Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Culture and the Consumer Journey
Sharon Shavitt ∗ , Aaron J. Barnes ∗
Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 350 Wohlers Hall, Champaign, IL 61820, United States
Available online 20 December 2019
Abstract
The consumer journey metaphor emphasizes the steps that individuals take in their path toward relationships with brands or satisfying shopping
experiences. However, in many non-Western cultures, these steps are less likely to be shaped by individual preferences and priorities. Instead,
they emerge from a collectivistic motivation to adapt to prevailing norms and others’ expectations, and are shaped by a holistic thinking style that
emphasizes context and relationships. As a result, the meaning of each step in the consumer journey is likely to be normatively infused and contextually embedded. This paper will review research showing cross-cultural differences in responses to prices, ads, store displays, retailer reputations,
coupons, and other characteristics important to the retail context. Our focus is on contrasting the consumer journey in individualistic contexts
versus collectivistic ones, but we also address emerging findings on other key cultural differences, such as power distance belief. Taken together,
these findings suggest that the patterns and drivers of consumers’ pre-purchase activities, purchase decisions, and post-purchase commitment may
differ significantly across cultures. In describing these culturally distinct processes, we illustrate how a deep consideration of cultural differences
can enhance our understanding of the consumer journey.
Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Consumer journey; Individualism; Collectivism; Independent and Interdependent Self-construal; Thinking style; Power distance; Global and local
identities
Shopping in a modern mall in Bangkok feels like any mall
in Boston. Similar stores, similar product lines. Online environments also offer similar browsing and shopping experiences
across countries. Indeed, the experience of shopping around the
world — whether in physical stores or through online retailers
— seems to be converging to such an extent that it is tempting
to conclude that there are few remaining cultural differences in
the consumer journey.
What this perspective overlooks, however, is that despite
the global similarities in many retail environments, consumers
themselves differ. The way consumers see their world — the
motivations that drive them and the thinking styles that affect
their judgments and decisions — is influenced by culture in fundamental ways. Culture influences the values that consumers
hold (Hofstede 1984), the goals that they pursue (Markus and
Kitayama 1991), and the ways that they perceive, categorize,
and reason about their environment (Nisbett et al. 2001). Even
∗
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: shavitt@illinois.edu (S. Shavitt), ajbarne2@illinois.edu
(A.J. Barnes).
as levels of national wealth or product availability converge, and
economic systems become more integrated (e.g., the European
Union), cultural differences in consumers’ purchasing priorities
persist (De Mooij and Hofstede 2002). These differences have
numerous implications for the way the shopper journey unfolds.
Indeed, if retailing across cultures were as easy as replicating, say, a proven Western formula in another cultural region,
Ebay would not have failed in China (Lafevre 2013), and
Tesco, Carrefour, and Walmart would still be in Japan (Turner
2018). However, the problems that these and other retailers have
encountered in new geographic regions are partly due to an
incomplete appreciation of cultural differences in the consumer
journey.
When a consumer evaluates a product on display in a store,
compares prices, views ads, or receives a coupon in the mail,
cultural factors will influence how they respond. In this article, we consider the various ways that culture can influence the
consumer journey. We will not be comprehensive; the relevant
cross-cultural literature is quite large and rapidly growing (see
Shavitt and Barnes 2019 for a review). Instead, we limit our
scope to selectively reviewing research on the key ways that
cultural factors can affect shoppers as they interact with retail
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.11.009
0022-4359/Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/).
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
environments. We emphasize the most commonly studied cultural classifications, as well as noting key emerging cultural
distinctions, and the psychological processes associated with
each of them. Then, we address what the research implies for
current shopper journey models and the cognitive and behavioral states they identify (e.g., Lee et al. 2018). Finally, we offer
an outline of a Culturally Adapted Shopper Journey model to
integrate these patterns into a set of priorities for future research.
Consumer Journeys
The consumer journey refers to a series of touchpoints that
“involves all activities and events related to the delivery of a
service from the customer’s perspective” (Zomerdijk and Voss
2010, p 74). Understanding the consumer journey has long
been important to marketers and researchers (e.g., Howard and
Sheth 1969), but recent changes to the retail landscape (e.g.,
omnichannel environments) have revitalized scholarly interest
(e.g., Grewal, Roggeveen, and Nordfält 2017). Recent models
have emphasized the role of psychological elements throughout
the consumer journey, such as the customer’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social experiences (Lemon and
Verhoef 2016) and their subjective well-being (Lee et al. 2018).
There are numerous ways to organize the touchpoints along
the consumer journey into stages (e.g., Deloitte 2015; Edelman
and Singer 2015; Google 2015), such as by breaking the path
into pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages (Lemon
and Verhoef 2016). A recent approach offered an adaptive model
that forwards not one, but multiple consumer journeys to match
the diversity of consumer needs and goals (Lee et al. 2018).
Regardless of the model(s) one prefers, however, cultural factors
are strikingly absent from consumer journey research (Lemon
and Verhoef 2016).
We will discuss the ways that cultural factors can affect shoppers at each stage. For simplicity, we organize past cross-cultural
research into the broad stages of pre-purchase, purchase, and
post-purchase. However, we view cultural factors as key in shaping consumer needs and goals, suggesting the possibility of
multiple consumer journeys. We begin by defining the notion
of culture, describing some of the most important distinctions
between cultural groups, and the multiple types of comparisons
used to study cultural differences.
Defining and Dimensionalizing Culture
Culture can be defined as a set of meanings shared by people
in a given place and time (Triandis 2012). This definition underscores the fact that culture is fundamentally psychological, in
that it provides a common set of standards for perceiving, assessing, interacting, and acting. This is not to dismiss the critical
roles of material artifacts and social institutions in shaping culture, but instead to emphasize that their influences flow through
the psychological processes of perceiving, thinking, and reasoning. Because culture operates in the mind, contextual elements
can activate different cultural notions in memory that then influence perception, judgment, and behavior (Hong et al. 2000).
In short, through exposure to common socialization processes,
41
institutions, and cultural artifacts, culture provides a “collective
programming of the mind” (Hofstede 1984, p 82).
One of the most culturally meaningful elements programmed
in the mind is the definition of self. People from different cultures differ in how they see themselves in relation to others.
Most cross-cultural research has focused on whether the self is
construed in primarily independent versus interdependent terms
(e.g., Markus and Kitayama 1991; Triandis 1989) and on the
associated individualistic versus collectivistic values that reinforce those self-definitions (e.g., Hofstede 1984; Hofstede 2001;
Triandis 1995). In individualistic cultures, such as the U.S.,
consumers tend to have an independent self-construal – they perceive themselves as agentic, self-reliant, and distinct from others.
As consumers, their goals prioritize the pursuit of their personal
satisfaction and the cultivation of their unique qualities and abilities. In contrast, in collectivistic cultures, such as India and most
cultures outside the Western industrialized world, consumers
tend to have an interdependent self-construal. They perceive
themselves as interconnected with their in-groups, mutually
obligated to them, and socially embedded in their networks. As
consumers, their goals prioritize meeting others’ expectations,
fitting in through making consensus choices, and cultivating
their important relationships (e.g., Han and Shavitt 1994; Kim
and Markus 1999).
How Cultural Differences are Studied
Culture can be studied via multiple types of comparisons: between countries, between regions or ethnic groups
within a society, between individuals within a society by
measuring cultural orientations or values, or between situations that activate distinct cultural concepts. The focus of
most cross-cultural research has been on geographic comparisons of consumers in Western countries (e.g., North
America, Europe) and in non-Western ones, usually Asian
countries (e.g., China, Japan, Korea, India; Han and Shavitt
1994; Kim and Markus 1999). However, within the same
geographic location, consumers may differ in their ethnic
cultural backgrounds. Thus, for instance, comparisons of
European–Americans and Asian–Americans can produce similar patterns as those attributed to different nationalities (e.g.,
Lalwani and Shavitt 2009).
What’s more, because culture operates in the mind, different cultural notions can be activated in memory by the
context. This means that manipulating situational factors in
experiments will shift which cultural constructs are salient, for
instance making the same person respond like a Westerner in
one context, and like a non-Westerner in another (Oyserman
and Lee 2007). Finally, direct measurement of individuals’ cultural values can also provide a basis for isolating the role of
cultural orientations. The research we will review uses these
various approaches, often in concert, to enhance the ability
to attribute observed differences in consumer behavior to cultural factors. As we will see, culture implicates how consumers
interpret and respond to all touchpoints of a consumer journey.
42
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Individualistic versus Collectivistic Values: Beginning with
the End in Mind
An important part of any journey is understanding where
you are and where you’re trying to go. What end states, or
values, motivate consumers to purchase? A deep understanding of culture helps to clarify different consumers’ desired end
states. Indeed, from the first touch or impression to the final
checkout, an understanding of cultural differences can enrich
our understanding of each step along the journey.
The Pre-Purchase Stage: Considering Options and
Gathering Information
Consider the advertising appeals that are used in individualistic versus collectivistic contexts. Advertisements are designed to
appeal to the goals that motivate their target consumers, encouraging them to consider the brand as a means to a valued end.
Thus, two of the first studies on this topic (Han and Shavitt 1994;
Kim and Markus 1999) showed that magazine advertisements
in the U.S. tended to focus more on hedonism, uniqueness, and
personal satisfaction than Korean ads did, whereas Korean ads
focused more on harmony, conformity, and in-group benefits
than U.S. ads did. A similar pattern emerged from experiments assessing which types of appeals were more persuasive
in each country (Han and Shavitt 1994). Individualistic appeals
(“Solo [laundry detergent] cleans with a softness you will love”)
were more persuasive for participants in the U.S. versus Korea,
whereas collectivistic appeals (“Solo cleans with a softness your
family will love”) were more persuasive for participants in Korea
versus the U.S. (Han and Shavitt 1994). Similar experiments
comparing individualistic and collectivistic appeals among U.S.
and Chinese participants (Zhang and Gelb 1996) yielded the
same pattern. However, in both sets of studies, these results
were not identical across product lines. Cultural differences were
greater for products that tend to be used in a shared or a socially
visible manner, such as a clothes iron, detergent, or camera, compared to products that are typically consumed individually, such
as running shoes, toothbrushes, or chewing gum. This suggests
that, although culture influences what types of benefits shoppers find motivating, this is more important for socially shared
product categories, where cultural expectations are more likely
to constrain what types of benefits shoppers can seek.
Besides the advertisements that consumers are exposed to,
differences between individualistic and collectivistic consumers
can also be observed in the way that they seek information about
the marketplace, and how or whether they connect with other
consumers in the process. Consider the role of word of mouth
(WOM) in evaluating a retailer. One study conducted on the
website of a college bookstore found that listing some endorsement quotes from student customers at that university was more
effective in building trust in the retailer among students in a collectivistic culture (Hong Kong) than an individualistic culture
(Australia; Sia et al. 2009). In other words, collectivistic consumers were more influenced by their peers’ views in deciding
whether to trust a retailer.
This pattern can help in understanding why eBay failed to
gain a strong foothold in the Chinese market after entering it
in 2004 (Lafevre 2013). Instead, Taobao, a relative newcomer
launched by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, quickly outcompeted
them. One of the many drivers of their success was the unique
feature that Taobao built in: peer-to-peer interaction. Consumers
in China seek more peer-to-peer interaction when deciding
whether to buy online. Unlike eBay, Taobao facilitated such
interactions between buyers and sellers via instant messaging,
and the extensive communication among Taobao users was
important in building consumer trust and a sense of community (Barnett, Feng, and Luo 2010). Ultimately, despite their
greater size and strength going in, eBay’s performance did not
meet expectations and they withdrew from the Chinese market
in 2006.
In line with this, broader cultural differences have been
observed in the degree to which websites offer consumers
the opportunity to connect with other consumers. An analysis of the websites of the top-50 national advertisers in
the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Korea (Cho and Cheon 2005)
showed that websites in East Asia were more likely than
websites in Western countries to encourage communication
and interaction among consumers by incorporating features
such as product user groups, online communities, and electronic postcards (consumer–consumer interactivity). And they
were less likely to provide various channels for communication and interaction with the marketer through features such as
online ordering, online problem diagnostics, and site surveys
(consumer–marketer interactivity). In other words, although top
corporate websites in both cultural regions often had many of
these features, the priorities of the websites in East Asia leaned
more toward community building among their customers. A
similar conclusion emerged from an analysis of apparel websites in Korea versus the U.S. (Sook Lee, Geistfeld, and Stoel
2007). Future research could examine cultural differences in
consumers’ reactions to these types of website functionalities
(see Table 1).
In addition, consumers from collectivistic versus individualistic cultures tend to both seek and share different types of
WOM endorsements, in ways that align with their culturally
important goals. Psychological research suggests that people in
individualistic cultures such as the U.S. and Australia tend to
be motivated to express themselves and their opinions (Kim and
Sherman 2007) whereas people in collectivistic cultures tend to
be motivated to conform to others (Kim and Markus 1999) and
thus to seek information on others’ opinions. This can be seen
in consumers’ online peer-to-peer communications. Analysis of
nearly 6,000 postings on online discussion boards regarding digital photography in the U.S. (e.g., eBay, Google) and China (e.g.,
EachNet, Sina) showed that posts on the Chinese boards were
significantly more likely to seek advice and information from
others about their opinions than were posts on the U.S. boards.
And U.S. versus Chinese postings were more likely to provide
information and recommendations to others (Fong and Burton
2008). Similarly, a smaller-scale analysis of online customer
reviews of consumer electronics products in China (amazon.cn)
and the U.S. (amazon.com) showed that American reviews were
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
43
Table 1
Sample hypotheses for future research on the role of cultural factors in the consumer journey.
Future research priority
Specific research question
Prediction for collectivistic or
interdependent cultural context
Prediction for individualistic or
independent cultural context
What types of website features
are most engaging in different
cultural contexts?
Does culture predict how
consumers respond to website
functionality that stimulates
different types of interactions?
Features enabling peer-to-peer
interaction and online community
building will drive engagement.
Features focusing on distinctive
self-expression (e.g. show off
your unique design) and
individual problem-resolution (in
interaction with marketer) will
drive engagement.
What are the features of effective
word-of-mouth (WOM) in
different cultural contexts?
Does culture predict how
shoppers respond to WOM
features that offer advice versus
seek advice? What are effective
ways of stimulating positive
WOM in each context?
Providing ways to access
aggregated opinions and advice
boards from other consumers
before purchase will motivate
more WOM and stimulate more
purchases.
Promoting opportunities for
self-expression (e.g.,
rate-your-must-have features)
before purchase will motivate
more WOM and stimulate more
purchases.
Pre-purchase stage
Purchase stage
What are the effects of enhancing
the efficiency and speed of the
shopper journey on consumers
of different cultural
backgrounds?
Does culture predict how
shoppers respond to
technological innovations that
speed up the in-store experience?
Shoppers may need time to
reflect and feel comfortable with
finalizing their purchases.
Enhancing efficiency at checkout
may worsen the shopper
experience by increasing
uncertainty.
Providing enhanced efficiency at
the checkout, parking lot, etc.
will improve the shopper
experience by allowing one to
enjoy their purchases sooner.
What factors determine responses
to promotion delivery
applications in each cultural
context?
Does activating a high versus low
temporal construal enhance how
independent consumers respond
to coupons and promotions
delivered by mobile applications?
Temporal construal may not
increase app usage or coupon
proneness because self-regulatory
processes are chronically active.
Managerial efforts may instead
focus on in-app features that
promote purchase without
coupons (e.g. loyalty points).
Focusing attention on long-term
financial goals may activate
self-regulatory processes that
enhance app usage and coupon
proneness.
How does culture determine
responses to new pricing
technologies?
Does culture predict the
inferences that consumers make
about price fairness in response
to digital price tags?
Digital price tags may drive
inferences about the use of
dynamic pricing. That possibility
may be particularly threatening
since collectivistic consumers are
more prone to make in-group
comparisons to the prices paid by
others.
Digital price tags, and the
associated inference of dynamic
pricing, may be relatively
accepted, particularly if the
pricing tactic can be framed in a
way that helps consumers to feel
unique and distinctive.
How does cultural thinking style
influence the quality inferences
consumers make about
discount retailers, and how can
these be mitigated?
Does thinking style predict the
way discount retailers are
perceived relative to stores with
higher pricing? What cues help to
mitigate negative perceptions
about product quality?
In cultures where holistic
thinking prevails, discount
retailers in utilitarian product
categories may struggle to gain
ground against higher-end
retailers. Offering external
reference price cues by discount
retailers may help to minimize
negative quality inferences.
In cultures where analytic
thinking prevails, discount
retailers in utilitarian product
categories may be better
positioned to compete against
higher-end retailers, but high-end
retailers may gain more success
by cueing internal reference
prices to increase the likelihood
that consumers will infer lower
quality for discount merchandise.
Post-purchase stage
more self-expressive, providing personal opinions as well as
direct recommendations to others more often than the Chinese
reviews did (Lai et al. 2013). An important research priority is
examining how consumers in different cultures respond to each
type of review.
In summary, distinct cultural emphases on building community, conformity, and harmony in collectivistic cultures, versus
on self-expression and uniqueness in individualistic cultures,
are reflected in the ways that consumers respond to and engage
in WOM about retailers and in the ways that successful mar-
44
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
keters enable interactions with their consumers. For retailers
and other marketers operating in each region, these findings
have important implications for how to structure and foster satisfying communications with their customers, especially at the
pre-purchase stage of their journey.
The Purchase Stage: Making Appropriate Choices
Prior models emphasize the purchase stage as the desired
end state of the consumer journey (Deloitte 2015; Edelman and
Singer 2015; Google 2015; Lemon and Verhoef 2016). However,
individualistic and collectivistic cultural values influence what a
desirable end state looks like. Goals are internal representations
of desired states (Austin and Vancouver 1996; Baumgartner and
Pieters 2008), and when embarking on a consumer journey, consumers may be motivated by one of two important goals: to
attain a desired end state or to maintain a current state (Yang,
Stamatogiannakis, and Chattopadhyay 2015). Because individualists tend to prioritize personal advancement and distinction
from others, they tend to be motivated by attainment goals. In
contrast, because collectivists tend to prioritize stability and
continuity of their social relations, they tend to be motivated
by maintenance goals. Indeed, when American (individualistic)
and Chinese (collectivistic) consumers rated how much a person
would persist on an attainment goal (e.g., getting more value)
versus a maintenance goal (e.g., maintaining the same value),
attainment goals were more motivating for individualists but
maintenance goals were more motivating for collectivists (Yang,
Stamatogiannakis, and Chattopadhyay 2015).
Along the consumer journey, cultural differences in selfregulatory processes influence how consumers persist toward
desired end states. Self-regulation refers to the process of overriding one’s impulsive responses to attain beneficial, healthful,
and virtuous outcomes (Baumeister and Heatherton 1996). Consider a road trip where the riders set out to maximize benefits
(e.g., see as many landmarks as possible) versus minimize losses
(e.g., save as much money as possible). For individualists, who
tend to value personal advancement, self-regulatory behavior
tends to be driven by a promotion focus that emphasizes internal desires to achieve or maximize positive benefits for the self.
In contrast, for collectivists, who tend to value interpersonal harmony with close others, self-regulatory behavior tends be driven
by a prevention focus that emphasizes protecting the group from
negative outcomes and minimizing their losses (Aaker and Lee
2001; Chen, Ng, and Rao 2005; Hong and Lee 2008; Lee, Aaker,
and Gardner 2000; Wang and Lee 2006).
The shipping decision: patience in waiting for a purchase
These cultural differences in regulatory focus have a host of
implications for the consumer journey. Evidence suggests that
the fit between one’s culturally-determined regulatory focus and
the content of an appeal tends to be more persuasive when making spontaneous (vs. deliberative) decisions (Briley and Aaker
2006). One common spontaneous decision in the retail space
is the choice to expedite shipping. How might cultural differences in regulatory focus influence how consumers respond to
different shipping offers?
Research suggests that consumers are less patient in waiting
for their online retail purchases to arrive when that waiting time
is framed in a way that matches their regulatory focus (Chen,
Ng, and Rao 2005). In one experiment, consumers were primed
with an independent or an interdependent self-construal and saw
messages that framed faster delivery options as a promotion
loss (i.e., Without faster shipping, “you cannot start enjoying
the novel as early as you like”) or a prevention loss (i.e., Without faster shipping, “you will have to wait longer for the novel
to arrive”). Independents, who are more motivated by promotion goals, were more impatient and willing to pay more for
expedited shipping when it was framed as a promotion loss.
In contrast, interdependents, who are more motivated by prevention goals, were more impatient and willing to pay more
for expedited shipping when it was framed as a prevention loss
(Chen, Ng, and Rao 2005). In general, this literature suggests
that, as consumers progress along their journeys toward purchase, retailers should be cautious to arrange purchase options
and messaging to coincide with each audience’s regulatory focus
tendencies.
Retailers have already begun adopting new technologies
to manage their shoppers’ patience in-store. For instance,
sensor-based traffic counters such as QueVision and ShopperTrak help retailers reduce the time required to park and
check out (McLaughlin 2014). Such tracking technologies
may provide greater benefits to independent (vs. interdependent) shoppers because they tend to be more impatient
overall (Chen, Ng, and Rao 2005). Moreover, whereas independent shoppers may rejoice at the prospect of enjoying
their purchases sooner, interdependent shoppers may prefer
to take their time to ensure they did not forget anything.
Understanding how cultural factors affect responses to tracking technologies, and to the speed of the in-store journey
in general, is a worthwhile topic for future research (see
Table 1).
The check-out aisle: impulsive purchases
As already noted, people from individualistic cultures or
those with an independent self-construal tend to prioritize their
personal goals (Triandis 1995) and to let their feelings be their
guides when making decisions (Hong and Chang 2015). In
contrast, people from collectivistic cultures or those with an
interdependent self-construal tend to prioritize others’ expectations and norms (Triandis 1995) and to make decisions in a way
that they can readily justify to others (Hong and Chang 2015).
How do such differences play out when considering potential
impulsive purchases?
Several studies suggest that independent people are more
prone to make impulse buys than are interdependent people
(e.g., Kacen and Lee 2002; Zhang and Shrum 2009). This is
true across purchase categories. For instance, greater beer consumption is observed in regions of the U.S., and in countries
around that world, that are characterized as more individualistic (Zhang and Shrum 2009). Alcohol consumption is linked to
impulsivity (Hoch and Loewenstein 1991) so purchase volume
in this category reflects lower willpower or impulse control.
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Getting the best buy: coupon redemption
Interestingly, these patterns of impulsivity can also be
observed in the effectiveness of a particular form of sales promotion that relies upon self-control: coupons. Although some
coupon redemption may be random, research suggests that using
coupons requires effort and energy (Bagozzi, Baumgartner, and
Yi 1992). Interdependents, compared to independents, are more
sensitive to the needs of others. Therefore, they are more cautious and vigilant about their behavior (Markus and Kitayama
1991). These behaviors include the self-regulatory processes
that are related to successfully completing each step of coupon
redemption (e.g., clipping and saving the coupon, withholding
purchase until one has the coupon). Consistent with this reasoning, Lalwani and Wang (2019, Study 2) showed that Indian
(vs. American) consumers were more likely to persist on an anagram task designed to measure self-regulation (Baumeister et al.
2006), and to subsequently forego their compensation in order to
redeem a coupon for a movie rental. Persistence on the anagram
task mediated the effect of country on coupon redemption.
One way to overcome independents’ relative lack of selfregulation is to focus their attention on the distant future. When
temporal construal is high (vs. low), consumers in general resist
immediate gratification, view temptations more negatively, and
display greater persistence on tasks requiring self-regulation
(Fujita et al. 2006). Building on this, Lalwani and Wang (2019)
used a writing task to shift consumers’ focus to the distant future
(vs. a control task with no temporal focus shift) before priming
consumers with either an interdependent or an independent selfconstrual. Independents were more likely to redeem a coupon
when they were thinking about the distant future than when
they were not thinking about time; however, there was no difference in coupon redemption for interdependents across the high
and control temporal focus conditions (Lalwani and Wang 2019,
Study 3). One implication of these findings is that, with increasing investment in mobile applications to deliver promotions,
retailers could increase app usage by eliciting an interdependent self-construal among users, or by focusing attention on the
distant future (e.g., highlighting long-term savings goals).
Resolving decision problems: choice rules
Distinct individualistic and collectivistic values also shape
the kinds of choice rules consumers use during the purchase
stage. For example, in individualistic cultural contexts, consumers adopt choice rules that reflect their concerns about the
implications of their decisions for the self. Therefore, American consumers seek variety in their choices in order to appear
unique (Ariely and Levav 2000; Ratner, Kahn, and Kahneman
1999), fulfilling their goal to distinguish themselves from others. This desire for variety applies even to the decision rules that
consumers use for making sequential decisions. Thus, when participants were led to choose consecutive compromise options
(e.g., a grill with intermediate values of weight and cooking
area), American (vs. Korean) consumers were more likely to
use a non-compromise choice rule in a subsequent decision
(e.g., selecting an option with extreme attributes; Kim and Drolet
2003).
45
For collectivists, choices are driven by rules that appeal to
the interdependent self. Research suggests that Asian-American
consumers, who are more collectivistic than EuropeanAmerican consumers, are consistently more likely to choose
brand name products (e.g., Sprite) over less costly “generic”
options across a variety of common grocery items such as soda,
cereal, and toothpaste (Kim and Drolet 2009). This finding was
interpreted as reflecting collectivistic consumers’ greater motivation to signal their social and external characteristics (e.g.,
social status) through their choices. If this preference for national
brands varies reliably by culture, this suggests that individualists may be more receptive to a retailer’s private label brand,
in preference to national or global branded items. Indeed, in a
21-country study (De Mooij and Hofstede 2002), market share
for private label brands correlated with level of individualism at
the national level (Hofstede 1984, Hofstede 2001).
Post-Purchase Stage
Regret and fairness judgments
How does culture influence when consumers experience
regret after making a poor choice, or how they judge the fairness
of the price they paid? These outcomes depend on which cultural
norms about decision-making prevail. In individualist contexts,
people assign agency to individuals, whereas in collectivist contexts, people assign agency to the group (Menon et al. 1999), and
this gives rise to distinct patterns of regret and brand switching.
Thus, following an unhappy product experience, collectivists
(Chinese) tended to experience more regret if the original choice
was made by an individual, whereas individualists (Canadians) tended to experience more regret if the original choice
was made by their group. Stronger feelings of regret increased
brand switching intentions (Ng, Kim, and Rao 2015). Similarly, when an individualistic cultural orientation was primed
among a group of bicultural participants in Singapore, consumers felt more regret about a bad rental car experience, and
greater brand-switching expectations, when they personally did
not enact enough individual agency. In contrast, when bicultural
consumers were primed with a collectivistic cultural orientation,
consumers felt more regret and greater brand-switching expectations when their group did not enact enough collective agency
(Ng, Kim, and Rao 2015).
When consumers make cross-consumer price comparisons,
collectivist (Chinese) consumers tend to be more sensitive to
relationship loyalty in buyer–seller relationships, judging it as
more unfair to pay a higher price in a loyal versus first-time
relationship, compared to individualist (U.S.) consumers. This
appears to be because Chinese consumers, being more oriented
toward their relationships, experience more face concerns than
U.S. consumers do when making in-group comparisons to the
price paid by others (Bolton, Keh, and Alba 2010). More generally, individualists and collectivists are guided by distinct
relationship norms that influence how they assess the fairness
of pricing practices, such that asymmetric pricing activities are
more accepted by individualists than collectivists because individualists emphasize exchange norms more than benevolent
norms (Chen et al. 2018).
46
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
For retailers, this suggests that common strategies such as
dynamic pricing between consumer groups, and pricing innovations such as digital price tags, may have distinct consequences
across cultures. For instance, the presence of a digital price tag
might signal the threat of dynamic prices. That threat might
be more salient to collectivistic consumers because they are
more prone to make in-group comparisons to the prices paid
by others. Future research could examine which cues trigger
inferences about pricing (un)fairness for collectivists compared
to individualists (see Table 1).
Holistic versus Analytic Thinking Styles and the Consumer
Journey
One can readily accept the notion that people from different
cultures prioritize different goals and values. What is less appreciated is the fact that people in different cultures tend to engage
in fundamentally distinct thinking styles (Nisbett et al. 2001).
Specifically, people raised in individualistic cultural contexts
tend to adopt an analytic thinking style, which involves perceiving objects as independent and separate from one another
(Nisbett 2003; Nisbett et al. 2001), and emphasizing the distinctions between them (Oyserman and Lee 2007). Objects
perceived in this manner tend to be seen in terms of defining,
formal features that drive categorization (popcorn and potato
chips belong in the category of salty snacks).
Analytic thinkers tend to use either-or decisions rules for
judging arguments and objects. An argument is therefore either
right or wrong, an attribute of a product is either important or
unimportant. When different pieces of information about a product conflict with each other, such as when evaluating a tennis
racquet that has positive attributes but a disliked endorser, analytic thinkers tend to address the inconsistency by choosing a
side (Aaker and Sengupta 2000).
In contrast, people raised in collectivistic cultural contexts
tend to adopt a holistic thinking style, which involves perceiving objects and elements of their environment as interrelated
(Nisbett 2003; Nisbett et al. 2001), and emphasizing the connections between them (Oyserman and Lee 2007). Holistic
thinkers are attentive to the background and context, as well as to
focal objects in the foreground, and they tend to integrate them
(Monga and John 2007). This means that the perceived nature
of objects can change as their context changes. Holistic thinkers
tend to categorize products based on relationships between them
(popcorn and candy are things you eat at the movies), rather
than on formal features that they share (Monga and John 2007).
Holistic thinkers also use compromise decision processes that
entertain multiple arguments as being potentially true or multiple
attributes as being important (Aaker and Sengupta 2000), seeking a “middle way” between propositions (Briley, Morris, and
Simonson 2000; Peng and Nisbett 1999). This type of integrative
thinking style gives rise to dialectical perceptions and ambivalent attitudes (every coin has two sides, Pang et al. 2017), and we
shall discuss the role of dialectical thinking in detail later. For
holistic thinkers, a product can be both bad and good, depending
on the context in which it is encountered. As we will see, this
makes the retail context potentially more influential in driving
product judgments.
Pre-Purchase Stage: Forming Impressions of Products in
Context
The impact of store and display characteristics
What implications do these differences in thinking styles have
for understanding the retail consumer’s journey? The answer is
that there are likely to be fundamental differences at every stage.
For instance, at the pre-purchase stage of the consumer journey, cultural differences in thinking styles are likely to influence
the way information in the retail context is perceived, categorized, and evaluated. Because analytic thinkers are more likely
to view an object and its context to be separate and distinct,
in cultures where an analytic thinking style is typical, an item
displayed in a retail context will be viewed as distinct from its
retail environment (e.g., the store’s reputation, Lee and Shavitt
2006; the display characteristics, Zhu and Meyers-Levy 2009).
For instance, in the U.S., a coffeemaker on a metal shelf at Walmart is likely to be perceived as being of similar quality as the
same item displayed in a glass case at Macy’s.
In contrast, because holistic thinkers are better able to integrate and see connections among elements in their environment
(Ahluwalia 2008), their perception of an item is likely to be
infused with its context (Riemer et al. 2014). Thus, in cultures
where a holistic thinking style is typical, perceptions of a coffeemaker displayed in a retail context are likely to be colored
by the characteristics of the retail context. This means that, for
instance in Japan, the same appliance may be viewed differently
at Seiyu (Walmart’s subsidiary) versus at high-end Mitsukoshi,
with characteristics of the retail context spilling over onto product judgments.
Zhu and Meyers-Levy (2009) specifically examined how
display conditions affect product judgments differently, as a
function of self-construal. They found that, for participants
primed with an interdependent self-construal, who were presumably thinking holistically (Lalwani and Shavitt 2013; Monga
and John 2007), a mug that was placed on a marble table was
perceived as a more modern item than when the same mug was
placed on a wooden table. That is, properties of the context were
infused into perceptions of the mug on display. In contrast, those
primed with an independent self-construal, who were presumably thinking analytically, contrasted the mug with its display
context, evaluating a mug as more trendy when it was displayed
on a wooden table, but as more natural when it was displayed
on a glass table (Zhu and Meyers-Levy 2009). That is, they
distinguished the item from its display context.
In a similar vein, evidence suggests that the impact of shelfplacement on product judgments is greater for those with an
interdependent versus independent self-construal (Jain, Desai,
and Mao 2007). After self-construal was primed, participants
estimated the fat content of a target low-fat snack (e.g., Keebler’s
Soft Batch low-fat chocolate chip cookie) that was displayed on
a shelf with related snack items. For interdependents, who were
presumably thinking holistically, fat ratings of the target snack
depended on the display context: These ratings were higher when
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
the other items displayed alongside were also low-fat snacks
(e.g., Bearitos low-fat organic popcorn) versus when they were
regular versions of similar snacks (e.g., Chips Ahoy). In contrast,
for independents, who were presumably thinking analytically,
the surrounding shelf placements did not affect fat ratings for
the target snack (Jain, Desai, and Mao 2007).
These types of effects extend to more abstract aspects of the
context as well, such as a retailer’s reputation for selling high-end
versus discounted merchandise. For those in cultural contexts
that stimulate holistic thinking, the reputation of the retailer who
sells a product can spill over to influence the way that product is evaluated. For instance, Lee and Shavitt (2006) showed
that when people were primed with an interdependent (vs. independent) self-construal, a retail store’s reputation could shape
inferences about a product’s quality. Specifically, participants
were shown a picture of the same GE microwave (same price,
same features) after being primed with either an interdependent
or an independent self-construal. Interdependents evaluated the
microwave more favorably when it was presented as being sold at
the high-end retailer Marshall-Fields than when it was described
as being sold at Kmart; however, this did not happen for independents (Lee and Shavitt 2006). Similar spillover effects have
been reported in service domains: For holistic but not analytic
thinkers, rude service can impact judgments of a restaurant’s
food quality or a hotel’s cleanliness (Lee 2017).
Taken together, these results suggest that the retail context is
more likely to affect the perceptions of merchandise for interdependents (holistic thinkers) than for independents (analytic
thinkers). And, indeed, when the retail context does have an
impact for independents, it may influence perceptions in an
entirely different way. To summarize, for people in interdependent (compared to independent) cultural contexts, there is likely
to be greater spillover of store and display characteristics on perceptions of the merchandise. So, a high-end retail store will elicit
higher end perceptions of its offerings (The jewelry at Nordstrom
looks elegant). In contrast, for people in independent (compared
to interdependent) cultural contexts, there is likely to be less
of a spillover effect, and perhaps a contrast effect instead (For
Bloomingdales, these scarves look a bit cheap).
Journeying across channels
Retailing contexts now traverse physical, online, and mobile
channels, and the rise of multi-channel marketing presents new
challenges. Retailers hope to integrate consistent consumer
experiences across all channels in the consumer journey to
increase trust and engagement with their firm. However, evidence suggests that cultural differences in thinking styles affect
the inferences consumers are likely to draw between retail channels (Badrinarayanan et al. 2012). Holistic thinkers, who tend
to focus on the relationships between objects, also tend to focus
on the relationship between a physical retail store and its corresponding digital channels and form preferences by transferring
their feeling about the physical store to the online store (I like
Best Buy, so bestbuy.com must also be good). In contrast, analytic thinkers, who tend to categorize objects using either-or
decision rules, tend to distinguish between physical and online
channels and form their preferences based on either channel’s
47
salient attributes (bestbuy.com is good because it has fast download times). Results from a cross-national survey revealed that
South Koreans (vs. Americans), who scored higher on holistic
thinking, were more likely to transfer their physical store preferences and trusting beliefs to the online store. Favorable online
store preferences and trusting beliefs predicted greater purchase
intentions for the online store (Badrinarayanan et al. 2012).
Pricing
Do thinking styles affect how consumers react to the price
of a product? An important retailing implication of cultural
differences in thinking styles involves the perceived connections between price and quality. As noted, holistic thinkers see
connections more readily, making them more likely to perceive a price–quality relationship. Thus, in a survey (Lalwani
and Shavitt 2013), consumers in India (holistic thinkers) were
more likely than those in the U.S. (analytic thinkers) to believe
that “you get what you pay for.” Building on this, Lalwani
and Shavitt (2013) showed that people with ethnic backgrounds that emphasize holistic thinking (Asian–Americans or
Hispanic–Americans) are more likely than analytic thinkers
(European–Americans) to use the price of a product as an indicator of its quality. For retail offerings such as calculators or
alarm clocks, Asian–Americans perceived higher-priced options
to have higher quality than lower-priced options. These differences were driven by cultural differences in holistic thinking.
Indeed, activating holistic thinking yielded similar effects
(Lalwani and Shavitt 2013). When the tendency to think holistically was primed, consumers of both ethnicities used a product’s
price to judge its quality. However, when the tendency to think
analytically was primed, price did not affect quality judgments,
regardless of ethnicity. The nature of the product made a difference, too, with these patterns for primed thinking style emerging
for utilitarian types of products (e.g., paper towels, hand soap)
but not for more symbolically meaningful goods (e.g., watches,
gloves). Compared to utilitarian products, symbolic products
are likely to be evaluated in more relational terms, prompting
a spontaneous linkage between price and quality that does not
rely on cultural differences in holistic thinking.
Although thinking styles influence perceived price-quality
links, they may also drive which reference prices affect consumer responses to a product’s price. Research distinguishes
between internal reference prices (IRP), where a price is perceived to represent the product’s inherent features, and external
reference prices (ERP), where a price is perceived to be determined by competitors’ prices and market characteristics (e.g.,
Mazumdar and Papatla 2000; Rajendran and Tellis 1994). As
might be expected based on differences in thinking styles, Chen
(2009) found that relative to those primed with an interdependent
self-construal, participants primed with an independent selfconstrual are more influenced by IRP, and less influenced by
ERP, in evaluating the prices of TV sets, MP3 players, and printers. These patterns are in line with analytic (holistic) thinkers’
tendencies to attribute causality to internal (contextual) sources
(Morris and Peng 1994) and thus to perceive separateness or
connectedness between the target brand and others.
48
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Taken together, these findings suggest that, for retailers of
consumer packaged goods, electronics, computer peripherals,
and other relatively utilitarian product lines, cultural differences
in consumers’ thinking styles will be important in influencing
how consumers react to retailers’ pricing strategies. In cultural
contexts where holistic (compared to analytic) thinking prevails,
discount retailers of these product categories may struggle more
to gain ground against stores with higher pricing. Offering external reference price cues may be helpful in mitigating negative
perceptions about the internal features and qualities of lowpriced products. These are important areas for future research
(see Table 1).
Responding to reviews
Product displays, channel formats, and price levels are elements that the retailer can control. However, retailers should
also understand how consumers’ thinking styles influence their
responses to elements that are outside of the retailer’s control
(Verhoef et al. 2009). For example, holistic thinkers’ ability to
see connections among elements in the environment affects their
responses to product reviews. Obviously, consumers are likely
to respond favorably to positive reviews regardless of thinking
style. However, consumer responses to negative reviews may
depend on thinking style.
Compared to analytic thinkers, holistic thinkers are more
likely to attribute the causes of events to situational factors as
opposed to internal characteristics (Nisbett et al. 2001). In one
study (Monga and John 2008), consumers were primed with a
holistic or analytic thinking style and then were shown negative information about a new BMW car model failing to meet
production targets. Holistic thinkers provided more contextbased explanations for the negative information (e.g., BMW
along with factors in the environment are responsible for its
quality and manufacturing problems), leading to no change in
brand evaluations (Monga and John 2008). In contrast, analytic
thinkers provided more object-based explanations for the negative information (e.g., BMW alone is responsible for its quality
and manufacturing problems”), leading to less favorable brand
evaluations.
It is widely held that positive and negative information about
a brand can seem contradictory and lead to uncomfortable feelings of ambivalence (Harmon-Jones 2000; Priester, Petty, and
Park 2007). In Western contexts, this can lead to efforts to
“resolve” the apparent contradiction (Nisbett et al. 2001), and
thus ambivalent attitudes in Western contexts (European Canadians) shift more in response to persuasive messages than they do
in non-Western contexts (East Asian Canadians), where ambivalence is less likely to feel aversive (Ng, Hynie, and MacDonald
2012).
Dialectical thinking is a dimension of holistic thinking that
addresses one’s tolerance for contradictory information. Dialectical thinkers regard contradiction as a constant state that should
be accepted, whereas non dialectical thinkers regard contradiction as a temporary state that should be avoided (Nisbett et al.
2001; Peng and Nisbett 1999). Indeed, when faced with contradictory product information, high (vs. low) dialectical thinkers
feel less discomfort (Wang, Batra, and Chen 2016) and are more
decisive in product evaluations (Demotta, Chao, and Kramer
2016). In addition, high dialectical thinkers feel less discomfort when faced with multivalent product reviews compared to
uniformly positive reviews, leading to lower probabilities of
choice deferral and preference reversals (Pang et al. 2017). Taken
together, this research suggests that learning both the good and
bad sides of a product will be more persuasive for people using
holistic and dialectical thinking styles, and will help them to
reach decisions more confidently.
Purchase Stage: Choosing in Context
Brand extensions
Prior to the purchase stage of their journey, consumers may
form strong expectations and even loyalties to specific brands.
What if a brand launches an extension into another product
category, as established brands often do? Will cultural differences in thinking style help us to predict when such extensions
are likely to be successful? The answer lies in how holistic
thinkers categorize objects and see connections among objects
in their environment. These tendencies can enhance acceptance
of brand extensions because they make consumers more likely
to find symbolic links between the parent brand and its extension (Monga and John 2007). Although such links are often
easy to identify spontaneously (as in the case of Febreze air
freshener extending the brand to Febreze laundry spray), relatively distant extensions are also sometimes launched. For
instance, Colgate, a parent brand with strong brand equity,
launched a frozen lasagna which, unsurprisingly, failed (Lowin
2017).
Consumers may reject an extension if it does not seem to
“fit” with its parent brand (e.g., Aaker and Keller 1990), but
what counts as a good fit will vary by culture and thinking
style (Monga and John 2007). When would Colgate lasagna be
a successful brand extension? Because analytic thinkers categorize items based on abstracting shared features and formulating
decision rules (Ji, Zhang, and Nisbett 2004), they are likely to
implicitly assume that all products that share the name Colgate,
a brand known primarily for toothpaste and oral care products,
will share a key feature with the parent brand – their minty flavor. Thus, extending Colgate into the frozen entrée category will
seem disgusting.
In contrast, holistic thinkers categorize objects based on relationships to other objects or to the context (Ji, Zhang, and Nisbett
2004). As a result, they may be more likely to think about
shared symbolic characteristics (Colgate toothpaste and Colgate
lasagna are two things that are good for me) when evaluating the
extension, and respond more favorably to it (Monga and John
2009). For example, in research by Monga and John (2007),
Indian consumers (holistic thinkers) and American consumers
(analytic thinkers) evaluated several fictional brand extensions
that were pretested to have low fit with their parent brand (e.g.,
McDonald’s razors). Holistic (vs. analytic) thinkers rated the
low-fit extensions more favorably because they perceived greater
fit between the extension and the parent brand (Monga and John
2007). Consistent with this, holistic (vs. analytic) thinkers have
been shown to be less sensitive to downward line extensions
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
49
that can attract a wider range of customers (Allman, Hewett,
and Kaur 2019), but that can also dilute the brand.
Power Distance Beliefs, Global–Local Identities, and the
Consumer Journey
Improving brand extension outcomes
The extant research suggests several tactics to encourage
analytic thinkers to think more holistically and respond more
favorably to brand extensions. The first set of tactics suggests
prompting consumers to focus on connections between elements unrelated to the brand. For example, directing consumers’
attention to social relationships (i.e., priming an interdependent
self-construal; Ahluwalia 2008; Monga and John 2007; Kuhnen
and Oyserman 2002; Oyserman et al. 2009) or background features of a drawing (i.e., encouraging field dependence; Monga
and John 2008, 2010) are effective strategies to increase holistic
thinking. These could be readily applied to in-store advertisements or other marketing communications. Another tactic
prompts consumers to create psychological distance between
the parent brand and extension category via using a sub-brand
(e.g., Excer Wallet by Toyota; Monga and John 2010).
The benefits of holistic thinking for brand extension evaluation do have bounds, however. Whereas holistic (vs. analytic)
thinking improves extension evaluations for utilitarian or functional brands (e.g., Maytag), this effect is attenuated for prestige
brands (Monga and John 2010). Prestige brands (e.g., Armani)
tend to have abstract and symbolic brand concepts that facilitate consumers’ ability to find connections between the parent
brand and extension categories. Therefore, it relatively easy for
both holistic and analytic thinkers to perceive fit between a prestige brand and a distant product category. Moreover, holistic
thinkers’ ability to see connections and relationships can take
significant cognitive effort (Ahluwalia 2008). Therefore, the
otherwise positive effect of holistic (vs. analytic) thinking on
extension evaluation is mitigated when consumers are under
cognitive load (Kim and Park 2019). All of this suggests that
holistic (vs. analytic) thinkers are likely to be more accepting
of extensions for utilitarian brands, unless factors in the retail
environment place a burden on their cognitive capacity.
As previously mentioned, the cross-cultural consumer behavior literature is large and rapidly growing. The earlier sections
emphasized the most commonly studied cultural classifications
of individualism and collectivism as well as analytic and holistic thinking styles. However, additional dimensions are gaining
increasing interest from culture scholars. We highlight two burgeoning literatures on the culture dimensions of power distance
belief and global–local identity, and briefly describe how a consideration of these factors can deepen the understanding of
consumer journeys.
Power distance is a cultural-level variable referring to the
degree to which hierarchy is accepted and expected in a society (Hofstede 1984; Oyserman 2006). In high power-distance
cultures, society is organized hierarchically and people expect
differential treatment, and treat each other accordingly, depending on where they are in that hierarchy. In low power-distance
cultures, society is organized in a more egalitarian manner and
people are less willing to accept differential status and treatment. At the individual level, the variable power distance belief
(PDB) refers to an individual’s endorsement and acceptance of
power disparities. People who believe that power disparities are
a necessary part of society (i.e., people with high PDB) tend
to discriminate between objects and place them along a hierarchical ranking (Winterich and Zhang 2014). In contrast, people
who believe power disparities should not be a part of society
(i.e., low PDB people) tend to endorse equality independent of
hierarchy. Power distance beliefs can also be situationally activated (Zhang, Winterich, and Mittal 2010; Winterich, Gangwar,
and Grewal 2018; Han, Lalwani, and Duhachek 2017).
Giving in to cravings
For holistic thinkers, factors in the retail environment can also
place a burden on their ability to self-regulate in certain contexts.
As previously mentioned, holistic thinking is the tendency to
focus on the interconnectedness among objects, whereas analytic thinking is the tendency to separate objects from their
context. An implication of this difference in thinking style is
that, when presented with cues that set the occasion for consumption (e.g., candy at a movie theater), holistic (vs. analytic)
thinkers may be more likely to imagine themselves consuming
the indulgent item and be more likely to crave it. For example, Hildebrand, Harding, and Hadi (2019) primed participants
to think analytically or holistically and showed participants a
cheese pizza with either an occasion-setting cue (a brick oven
pizzeria in the background) or a control cue (a blank background). Holistic thinkers craved the cheese pizza more when
it was displayed with an occasion-setting cue (vs. no cue). In
contrast, cue type did not affect analytic thinkers’ pizza cravings.
The Pre-Purchase Stage
Celebrity influence
How might the acceptance and endorsement of power disparities affect consumer journeys? Although there are likely
to be important effects at every stage, most research to date
has identified them at pre-purchase and purchase stages. For
example, many firms use high-status celebrity endorsers to
persuade consumers pre-purchase (e.g., Beyoncé and Pepsi).
However, consumers’ power distance beliefs (PDB) prompt different responses to those celebrities’ position within the social
hierarchy. In one study (Winterich, Gangwar, and Grewal 2018),
participants from the US and India were primed to endorse social
hierarchy (high PDB) or endorse equality (low PDB) before evaluating an advertisement with or without a celebrity endorser.
Participants primed with high PDB evaluated the advertisement
more favorably when it included a celebrity endorser (vs. not).
In contrast, celebrity endorsement did not affect evaluations
for participants primed with low PDB. Moreover, for participants with high (vs. low) PDB, expertise and trust perceptions
mediated the relationship between celebrity endorsement and
advertisement evaluations (Winterich, Gangwar, and Grewal
2018).
50
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Product design source
If power distance beliefs determine how consumers respond
to a product’s endorser through expertise and trust perceptions,
might they also influence how consumers respond to a product’s
designer? In addition to traditional company-designed products,
many brands employ user-design philosophies to crowdsource
new product designs (e.g., Threadless or ideas.starbucks.com).
Evidence suggests that preference for company- (vs. user-)
designed products is greater for those with high (vs. low) PDB
(Paharia and Swaminathan 2019). For instance, consumers with
high PDB preferred a company- (vs. user) designed software
product, whereas the opposite was true for those with low
PDB. Moderated-mediation analyses revealed that, consistent
with their tendency to discriminate among objects and arrange
them on a hierarchy, high PDB consumers’ preference for
company-designed products operated through quality perceptions. In contrast, yet consistent with their tendency to endorse
equality, low PDB consumers’ preference for user-designed
products was mediated by feelings of empowerment (Paharia
and Swaminathan 2019).
Pricing
Recent research has found that PDB also affects how consumers react to the price of a product (Lalwani and Forcum
2016). High (vs. low) PDB consumers’ tendency to endorse
hierarchy gives rise to a relatively greater need for structure.
Lalwani and Forcum (2016) showed that one consequence of the
need for structure is to categorize products by price and ascribe
higher quality to higher priced products. For example, participants from the US and India reported their tendencies to judge a
product’s quality from its price before indicating their need for
structure and power distance beliefs. In line with expectations, a
serial mediation analysis revealed that the effect of nationality on
price-quality judgments was mediated by participants’ PDB and
need for structure (Lalwani and Forcum 2016). Moreover, the
effects of PDB were not explained by holistic thinking (Lalwani
and Shavitt 2013), suggesting that power distance beliefs operate
via a distinct mechanism.
Pricing and global–local identities
Consumers differ in how strongly they associate with the
local versus global community (Reed et al. 2012). Compared to
those with a salient global identity, people with a salient local
identity are devoted and deferential to local traditions, events,
and communities, discerning greater differences between local
and nonlocal communities (Zhang and Khare 2009). Similar
to people who are high (vs. low) in PDB who discriminate
between objects in terms of their quality or status (Winterich
and Zhang 2014), people with a salient local (vs. global) identity
tend to focus on dissimilarities between objects and thus, associate the one that has a higher price with higher quality (Yang
et al. 2019). For example, a meta-analysis of previous studies
on price-quality judgments conducted across different countries
revealed that consumers are more likely to make price-quality
judgments in countries in which a local identity is more dominant (e.g., Cuba, North Korea), compared to those in which a
global identity is dominant (e.g., the US). Further, a field study
showed that consumers with a local (vs. global) identity were
more likely to purchase a more expensive water bottle because
they tended to judge products with higher prices to have higher
quality (Yang et al. 2019). The effects were robust beyond the
effects of other country-level variables such as gross domestic product per capita, competitive environment, and Hofstede’s
five cultural dimensions (e.g., power distance). These findings
complement related work that has found people with a more
salient local (vs. global) identity and countries with more local
emphasis (lower values on the KOF Index of Globalization) to
be more amenable to paying higher prices (Gao, Zhang, and
Mittal 2017).
The Purchase Stage
Impulse buying
Do power distance beliefs affect consumers’ likelihood of
buying on impulse? For those with high PDB, the general need
for structure and tendency to organize objects along a hierarchy may also manifest in greater self-restraint because of the
emphasis on order (Zhang, Winterich, and Mittal 2010). Compared to those with low PDB, high PDB consumers’ familiarity
with restraint also results in a lower tendency to buy on impulse
for items that elicit self-control associations (e.g., vice products).
In one experiment, consumers were primed with high (vs. low)
PDB before choosing vice (e.g., cola) and virtue (e.g., orange
juice) food items. Participants who were primed with high (vs.
low) PDB bought fewer and spent less on vice products. However, the PDB prime did not affect the quantity purchased or
amount spent on virtue items (Zhang, Winterich, and Mittal
2010).
The Culture-Adaptive Shopper Journey Model
The shopper journey metaphor has inspired a number of
different models regarding how shopper behavior unfolds.
For instance, the needs adaptive shopper journey model (Lee
et al. 2018) emphasizes shopper well-being, highlighting the
importance of understanding how consumers’ goals shape their
shopping journeys. This provides a valuable starting point for
understanding the possible impacts of culture at each step in the
journey.
According to this model, two of the central factors that
influence the shopper journey are shoppers’ own psychology
(their mental and behavioral states experienced during the shopping process) and peer-to-peer or social influences (Lee et al.
2018). As we have already described, individualistic or Western
contexts, compared to collectivistic or non-Western contexts,
are characterized by a stronger influence of internal states and
impulses on consumer decisions (e.g., Hong and Chang 2015;
Zhang and Shrum 2009). The same is true for low PDB (compared to high PDB) people or contexts (Zhang, Winterich, and
Mittal 2010). Taken together, these findings suggest that the
“shopper psychology” factor may be more central in individualistic cultures and in low-PDB contexts. Conversely, social
and normative influences exert a stronger motivating force in
collectivistic or non-Western contexts compared to individual-
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
istic or Western contexts (Riemer et al. 2014), and in high-PDB
(compared to low PDB) contexts. These results suggest that
peer-to-peer influences should be given greater emphasis in
understanding the consumer journey in non-Western contexts
or contexts that are high in PDB.
One key priority in understanding non-Western contexts is
to move away from an emphasis on personal consumer preferences toward a focus on their normatively infused preferences
(Riemer et al. 2014). Shoppers in non-Western contexts may
not evaluate products in isolation, but instead view products
as embedded within their context. As we have described, their
shopper and user experiences will be more profoundly shaped by
the retail environment. From a strategic perspective, this means
that retailer reputation, store atmosphere, and display characteristics require more investment to shape the right associations
with the products being sold. This may be seen as good news for
the retailer, as the retailer has more control over these elements
versus over the branding strategies of their product lines.
For individualists, shopper journeys are more likely to unfold
in the service of agency, independence, uniqueness, and selfexpression. Shoppers are promotion focused, and seek products
that help them to convey a distinct self-concept that separates
them from others, such as products in unique colors or products
that represent really new innovations (e.g., Kim and Markus
1999; Ma, Yang, and Mourali 2014). Emphasizing the uniqueness or distinctness of a retailer’s merchandise will therefore be
beneficial. Individualistic shoppers seek opportunities to advocate for their consumer preferences, and are likely to find forums
for self-expression to be rewarding.
Retailing strategies that emphasize shopper agency and freedom of choice are also advisable. For instance, surprising
customers with token gifts can elicit greater pleasure than giving them an expected gift, because they feel greater agency
to respond emotionally without the constraints of maintaining social harmony (Valenzuela, Mellers, and Strebel 2010).
In addition, newer scanning technologies (e.g., self-checkout
and scan-and-go applications; Inman and Nikolova 2017) could
also garner more favorable responses from individualistic (vs.
collectivistic) shoppers because they offer increased autonomy.
By contrast, evidence suggests that retailers’ efforts to solicit
donations at checkout and publicize customers’ gifts tend to
backfire with independents. Compared to interdependents, independents want to appear uninfluenced by others, and feel that
their image of autonomy is threatened by the promise of recognition (Simpson, White, and Laran 2017).
For collectivists, in contrast, the focus of the shopper journey is on maintaining and building benevolent relationships
with other consumers and with the retailer, adhering to societal and normative expectations, prioritizing and protecting their
ingroups, and honoring traditions. Because they define themselves contextually and relationally, collectivistic shoppers are
likely to seek products that help them to conform to others,
such as products in typical colors (Kim and Markus 1999) or
new products that offer incremental changes (Ma, Yang, and
Mourali 2014). Driven by a prevention focus and group harmony
priorities, collectivistic shoppers seek validation from others on
forums and message boards that offer advice from their peers.
51
For retailers, this means moving away from a reliance on
appealing to consumers’ inner feelings and impulses to drive
purchases, and toward promoting more normative, social, and
traditional themes. Because collectivists tend to be more sensitive to social risk compared to financial risk (Mandel 2003),
offering assurances of acceptance and approval for one’s purchases, such as consensus cues about others’ preferences (Aaker
and Maheswaran 1997), may be more beneficial than highlighting personal enjoyment or financial savings. For instance,
collectivists may be less tempted to buy alcohol because of a
personal urge to consume it, but more motivated to buy alcohol
because of a sense that drinking in a group will help to solidify their relationships or to celebrate traditional occasions. They
will respond to public recognition with more normatively appropriate behavior (e.g., charitable donations; Simpson, White, and
Laran 2017) and less inappropriate behavior (e.g., impulsive
consumption; Zhang and Shrum 2009).
Collectivistic shoppers’ group identities and relationships
will drive a broad range of consumer behaviors. Consumers will
often buy products to convey and restore a sense of belonging (White, Argo, and Sengupta 2012), and the depths of their
brand relationships will determine how they respond to negative
product outcomes (Sinha and Lu 2016).
Finally, it is important to emphasize that collectivists, as primarily holistic thinkers, define their shopping experiences by
contextual elements rather than by abstract characteristics of the
products they encounter. The same merchandise will be experienced differently, depending on contextual characteristics such
as features of store displays, what items are shelved alongside
one another, or the retailer’s broader reputation for quality. This
means that retailers’ decisions shape consumer experiences in a
profound way.
Conclusion
Cultural factors are noticeably absent from investigations
into consumer journeys. However, as we have reviewed, culture
implicates how consumers interpret and respond to all touchpoints of a consumer journey. The distinctions between cultural
contexts that we have described highlight the importance of
considering each element of the consumer journey — including responses to advertisements, prices, websites, product lines,
retail contexts, promotional gifts, and charitable partnerships —
through the lens of cultural differences.
Executive Summary
Cultural factors are rarely addressed in investigations into
consumer journeys. However, as we review in this article,
culture implicates how consumers interpret and respond to
all touchpoints of the shopper journey. The differences that
emerge between cultural contexts, as described here, highlight
the importance of considering each element of the consumer
journey—including responses to advertisements, prices, websites, product lines, retail contexts, promotional gifts, and
charitable partnerships—through the lens of cultural differences.
52
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
References
Aaker, David A. and Kevin Lane Keller (1990), “Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions,” Journal of Marketing, 54 (1), 27–41.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090560110363391
Aaker, Jennifer L. and Angela Y. Lee (2001), “‘I’ Seek Pleasures and ‘We’
Avoid Pains: The Role of Self-Regulatory Goals in Information Processing and Persuasion,” Journal of Consumer Research, 28 (1), 33–49.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/321946
Aaker, Jennifer L. and Durairaj Maheswaran (1997), “The Effect of Cultural Orientation on Persuasion,” Journal of Consumer Research, 24 (3),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209513. The University of Chicago Press, 315–28
Aaker, Jennifer L. and Jaideep Sengupta (2000), “Additivity versus
Attenuation: The Role of Culture in the Resolution of Information Incongruity,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 9 (2), 67–82.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327663JCP0902 2
Ahluwalia, Rohini (2008), “How Far Can a Brand Stretch? Understanding the
Role of Self-Construal,” Journal of Marketing Research, 45 (3), 337–50.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.45.3.337
Allman, Helena F., Kelly Hewett and Mandeep Kaur (2019), “Understanding
Cultural Differences in Consumers’ Reactions to Foreign-Market Brand
Extensions: The Role of Thinking Styles,” Journal of International Marketing, 27 (2), 1–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1069031X19836780
Ariely, Dan and Jonathan Levav (2000), “Sequential Choice in Group Settings:
Taking the Road Less Traveled and Less Enjoyed,” Journal of Consumer
Research, 27 (3), 279–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/317585
Austin, James T. and Jeffrey B. Vancouver (1996), “Goal Constructs in Psychology: Structure, Process, and Content,” Psychological Bulletin, 120 (3),
338–75.
Badrinarayanan, Vishag, Enrique P. Becerra, Chung Hyun Kim and Sreedhar
Madhavaram (2012), “Transference and Congruence Effects on Purchase
Intentions in Online Stores of Multi-Channel Retailers: Initial Evidence from
the U.S. and South Korea,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
40 (4), 539–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-010-0239-9
Bagozzi, Richard P., Hans Baumgartner and Youjae Yi (1992), “State versus
Action Orientation and the Theory of Reasoned Action: An Application to Coupon Usage,” Journal of Consumer Research, 18 (4), 505–18.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209277
Barnett, William, Mi Feng and Xiaoqu Luo (2010), Taobao vs. Ebay
China, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. https://www.gsb.stanford.
edu/faculty-research/case-studies/taobao-vs-ebay-china
Baumeister, Roy F., Matthew C. Gailliot, Nathan DeWall and Megan Oaten
(2006), “Self-Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on
Behavior,” Journal of Personality, 74 (6), 1773–802.
Baumeister, Roy F. and Todd F. Heatherton (1996), “Self-Regulation Failure: An Overview,” Psychological Inquiry, 7 (1), 1–15. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1207/s15327965pli0701 1
Baumgartner, Hans and Rik Pieters (2008), “Goal-Directed Consumer Behavior:
Motivation, Volition, and Affect,” in Marketing and Consumer Psychology
Series: Vol. 4. Handbook of Consumer Psychology, Haugtvedt Curtis P.,
Herr Paul M. and Kardes Frank R., eds. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis
Group/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 367–92.
Bolton, Lisa E., Hean Tat Keh and Joseph W. Alba (2010), “How Do Price Fairness Perceptions Differ Across Culture?,” Journal of Marketing Research,
47 (3), 564–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.47.3.564
Briley, Donnel A. and Jennifer L. Aaker (2006), “When Does Culture
Matter? Effects of Personal Knowledge on the Correction of CultureBased Judgments,” Journal of Marketing Research, 43 (3), 395–408.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.43.3.395
Briley, Donnel A., Michael W. Morris and Itamar Simonson (2000), “Reasons
as Carriers of Culture: Dynamic versus Dispositional Models of Cultural
Influence on Decision Making,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (2),
157–78.
Chen, Cathy Y. (2009), “Who I Am and How I Think: The Impact of
Self-Construal on the Roles of Internal and External Reference Prices
in Price Evaluations,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19 (3), 416–26.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2009.05.012
Chen, Haipeng (Allan), Lisa E. Bolton, Sharon Ng, Dongwon Lee and Dian
Wang (2018), “Culture, Relationship Norms, and Dual Entitlement,” Journal of Consumer Research, 45 (1), 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcr/
ucx118
Chen, Haipeng (Allan), Sharon Ng and Akshay R. Rao (2005), “Cultural Differences in Consumer Impatience,” Journal of Marketing Research, 42 (3),
291–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.2005.42.3.291
Cho, Chang-Hoan and Hongsik John Cheon (2005), “Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Interactivity on Corporate Web Sites: The United States, the United
Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea,” Journal of Advertising, 34 (2), 99–115.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2005.10639195
De Mooij, Marieke and Geert Hofstede (2002), “Convergence and Divergence
in Consumer Behavior: Implications for International Retailing,” Journal of
Retailing, 78 (1), 61–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(01)00067-7
Deloitte (2015), The Deloitte Consumer Review: The Growing Power of Consumers, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/
consumer-business/consumer-review-8-the-growing-power-of-consumers.
pdf
Demotta, Yoshiko, Mike Chen-ho Chao and Thomas Kramer (2016),
“The Effect of Dialectical Thinking on the Integration of Contradictory Information,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26 (1), 40–52.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2015.03.001
Edelman, David and Marc Singer (2015), “The New Consumer Decision Journey,” McKinsey Quarterly, https://www.mckinsey.com/businessfunctions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-new-consumer-decision-jou
rney.
Fong, John and Suzan Burton (2008), “A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Electronic Word-of-Mouth and Country-of-Origin Effects,” Journal of Business
Research, 61 (3), 233–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2007.06.015
Fujita, Kentaro, Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman and Maya Levin-Sagi (2006),
“Construal Levels and Self-Control,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 90 (3), 351–67.
Gao, Huachao, Yinlong Zhang and Vikas Mittal (2017), “How Does
Local–Global Identity Affect Price Sensitivity?,” Journal of Marketing, 81
(3), 62–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jm.15.0206
Google (2015), Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile, https:
//www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/micromo
ments-guide-pdf-download/
Grewal, Dhruv, Anne L. Roggeveen and Jens Nordfält (2017),
“The Future of Retailing,” Journal of Retailing, 93 (1),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2016.12.008. New York University,
1–6
Han, Dahee, Ashok K. Lalwani and Adam Duhachek (2017), “Power Distance
Belief, Power, and Charitable Giving,” Journal of Consumer Research, 44
(1), 182–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw084
Han, Sang-pil and Sharon Shavitt (1994), “Persuasion and Culture:
Advertising Appeals in Individualistic and Collectivistic Societies,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 30 (4), 326–50.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1994.1016
Harmon-Jones, Eddie (2000), “Cognitive Dissonance and Experienced Negative
Affect: Evidence That Dissonance Increases Experienced Negative Affect
Even in the Absence of Aversive Consequences,” Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 26 (12), 1490–501.
Hildebrand, Diogo, Rex D. Harding and Rhonda Hadi (2019), “Culturally Contingent Cravings: How Holistic Thinking Influences Consumer Responses
to Food Appeals,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 29 (1), 39–59.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1049
Hoch, Stephen J. and George F. Loewenstein (1991), “Time-Inconsistent Preferences and Consumer Self-Control,” Journal of Consumer Research, 17 (4),
492–507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/208573
Hofstede, Geert (1984), , Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
(2001), Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values,
Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations across Nations, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Hong, Jiewen and Hannah H. Chang (2015), “‘I’ Follow My Heart and ‘We’
Rely on Reasons: The Impact of Self-Construal on Reliance on Feelings
versus Reasons in Decision Making,” Journal of Consumer Research, 41
(6), 1392–411. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/680082
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Hong, Jiewen and Angela Y. Lee (2008), “Be Fit and Be Strong: Mastering SelfRegulation through Regulatory Fit,” Journal of Consumer Research, 34 (5),
682–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/521902
Hong, Ying-yi, Michael W. Morris, Chi-yue Chiu and Verónica BenetMartínez (2000), “Multicultural Minds: A Dynamic Constructivist Approach
to Culture and Cognition,” American Psychologist, 55 (7), 709–20.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.55.7.709
Howard, John and Jagdish N. Sheth (1969), The Theory of Buyer Behavior, New
York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Inman, J. Jeffrey and Hristina Nikolova (2017), “Shopper-Facing Retail
Technology: A Retailer Adoption Decision Framework Incorporating
Shopper Attitudes and Privacy Concerns,” Journal of Retailing, 93 (1),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2016.12.006. New York University, 7–28
Jain, Shailendra Pratap, Kalpesh Kaushik Desai and Huifang Mao
(2007), “The Influence of Chronic and Situational Self-Construal
on Categorization,” Journal of Consumer Research, 34 (1), 66–76.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/513047
Ji, Li-Jun, Zhiyong Zhang and Richard E. Nisbett (2004), “Is It Culture or Is
It Language? Examination of Language Effects in Cross-Cultural Research
on Categorization,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87 (1),
57–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.1.57
Kacen, Jacqueline J. and Julie Anne Lee (2002), “The Influence of Culture on
Consumer Impulsive Buying Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Psychology,
12 (2), 163–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327663JCP1202 08
Kim, Heejung S. and Aimee Drolet (2003), “Choice and Self-Expression: A
Cultural Analysis of Variety-Seeking,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 85 (2), 373–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.373
and
(2009), “Express Your Social
Self: Cultural Differences in Choice of Brand-Name versus Generic Products,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35 (12), 1555–66.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167209348641
Kim, Heejung S. and Hazel R. Markus (1999), “Deviance or
Uniqueness, Harmony or Conformity? A Cultural Analysis,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77 (4), 785–800.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.4.785
Kim, Heejung S. and David K. Sherman (2007), “‘Express Yourself’: Culture and the Effect of Self-Expression on Choice,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92 (1), 1–11.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.1.1
Kim, Kyeongheui and Jongwon Park (2019), “Cultural Influences on Brand
Extension Judgments: Opposing Effects of Thinking Style and Regulatory Focus,” International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36 (1),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2018.09.006. Elsevier B.V., 137–50
Kuhnen, Ulrich and Daphna Oyserman (2002), “Thinking about the Self
Influences Thinking in General: Cognitive Consequences of Salient SelfConcept,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38 (5), 492–9.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103102000112
Lafevre, Rosella Eleanor (2013), “Why Ebay Failed in China,” Pacific Standard,
https://psmag.com/economics/why-ebay-failed-in-china-taobao-swift-guan
xi-60072.
Lai, Jianwei, Peng He, Hsien-Ming Chou and Lina Zhou (2013), “Impact of
National Culture on Online Consumer Review Behavior,” Global Journal of
Business Research, 7 (1), 109–15.
Lalwani, Ashok K. and Lura Forcum (2016), “Does a Dollar Get You a Dollar’s Worth of Merchandise? The Impact of Power Distance Belief on
Price-Quality Judgments,” Journal of Consumer Research, 43 (2), 317–33.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw019
Lalwani, Ashok K. and Sharon Shavitt (2009), “The ‘Me’ I Claim
to Be: Cultural Self-Construal Elicits Self-Presentational Goal Pursuit,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97 (1), 88–102.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014100
and
(2013), “You Get What You
Pay For? Self-Construal Influences Price-Quality Judgments,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 40 (2), http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/670034. The University of Chicago Press, 255–67
Lalwani, Ashok K. and Jessie J. Wang (2019), “How Do Consumers’ Cultural
Backgrounds and Values Influence Their Coupon Proneness?: A Multi-
53
Method Investigation,” Journal of Consumer Research, 45 (5), 1037–50.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy033/4969824
Lee, Angela Y., Jennifer L. Aaker and Wendy L. Gardner (2000), “The Pleasures and Pains of Distinct Self-Construals: The Role of Interdependence
in Regulatory Focus,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78 (6),
1122–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.6.1122
Lee, Jaehoon (2017), “Can a Rude Waiter Make Your Food Less Tasty?
Social Class Differences in Thinking Style and Carryover in Consumer Judgments,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 28 (3), 450–65.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1020
Lee, Kyoungmi and Sharon Shavitt (2006), “The Use of Cues Depends on
Goals: Store Reputation Affects Product Judgments When Social Identity Goals Are Salient,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 16 (3), 260–71.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1603 8
Lee, Leonard, J. Jeffrey Inman, Jennifer J. Argo, Tim Bottger, Utpal Dholakia,
Timothy Gilbride, Koert Van Ittersum, Barbara E. Kahn, Ajay Kalra, Donald R. Lehmann, Leigh M. McAlister, Venkatesh Shankar and Claire I. Tsai
(2018), “From Browsing to Buying and Beyond: The Needs-Adaptive Shopper Journey Model,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 3
(3), 277–93.
Lemon, Katherine N. and Peter C. Verhoef (2016), “Understanding Customer
Experience Throughout the Customer Journey,” Journal of Marketing, 80
(6), 69–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jm.15.0420
Lowin, Rebekah (2017), “Did You Ever Wonder What Happened to Colgate
Lasagna?,” Food & Wine,.
Ma, Zhenfeng, Zhiyong Yang and Mehdi Mourali (2014), “Consumer Adoption
of New Products: Independent versus Interdependent Self-Perspectives,”
Journal of Marketing, 78 (2), 101–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jm.12.
0051
Mandel, Naomi (2003), “Shifting Selves and Decision Making: The Effects of
Self-Construal Priming on Consumer Risk-Taking,” Journal of Consumer
Research, 30 (1), 30–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/374700
Markus, Hazel R. and Shinobu Kitayama (1991), “Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation,” Psychological Review, 98
(2), 224–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224
Mazumdar, Tridib and Purushottam Papatla (2000), “An Investigation of Reference Price Segments,” Journal of Marketing Research, 37 (2), 246–58.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.37.2.246.18727
McLaughlin, Laurianne (2014), “Kroger Solves Top Customer Issue: Long
Lines,” Information Week, https://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/
executive-insights-and-innovation/kroger-solves-top-customer-issue-longlines/d/d-id/1141541.
Menon, Tanya, Michael W. Morris, Chi-yue Chiu and Ying-yi Hong (1999),
“Culture and the Construal of Agency: Attribution to Individual versus Group
Dispositions,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76 (5), 701–17.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.5.701
Monga, Alokparna B. and Deborah Roedder John (2007), “Cultural Differences in Brand Extension Evaluation: The Influence of Analytic versus
Holistic Thinking,” Journal of Consumer Research, 33 (4), 529–36.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/510227
and
(2008), “When Does Negative Brand Publicity Hurt? The Moderating Influence of Analytic
versus Holistic Thinking,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18 (4),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2008.09.009
Monga, Alokparna B. and Deborah Roedder John (2009), “Understanding Cultural Differences in Brand Extension Evaluation: The Influence of Analytic
versus Holistic Thinking,” in Handbook of Brand Relationships, MacInnis
Deborah J., Park Whan C. and Priester Joseph R., eds. Armonk, NY: ME
Sharpe, 247–66.
Monga, Alokparna B. and Deborah Roedder John (2010), “What Makes
Brands Elastic? The Influence of Brand Concept and Styles of Thinking
on Brand Extension Evaluation,” Journal of Marketing, 74 (3), 80–92.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.74.3.80
Morris, Michael W. and Kaiping Peng (1994), “Culture and Cause:
American and Chinese Attributions for Social and Physical Events,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 (6), 949–71.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.949
54
S. Shavitt, A.J. Barnes / Journal of Retailing 96 (1, 2020) 40–54
Ng, Andy H., Michaela Hynie and Tara K. MacDonald (2012), “Culture Moderates the Pliability of Ambivalent Attitudes,” Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology, 43 (8), 1313–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022111429718
Ng, Sharon, Hakkyun Kim and Akshay R. Rao (2015), “Sins of Omission versus Commission: Cross-Cultural Differences in Brand-Switching
Due to Dissatisfaction Induced by Individual versus Group Action
and Inaction,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25 (1), 89–100.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.07.003
Nisbett, Richard E. (2003), The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently. . . and Why, New York: Free Press.
Nisbett, Richard E., Kaiping Peng, Incheol Choi and Ara Norenzayan (2001), “Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic versus
Analytic Cognition,” Psychological Review, 108 (2), 291–310.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.2.291
Oyserman, Daphna (2006), “High Power, Low Power, and Equality: Culture
Beyond Individualism and Collectivism,” Journal of Consumer Psychology,
16 (4), 352–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1604 6
Oyserman, Daphna and Spike Wing-Sing Lee (2007), “Priming ‘Culture’: Culture as Situated Cognition,” in Handbook of Cultural Psychology, Kitayama
Shinobu and Cohen Dov, eds (1st ed.). New York: Guilford, 255–81.
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2007-12976-010
Oyserman, Daphna, Nicholas Sorensen, Rolf Reber and Sylvia Xiaohua Chen
(2009), “Connecting and Separating Mind-Sets: Culture as Situated Cognition,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97 (2), 217–35.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0015850
Paharia, Neeru and Vanitha Swaminathan (2019), “Who Is Wary of
User Design? The Role of Power-Distance Beliefs in Preference
for User-Designed Products,” Journal of Marketing, 83 (3), 91–107.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022242919830412
Pang, Jun, Hean Tat, Xiuping Li and Durairaj Maheswaran (2017),
“‘Every Coin Has Two Sides’: The Effects of Dialectical Thinking
and Attitudinal Ambivalence on Psychological Discomfort and Consumer Choice,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27 (2), 218–30.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2016.10.001
Peng, Kaiping and Richard E. Nisbett (1999), “Culture, Dialectics, and Reasoning about Contradiction,” American Psychologist, 54 (9), 741–54.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.9.741
Priester, Joseph, Richard Petty and Kiwan Park (2007), “Whence Univalent
Ambivalence? From the Anticipation of Conflicting Reactions,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 34 (1), 11–21.
Rajendran, K.N. and Gerard J. Tellis (1994), “Contextual and Temporal
Components of Reference Price,” Journal of Marketing, 58 (1), 22–34.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1252248
Ratner, Rebecca K., Barbara E. Kahn and Daniel Kahneman (1999), “Choosing
Less-Preferred Experiences For the Sake of Variety,” Journal of Consumer
Research, 26 (June), 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209547
Reed, Americus, Mark R. Forehand, Stefano Puntoni and Luk Warlop (2012),
“Identity-Based Consumer Behavior,” International Journal of Research in
Marketing, 29 (4), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2012.08.002. Elsevier B.V., 310–21
Riemer, Hila, Sharon Shavitt, Minkyung Koo and Hazel R. Markus (2014),
“Preferences Don’t Have to Be Personal: Expanding Attitude Theorizing
With a Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Psychological Review, 121 (4), 619–48.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037666
Shavitt, Sharon and Aaron J. Barnes (2019), “Cross-Cultural Consumer Psychology,” Consumer Psychology Review, 2 (1), 70–84.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/arcp.1047
Sia, Choon Ling, Kai H. Lim, Kwok Leung, Matthew K.O. Lee, Wayne W. Huang
and Izak Bensbasat (2009), “Web Strategies to Promote Internet Shopping:
Is Cultural-Customization Needed?,” MIS Quarterly, 33 (3), 491–512.
Simpson, Bonnie, Katherine M. White and Juliano Laran (2017), “When
Public Recognition for Charitable Giving Backfires: The Role of Independent Self-Construal,” Journal of Consumer Research, 44 (6), 1257–73.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucx101/4237396
Sinha, Jayati and Fang Chi Lu (2016), “‘I’ Value Justice, but ‘We’
Value Relationships: Self-Construal Effects on Post-Transgression
Consumer Forgiveness,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26 (2),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2015.06.002
Sook Lee, Mi, Loren V. Geistfeld and Leslie Stoel (2007), “Cultural Differences between Korean and American Apparel Web Sites,” Journal of Fashion
Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 11 (4), 511–28.
Triandis, Harry C. (1989), “The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts,” Psychological Review, 96 (3), 506–20.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.96.3.506
(1995), Individualism & Collectivism, Boulder, CO:
Westvi;1;ew Press.
(2012), “Culture and Conflict,” in Intercultural Communication: A Reader, Samovar Larry A., Porter Richard E. and McDaniel
Edwin R., eds (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 34–45.
Turner, Ashley (2018), “Why Walmart Is Struggling in Japan,” CNBC,
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/23/walmart-japan-seiyu-retail-food.html.
Valenzuela, Ana, Barbara Mellers and Judi Strebel (2010), “Pleasurable
Surprises: A Cross-Cultural Study of Consumer Responses to Unexpected Incentives,” Journal of Consumer Research, 36 (5), 792–805.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/605592
Verhoef, Peter C., Katherine N. Lemon, A. Parasuraman, Anne Roggeveen,
Michael Tsiros and Leonard A. Schlesinger (2009), “Customer Experience
Creation: Determinants, Dynamics and Management Strategies,” Journal of
Retailing, 85 (1), 31–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2008.11.001
Wang, Haizhong, Rajeev Batra and Zengxiang Chen (2016), “The
Moderating Role of Dialecticism in Consumer Responses to
Product Information,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26 (3),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2015.10.003. Society for Consumer
Psychology, 381–94
Wang, Jing and Angela Y. Lee (2006), “The Role of Regulatory Focus in
Preference Construction,” Journal of Marketing Research, 43 (1), 28–38.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.43.1.28
White, Katherine M., Jennifer J. Argo and Jaideep Sengupta (2012), “Dissociative versus Associative Responses to Social Identity Threat: The Role of
Consumer Self-Construal,” Journal of Consumer Research, 39 (4), 704–19.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/664977
Winterich, Karen Page, Manish Gangwar and Rajdeep Grewal (2018), “When
Celebrities Count: Power Distance Beliefs and Celebrity Endorsements,”
Journal of Marketing, 82 (3), 70–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jm.16.0169
Winterich, Karen Page and Yinlong Zhang (2014), “Accepting Inequality Deters Responsibility: How Power Distance Decreases Charitable Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Research, 41 (2), 274–93.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/675927
Yang, Haiyang, Antonios Stamatogiannakis and Amitava Chattopadhyay
(2015), “Pursuing Attainment versus Maintenance Goals: The Interplay of
Self-Construal and Goal Type on Consumer Motivation,” Journal of Consumer Research, 42 (1), 93–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucv008
Yang, Zhiyong, Sijie Sun, Ashok K. Lalwani and Narayan Janakiraman (2019),
“How Does Consumers’ Local or Global Identity Influence Price—Perceived
Quality Associations? The Role of Perceived Quality Variance,” Journal of
Marketing, 83 (3), 145–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022242918825269
Zhang, Yinlong and Adwait Khare (2009), “The Impact of Accessible Identities
on the Evaluation of Global versus Local Products,” Journal of Consumer
Research, 36 (3), 524–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/598794
Zhang, Yinlong and L.J. Shrum (2009), “The Influence of Self-Construal on
Impulsive Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research, 35 (5), 838–50.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/593687
Zhang, Yinlong, Karen Page Winterich and Vikas Mittal (2010), “Power Distance Belief and Impulsive Buying,” Journal of Marketing Research, 47 (5),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.47.5.945. American Marketing Association,
945–54
Zhang, Yong and Betsy D. Gelb (1996), “Matching Advertising Appeals to
Culture: The Influence of Products’ Use Conditions,” Journal of Advertising,
25 (3), 29–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00913367.1996.10673505
Zhu, Rui (Juliet) and Joan Meyers-Levy (2009), “The Influence of
Self-View on Context Effects: How Display Fixtures Can Affect
Product Evaluations,” Journal of Marketing Research, 46 (1), 37–45.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.46.1.37
Zomerdijk, Leonieke G. and Christopher A. Voss (2010), “Service Design for
Experience-Centric Services,” Journal of Service Research, 13 (1), 67–82.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1094670509351960