the regions within? The authors chose to use an analysis at a single point in time. A longitudinal study could provide more insight and thus help to highlight causality. The data utilized was repurposed from third-party sources. Finally, only 37 observations are used and a broader data set could help strengthen findings further.

The rapid march of country connectedness across the globe is eroding firms’ ability to shade their actions through the distance afforded by global supply chains. A country’s culture values has a significant impact on workforce equity but country connectedness has a stronger impact, thus companies operating in more traditional and less developed countries will face significant impacts as these countries get connected. Rather than a threat, companies may see country connectedness and workforce equity as an opportunity. Firms that treat their workers well will see vast new markets open for them as evermore of the world’s population becomes economically active.

Uses an innovative data capture methodology that allows the investigation of an interesting and unexplored research question.

The purpose of this study is to rely on the modernization theory to analyze and explain the cross-national differences in work-related values and attitudes (WVA).

First, the modernization theory and WVA are conceptualized, their relations are discussed and the hypotheses are formulated. Next, the data, measures, variables and empirical tests are presented. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, an integrative model is proposed and avenues for future research are suggested.

The empirical results confirm the explanatory strength of the modernization theory and provide valuable insights into the patterns of WVA across the world. It is found that the countries involved in the first phase of human development emphasize work centrality, extrinsic aspects of a job and material rewards and are likely to show noticeable discrimination against women and foreign workers. In contrast, post-industrial societies that are involved in the second phase of human development prefer emancipative WVA, such as low work centrality, tolerance of foreign workers, gender equality and hedonism at the workplace.

Despite the remarkable acceptance of the modernization theory, some of Inglehart’s propositions have been subject to criticism. Furthermore, human development, modernization and the subsequent cultural shifts are “path-dependent” as they are affected by the national, religious and civilization heritage of a country.

The findings of this study can help international mangers adopt the appropriate strategies for a wide range of issues, such as staffing, planning, job description and compensation policies.

The modernization theory is a suitable alternative to national cultural dimensions. This approach relies on the premise that socioeconomic development creates consistent patterns of values, beliefs and behaviors that ultimately shape WVA around the globe.

The purpose of this paper is to present a two‐stage international market selection and segmentation model addressed to help decision makers such as foreign institutions and market‐seeking multinational enterprises (MNEs) identify and select the most suitable European countries and groups of consumers.

The first stage is conceived as a macro‐segmentation screening process based on market attractiveness. The second is a micro‐segmentation process addressed to identify which groups of people are most similar across Europe in terms of social and personal values. The authors' model is rooted in previous assumptions and findings from international market selection (IMS) and Inglehart's theory of material and post‐material values.

The model is applied to the current 27 European Union (EU) member states and is validated through the groups of countries empirically obtained. The model allows us to cluster the European countries by market attractiveness, group the European consumers by personal and social values and describe the value orientation of the resulting clusters.

The authors used cross‐sectional data to validate their model. Among the implications, they encourage international marketing and business scholars to make use of Inglehart's framework.

Institutional decision makers and market‐seeking MNEs can follow or adapt the prescribed model in order to identify the most promising and similar European countries and groups of consumers. Public policy makers can gain an in‐depth understanding of specific personal and social values allowing them to shape public policy agendas.

This paper contributes to the existing literature on IMS and segmentation in three ways: it proposes an original and parsimonious two‐stage IMS and segmentation integrative model for both country‐level and consumer‐related analyses (suitable to handle and reduce the European diversity that decision makers have to face when dealing with the general public or consumer products); it applies theoretically grounded general segmentation bases and an alternative established framework of consumer values (Inglehart's value system), and it adopts an updated and pan‐European perspective over the enlarged EU.

A large part of the most recent studies in innovation focuses on the need to investigate the cultural differences between countries. Many of the approaches used focus on Hofstede as the most recognized perspective in international business. The Hofstede perspective requires a deeper analysis of the most profound components in the countries, such as values and beliefs. The purpose of this study is identify the drivers in creating innovation trajectories over time, focusing on different values that influence the innovation processes. These trajectories allow investigating the comparability in the innovation performance of the countries.

Time-series analysis is performed to achieve the research’s goal, considering the innovation inputs and people’s values and influence on innovation output. The Global Innovation Index and the World Value Survey (WVS), which comprise data from countries on different continents, were used in this investigation. The trajectories analysis technique examines differences in innovation trajectory among countries with cultural orientations toward traditional, secular, survival and self-expression values.

In the literature, it can be found that in more socially open societies, the results in innovation are higher than in societies with opposite values, as is the case of traditional vs secular rationale. On the other hand, societies with a tendency toward self-expression will be characterized by a constant search for individual liberties that promote the search for scientific and technological alternatives for problem-solving, contrary to those with survival characteristics.

Considering the results obtained in the study about the values and their relationship with innovation at the country level, the main limitation is the WVS information. This limitation is based on the need to complement the information obtained with other sources of information that allow comparisons to be made from the different cultural approaches that exist.

The findings allow us to contemplate a more general vision of the cultural factors that affect the social dynamics and, therefore, the industrial and commercial dynamics of a country. The managers can use this type of results in the design of strategies that allow them to contemplate adaptation processes that are more appropriate to the cultural contexts in which they operate are worked on in this research.

One of the main contributions is related to the possibility of understanding the relationship between the cultural dynamics of a country and the results in innovation, especially in the time.

The trajectory analysis, specifically Inglehard’s perspective concerning cultural dimensions and innovation, has not been used in the literature. This type of analysis will make it possible to have studies that allow subsequent comparisons to be made with other perspectives, especially at the country level.

In this research the starting point was that a certain gap between military and civilian culture could exist, because of the inevitable difference between typical military values and new values arisen in contemporary societies, with special reference to Western affluent societies. It seems that this hypothesis belong to the culture-free side, since it rests on the concept of a military culture made of specific values, which are the same in every society. There is anyway a different viewpoint, following the trends of studies developed in the intercultural relations domain, mainly dealing with business internationalisation and cross-cultural management topics, generally known as the culture-bound thesis. In the culture-free assumption the consequence should be a pressure of social change on a supposed unique military; in the culture-bound conception a mutual and systemic adaptation of different institutions within each inclusive society driven by one's own culture could be expected. Findings in this research show that if a relative gap can be observed between military and civilian students, this varies greatly according to different groups of countries. Distances seem to be larger in countries belonging to the post-modern cluster (Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands), and lowering down in modern countries such as Slovenia, Bulgaria and Poland, and even less appreciable in Romania, South Africa and Turkey. This could give some support to the culture-free thesis, according to which military culture is specific and find more convergences with so-called traditional societies than with modern or post-modern cultures. But results are not as sharp as needed, and the culture-bound thesis cannot anyway be rejected.

The paper's aim is to create a framework for national readiness and receptivity to e‐commerce at both the business to business (B2B) as well as business to consumer (B2C) levels.

Relevant literature on e‐readiness is discussed in light of research on corruption and national values. A model is formulated at the macro level in which e‐readiness is predicted to be related to national culture values and corruption. Analysis at the micro level rests on existing literature related to trust and web site usability.

At the macro level of analysis, levels of perceived corruption within a country, and overarching national values are identified as significant contributors to e‐readiness especially in the B2B realm. At a more micro level, it is proposed that individual expectations regarding ability to trust an online vendor, and the suitability of usability characteristics of web site design contribute to e‐readiness at the B2C level. Taken together, macro and macro factors jointly contribute to a nation's readiness and receptivity to e‐commerce.

The empirical work presented is based on aggregate level data from only one point in time. Results only provide generalized trends that may not be representative of all firms in a country or still applicable in the present time.

Practitioners are challenged to think beyond technological readiness and address factors such as corruption, national culture, and web design before entering new markets.

This paper identifies aspects of e‐readiness beyond purely technical infrastructure and provides a fresh empirical model. This study uniquely considers both micro and macro level characteristics that contribute to e‐readiness.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of economic and cultural factors, separately and combined, on international country segments and to reveal the stability of factors and country segments over time.

Principal component analysis is used to develop three economic factors and two cultural factors borrowed from the World Value Survey. Cluster analysis is used to form country clusters based on the economic and cultural factors, separately, and then combined, to detect whether both economics and culture need to be included as bases for macro-country segmentation. Further, the authors look at these issues across time, the beginning of the decade (1990) and then at the end of the decade (1999).

Results support the hypotheses that economics and culture are both necessary for country-level segmentation but reject the hypothesis of cultural convergence as a consequence of technological development and industrialization. The authors confirm that cultural values and beliefs, although persistent, may change gradually under the influence of environmental forces such as economic development. The results support the instability of country segment membership when analyzed over one decade. Economic changes in some countries lead to their movement across segments.

Results suggest that managers concerned with international segmentation should include both economic and cultural variables and reevaluate country segment membership continuously rather than relying on results obtained in a single period.

Many international segmentation studies have used macro-level, secondary data to identify country clusters based on similarities in political, economic, geographic or cultural variables for a single period. This study extends existing international segmentation models by examining economic and cultural variables (separately, and then combined), and segment membership over time.