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Faculty Working Papers 
 
 \ 
 
 THJCHIY OF CROSS-CULTURAL BUYER- BEHAVIOR 
 
 Jagdish N. Sheth, Univ. of Illinois 
 
 and 
 
 S. Prakash Sethi, Univ. of California 
 
 #115 
 
 / 
 
 College of Commerce and Business Administration 
 
 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
 
FACULTY WWIKING PAPERS 
 College of CoTomerce and Business Administration 
 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
 May 31, 1973 
 
 THJCSIY OF CROSS-CULTURAL BUYER-BEHAVIOR 
 
 Jagdish N. Sheth, Univ. of Illinois 
 
 and 
 
 S. Prakash Sethi, Univ. of California 
 
 #115 
 
:. :!v;:f;;-: 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/theoryofcrosscul115shet 
 
THEORY OF CROSS-CULTURAL BUYER-BEHAVIOR 
 
 Jagdlsh N. Sheth, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana 
 
 & 
 So Prakash Sethi, University of California, Berkeley 
 
 Introduct ion 
 
 The past two decades have seen a phenomenal growth in the operations 
 of imiltinational corporations (KHCs) in various parts of the world. This 
 growth is not confined to capital investment or manufacturing operations, 
 but has been extended increasingly to marketing activities. However, the 
 expansion of marketing activities heQ not been accompanied by a systematic 
 study of the differences in buyer behavior in various countries (socio- 
 political and economic entities) and the causes that might account for 
 such differences. This is particularly unfortunate because a lack of 
 understanding in this area has led to innumerable economic inefficiencies 
 In resource allocation, from the viewpoint of both the MNCs and the countries 
 Involved. It has also caused sociopolitical conflicts among various parties. 
 
 Multinational marketing involves introducing new products or ideas 
 into different cultures. On one hand, it may be no more than shifting 
 consumption from one brand of a oroduct to another brand of the same 
 product. On the. other hand, It may ieac to massive -locial changes in the 
 manner of consumption^ -ype of products consumed, and even in social 
 organization* Therefore, a haphazard marketing effort, even though it 
 may be successful in the short run, may lead to far-reaching and unde- 
 sirable, though unintended, consequences* 
 
 Current Approaches to Multinational Marketing 
 
 Interpretations of facts abound, and there are as many successful 
 
;t 
 
-2- 
 
 marketing strategies as there are practitioners. However, these strategies 
 can be classified into two broad categories. One approach implies that 
 industrialism has a culture all its own: that basic human needs and 
 behavior are similar everywhere; and that, except for minor changes to 
 adjust to peculiar local circurastancea, essentially the sane products can 
 be sold with similar promotional appeals in all overseas markets (Kerr 
 1961; Buzzell 1968; Roostal 1965) « The other approach contends that all 
 countries are different, have their own cultures, and face a unique set 
 of problems that keep changing over time. This group argues that there 
 cannot be any single unified theory of intertiational marketing that can be 
 universally applicable and that all decisions in this area must be of an 
 ad hoc nature, with the applicability of their findings confined only to 
 a given region and/or point in time (Burson 1965), 
 
 Notwithstanding the validity of the two approaches, they do have 
 some theoretical support that merits brief discussion. The first approach 
 is based on the concept of "universal institutional types" or the "universality 
 of cultural traits" first propounded by the anthropologist Malinowski (1944) 
 and more recently revised and presentee" by Murdock (1951) and Nadel (1965), 
 The en^ihasis here was on those categories of culture that were universal 
 in being invariant points of reference for description and comparison. 
 The other approach, also based in anthropology and, to some extent, in 
 sociology, directed its attention overwhelmingly to the distinctiveness 
 of each culture and to the differences in human customs as opposed to their 
 Similarities (Benedict 1934; Kluckhohn 1958). 
 
 Neither of these approaches, in itself, is suitable for a cross- 
 cultural study of buyer behavior. The former is based on a superficial 
 
-3- 
 
 understanding of the effect of learning on human behavior and does not 
 take into account the effects of cultural factors that may inalterably 
 change behavior patterns in different c Itures. On the other hand, the 
 latter seems to overeirqphasize the overt differences in the behavior of 
 the consumer in different cultures while ignoring the underlying psycho- 
 logical processes that might provide us with a unifying theme. 
 
 Purpose and Scope of The Paper 
 
 Our objective is to present a comprehensive theory of cross-cultural 
 buyer behavior. If it is agreed that buyer behavior within a country is 
 exceedingly complex, we think cross-cultural buyer behavior is even a more 
 complex phenomenon. It is, therefore, not sufficient to understand and 
 theorize about it either in a very siiif»listic-holistic manner or in a piece- 
 meal fashion. We must match the complexity of the phenomenon with equally 
 realistic and comprehensive conceptual and analytical imagination. In 
 fact, we should learn our lesson from the trial-and-error process with 
 which within-country buyer behavior has been researched in the past so 
 as to avoid coiumitting the same errors cf ommission and commission (Sheth 
 1967, 1972). 
 
 Any theory must perform the following four functions (Rychlak 1968; 
 Howard and Sheth 1969): (1) descriptive function by which the theory 
 specifies in a parsimonious waj' the antecedent conditions which explain 
 a phenomenon; (2) delimiting function by which the theory explicitly limits 
 its scope by appropriately defining the phenomenon to be explained; 
 (3) integrative function by which it must systematically relate all 
 relevant research evidence and reconcile logically other explanations; 
 
-4- 
 
 and (4) generative function by which it should provide deductive hypotheses 
 for future testing and verification. 
 
 We don't believe our theory to be described in this paper is yet a 
 fully developed to satisfy all the four furxtions. We hope to revise it 
 in the due course to fully meet the delimiting and the generative functions. 
 However, we do think the theory is at -i level of development to satisfy, 
 if not to optimize, the other f^o functions. 
 
 There are a number of distinctive characteristics to our theory of 
 cross-cultural buyer behavior: 
 
 First, it is a comprehensive theory primarily based upon numerous 
 theories and studies in the areas of diffusion, rural sociology and 
 especially cultural anthropology. 
 
 Second, the theory takes the viewpoint that multinational marketing 
 activities can be looked upon as processes of innovation and change since 
 they consist of introducing familiar products or services of one country 
 to other cultures where such products or services are perceived to be 
 new and different. The magnitude of innovative activities will, of 
 course, vary from simple introduction of a new brand to completely 
 changing a culture's consumption patterr. Accordingly, the phenomenon 
 the theory is concerned with i55 the process of adoption and diffusion 
 of products and services raerkcted b;; MNCs, 
 
 Third, the theory is descriptive rather than normative. It simply 
 describes and explains, with a minitnum number of theoretical constructs, 
 how consumers living in different cultures perceive, evaluate and adopt 
 products and services marketed by MNCs, It has no value judgments woven 
 around the illusive concept of economic rationality. In fact, we think 
 
the question of rationality is irrelevant or at least less meaningful 
 in the cross-cultural context of consumption due to enormous differences 
 in values among cultures. 
 
 Fourth, the theory atterripts to explain differences among cultures 
 in their perceptions, evaluations and consumption behavior of a conmon 
 product or service. It is not a theory of individual differences even 
 though the units of measurement and analysis are households, industrial 
 organizations or individual customers. Our interest is in cross-country 
 differences and not v/ithin-country differences. To this extent, the 
 theory sharply differs from several well-knox-m theories of buyer behavior 
 (Andreasen 1965; Nicosia 1966; Engd, Blackwell & Kollat 1968; Howard & 
 Sheth 1969; Sheth 1971 & 1972a). 
 
 Fifth, the theory consists of four types of constiructs and variables 
 following the tradition of theory building often utilized by the first 
 author in his earlier writings (Sheth 1957 j Howard and Sheth 1969; Sheth 
 1971 & 1972a) » These are called the exogeneous, the endogeneous, the input 
 and the output variables or constructs. The exogeneous variables are the 
 "givens" or the "constraints" of the ex^jlanatory situation; they are not 
 explained in terms of their structure or any changes in them over time. 
 In short, the exogeneous variebXes delimit the theory. The endogeneous 
 variables constitute the theory; the variables are properly defined, their 
 network of relationship is fully detailed and often quantified, and any 
 changes in them are explained and predicted by a cet of determinants. The 
 input variables constitute a set of complex stimuli which impinge upon 
 the system of endogeneous variables and get mediated through that system. 
 The output variables are a set of responses, behavioral and cognitive, which 
 
-6- 
 
 the theory delimits itself to explain and predict. 
 
 Sixth, the constructs of the theory are measurable at the individual 
 level even though the theory is e;;plicit.ly limited to explaining differences 
 among aggregates^ Furthermore, each ccstT-uct is. presumed to be multivariate 
 and multidimensional making it necesss.ry to prcovide for a number of indicators 
 for the construct. On each indi we propose to estimate the level 
 of a culture by its mean value and the scatter by its variance. This 
 allows the theory to utilize uumercas statistical procedures which are 
 based on variance-covariances. The techniques explicitly relevant for 
 comparative cross-cultural analyses are simple AllOVAj multivariate , 
 ANOVA» discriminant analysis and profiling-clustering methods. 
 
 Description of The Theory 
 
 It is difficult to fully describe the theory in a short paper. In 
 order to present a succinct description, we will not elaborate in this 
 paper how the axogeneous variables exert their influence on the system 
 of endogeneouB variables. Instead, we will provide a list of references 
 whose thinking and research has been inptrumental in our choice of those 
 exogeneous variables. Secondly, we will first briefly summarize the 
 process of adoption of new products £.ud services as envisioned by the 
 theory and then describe in detail each of the endogeneous constructs. 
 
 Brief Summar y of Th o Adoption Process 
 
 As we mentioned earlier, it is easy to envision the multinational 
 marketing activities as processes of innovations and change. The MNCs 
 introduce new products and services with a specific marketing mix of the 
 
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basic four Ps, This marketing effort is lookad upon by the buyers as 
 connunications about the innovation with identifiable source, channel 
 and message coinponents. The sourca is often the commercial IWC but not 
 always because other sources such as governmental agencies, news releases 
 and documentaries as well as word-of -mouth, also provide communication 
 about the innovation to customa^'s in a culture. For eitample, the marketing 
 of contraceptives or nutrition ia many underdeveloped countries. 
 
 The communication about the innovation influences the country's 
 propensity to change as well as evaluation of the innovation. Propensity 
 to change is the degree of receptivity a country manifests for any 
 innovation in a product class due to dissatisfaction v;ith existing alternatives. 
 Evaluation of innovation refers to the perceived instrumentality of the 
 innovation to satisfy a set of choice criteria relevant for the product 
 class* However, the influence of communication on either the propensity 
 to change or the evaluation of the innovation is limited by two sets of 
 factors. The first set of factors relate to the selectivity of human 
 mind with which customers process information. Unless the culture is 
 ready for the change, ths customers will be insensitive to any communication 
 on an innovation and, thereforSj selectively pay less attention to it. 
 For example, cigar smoking among the U, 3, women has been a very slow 
 process of change, Siuilerly, unless the new innovation is favorably 
 perceived by a culture, the communication will be cognitively distorted 
 so that its impact will be minimal. Instant coffee has been very rapidly 
 adopted by most cultures due to its convenience. 
 
 The second set of factors relate to the con5>ensatory manner with 
 which generalized opinion leadership in a country as well as its cultural 
 
-8- 
 
 life style, also exert influence on propensity to change and evaluation 
 of innovation. Often it is probable that the marketing efforts of 
 MNCs are incompatible with the cultural life style or the generalized 
 opinion leadership and, therefore, have minimal impacts in the market 
 place. The numerous examples of product failures in cross-cultural 
 context are clearly due to this compensatory nature. For example, canned 
 soups and cake mixes were favorably received in the U.S.A. but have met 
 with considerable resistance in European countries. It is, therefore, 
 extremely critical to assess the nature of the influence of cultural 
 values and opinion leadership in a given product class prior to 
 introducing new products in that country. 
 
 If a culture is high on propensity to change and the specific 
 innovation is favorably evaluated, the customers will manifest a tendency 
 to adopt the innovation. This seems to be the classic history of soft 
 drinks such as Coca-Cola. However, a number of things may intervene 
 between evaluation and adoption. First, the customers may manifest 
 active search and support for their decision to adopt the innovation. 
 This cognitive search may be with respect to both the generalized opinion 
 leadership or the conmunication sources. Second, a number of factors also 
 influence the tendency to adopt and, therefore, become coiipensatory to 
 the evaluation process. We have identified per capita income, marketing 
 Institutions, and value of time as the three most critical factors. Per 
 capita income of a country represents the economic resources available 
 among customers. If it is too low, the innovation may be inhibited from 
 being adopted and if it is high, many innovations which are trivial and 
 not highly favorable in their evaluations will get adopted. For exan^le, 
 it has been difficult to market high protein foods in less developed 
 
countries due to substantial high costs of processed foods and staples 
 (Sheth & Sudman 1972). On the other hand, many rich nations adopt new 
 products niore to satisfy novelty-curiosity needs than to derive functional 
 utilities. Similarly, marketing institutions of distribution may become 
 bottlenecks for highly favorable innovations. Once again, this has been 
 a serious problem in rural areas of less developed countries. Finally, 
 value of time often becomes a facilitating factor especially when the Innovations 
 are time- saving conveniences. The enormous borrowing by the Japanese of 
 Western conveniences is a classic example. 
 
 If the adoption tendency is strong, it will result in trial of the 
 innovation. The consequences from the actual trial or watching someone 
 else try it will be recorded by customers as tentative satisfaction. If 
 the tentative satisfaction is positive, the innovation will be permanently 
 adopted except for some nonpredictable situational factors. These factors 
 include political instability, recessions, government controls and the like. 
 On the other hand, if it is negative, the culture will reject tha new product 
 or seirvice. 
 
 Finally, fhe permanent adoption o"" an innovation will produce some 
 impact on both the propensity to change and evaluation of innovation. 
 If the culture is satisfied with the outcomes from the permanent adoption, 
 it will manifest greater receptivity to change and better predisposition 
 toward the MNC which introduced the innovation. 
 
 Description of Constructs of The Theory 
 
 Now we describe each of the major constructs in theory represented 
 in Figure 1. As mentioned before, we will minimize our discussion of 
 the exogeneous variables in this paper. 
 

-10- 
 
 1, Propensity to Change : A central construct in the theory is 
 propensity to change. It is a product class specific construct 
 and refers to the receptivity of a culture in seeking change from 
 its present methods and alternatives of consumption. At a point 
 in time we presume that countries vary in their propensity to change 
 so that some countries are anxious for an immediate change and others 
 are resistant to any change in the choice offerings of a given 
 product class. 
 
 Propensity to change is a multivariate profile construct and 
 not a univariate scale construct because we believe the receptivity 
 to change in a country may be due to a number of factors and the 
 same degree of receptivity across cultures may be for different 
 reasons. For example, the less developed countries may be receptive 
 to change from the bicycle era to automotive era due to industrial 
 activity, urban development and mobility, but the advanced countries 
 may seek change from the automotive era due to air pollution, urban 
 crises and scarcity of time. We believe that propensity to change 
 can be measured on a psychological profile which assesses the degree 
 of dissatisfaction with existing alternatives in a product class and 
 the aspirations of a culture to improve itself with respect to that 
 product category. 
 
 In our theory, the level and variance of propensity to change 
 of a culture is determined by three constructs. Perhaps the most 
 important construct is the cultural life style of individuals in 
 a society. It refers to a generalized inventory of activities, 
 interests and opinions manifested by customers in a culture with 
 
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-11- 
 
 respect to those "cultural universals" which are salient to 
 consumption behavior. We will describe Cultural Life Style 
 later in more detail. It is sufficient to note here that as the 
 Cultural Life Style of a country changes, it will impact upon 
 propensity to change. However, there are two important considerations. 
 First, we believe the change in Cultural Life Style of a country is 
 a slow process and hence it is more evolutionary and natural. Second, 
 change in Cultural Life Style has differential impact on propensity 
 to change depending upon the specific product class. In other words. 
 Cultural Life Style may, for example, closely control propensity to 
 change in people's food habits than in their recreational habits. 
 
 The second factor is Generalized Opinion Leadership, It refers 
 to the special role assigned to or achieved by a select group of 
 individuals and institutions in any society to take the leadership 
 of the country in the constant search for change and improvement. 
 We will describe the construct in more detail later. However, 
 Generalized Opinion Leadership is more likely to provide for rapid 
 and planned changes in propensity t change especially in the newly 
 independent nations or so-called the third world. 
 
 Neither of these two factors is directly within the managerial 
 control of multinational corporations. However, MNCs can exert 
 influence on a culture's propensity to change by the effective 
 utilization of the marketing mix with which to communicate about 
 the innovation. The third factor, therefore, is the input construct 
 called Conanunication About Innovation, It refers to the process of 
 communication from both commercial and other sources about various 
 benefits existing in the innovations through a variety of channels of 
 
-12- 
 
 comnunication. Once again, we will delay a detailed description of 
 the input construct. Here we should discuss the role of Gotnznunication 
 About Innovation in influencing Propensity To Change, First, we 
 believe that communication from a commercial source is likely to have 
 limited impact on Propensity To Change unless Cultural Life Style 
 and Generalized Opinion Leadership facilitate it. In fact, we believe 
 that it will have no impact or even a negative intact if the other 
 two factors are opposite in their inf?.uence on Propensity To Change, 
 Second, communication from commercial MBC sources may also be 
 compensated or facilitated by cottHminication from other sources including 
 neutral (public sources) and social (friends, relatives) sources. 
 In other words, the word-of-mouth communication can effectively wipe 
 out all commercial efforts especially in less developed countries. 
 This has been notoriously witnessed in the cigarette industry where 
 competitive companies unethically spread rumors about the brand. 
 
 In the above discussion, it is clear that the three factors are 
 presumed to be compensatory in their relationship to Propensity To 
 Change. This car. be expressed ra^ithematically as follows: 
 
 PTC = B, [CLS] + 3o [GOL] + B- [CAl] 
 
 PTC = Propp.nsity To Change in e product class 
 
 CLS = Cultural Life Style 
 
 GOL = Generalized Opinion Leadership 
 
 CAI = Conmiunication About Innovation 
 
 2, Cultural Life Styl e is a generalized inventory of activities, 
 interests and opinions on 6 set of cultural universals. Cultural 
 universals are patterns of behavior related to innate, learned and 
 social needs of people in a culture. Anthropologists have made 
 
-13- 
 
 strong strides in defining and measuring cultural differences and 
 similarities in their manifestations of cultural universals (Suniner 
 and Keller 1927; Malinowski 1926; Kluckhohn 1958; Murdock 1965; 
 Kluckhohn and Murray 1949). We, however, differ from the traditional 
 anthropological thinking in our definition of cultural universals 
 and its measurement. First, Cultural Life Style is not limited to 
 overt behavior only but also extended to the cognitive areas of 
 interests and opinions. This is because our theory is not extended 
 to buyer behavior of primitive societies where language and linguistic 
 communication is either not possible or very difficult. To this 
 extent) we are following the recent development of life style scales 
 in the understanding and segmentation of consumer behavior (e.g. 
 Wells and Tigert 1971), However, at the same time we do not believe 
 in the direct borrowing of any inventory scale such as the AIO scale 
 for cross-cultural research. Considerable adaptation may be necessary 
 before a standardized inventory can be developed for cross-cultural 
 research. 
 
 Second, our construct, Cultur. i Life Style, is operational at 
 the individual level so that we expect a tytiical (mean) life style 
 profile of a culture with individual variability about the mean value. 
 The anthropological inventories of cultural universals have typically been 
 at the institutional or aggregate level. 
 
 Third, the definitions of cultural universals is not the same as 
 anthropological tradition. We limit our inventory only to those 
 cultural universals which are salient to consumption aspects of a 
 society. In other words, we are delimiting the definition of cultural 
 universals to economic activities of individuals. 
 
 Finally, we distinguish between Personal Life Style and Normative 
 
-14- 
 
 Life Style in order to keep distinct: the psychological and sociological 
 traditions of cross-cultural research. 
 
 Personal Life Style in our theory refers to personal beliefs about 
 economic consumption activities of individuals in a culture. Thus, 
 matters such as shopping behavior, price consciousness, home 
 involvement, etc, become relevant areas on which to assess personal 
 beliefs of customerso 
 
 In our theory, Personal Life Style is presumed to be determined 
 by four exogeneous variables :personality development, socialization 
 process, education and economic development of the country. The 
 role of personality development in cross-cultural context is detailed 
 in Kluckhohn and Murray (1949) , in Hallowell (1963) and in Bamouw 
 (1963). The interesting areas of research seem to be the psycho- 
 analytic theories of clinical psychology and the cross-cultural research 
 on achievement motivation (McClelland 1963), In addition, Sheth (1962) 
 has liberalized Maslow's holistic theory of hierarchy of needs to 
 cultural aggregates. 
 
 There is considerablv^ llterat re in anthropology and sociology 
 on the socialization process or child rearing practices and its 
 influence on Personal Life Style (Mead 1928 and 1930; Benedict 1946; 
 Le Vine 19G1). 
 
 Surprisingly, the influence of education and economic development 
 in shaping Personal Life Style in a cross-cultural context is not fully 
 researched, A notable except, is Hagen's theory of social change (1962) 
 as a function of economic development. 
 
 Normative Life Style refers to the normat5.ve beliefs individuals 
 
-15- 
 
 possess as to how they are expected by the culture to behave with 
 respect to economic activities. It refers to the economic and 
 consutqation value system of a culture and is directly relevant to 
 the perennial question of economic and consumption rationality. 
 Normative Life Style is. typically determined by tradition, 
 religion and societal roles and norms. An excellent reference 
 source on this is the review chapter by Blake and Davis (1964), 
 
 3, Generalized Opinion Leadership refers to the presence of a 
 select, small group of individuals and institutions who are assigned 
 or who have achieved the roles of gate keepers, change agents or 
 opinion leaders. Contrary to the suggestion of Katz and Lazarsfeld 
 (1954) , we believe it is more fruitful to think of Generalized 
 Opinion Leadership instead of specific opinion leadership in cross- 
 cultural context. 
 
 Generalized Opinion Leadership will vary from culture to 
 culture with respect to size, structure of interaction and active 
 participation in planned change. After an exhaustive review of 
 somewhat controversial research in rural sociology and marketing, 
 we have isolated four exogeneous variables for which there is some 
 conclusive evidence about their role in determining opinion leadership 
 in a culture. These variables are social elite, social structure, 
 cosraopoliteness and expertise (See Rogers 1962, Rogers and Shoemaker 
 1971), The greater the skewness of distribution of individuals 
 with regard to these four variables the more will be the presence of 
 Generalized Opinion Leadership and its influence on Propensity To 
 Change, 
 
 4, Communication About Innovation consists of the input variables. 
 
-16- 
 
 It refers to the various traditional elements of a communication 
 mix-source, channel and content - except that it is adapted to the 
 cross-cultural research on innovations* 
 
 The source variables are of three types: commercial sources such 
 as MNCs, the neutral sources such as noncommercial broadcasts, press 
 releases and governmental reports, and the social sources including 
 friends and relatives. This classification of source was first 
 suggested by Cox (1967) and later adapted by Howard and Sheth (1969, 
 Chapter 8) » In general, the social sources are found to be most 
 credible and the commercial sources least credible, although, this 
 may be mediated by the culture's degree of saturation of commercial 
 sources of communication. We do find that in many underdeveloped 
 countries, advertising and promotion are considered highly entertaining 
 and without bias. 
 
 The channel of communication is broadly dichotomized as significative 
 and symbolic communication following Howard and Sheth (1969), We 
 think the traditional channel classification - print, broadcast, 
 outdoors - is less meaningful in c7"oss-culturai context due to vast 
 technological, legal, moral and economic differences among countries 
 which limit the scope of various channels of communication. Significative 
 cominunication refars to the comxriunication about the innovation through 
 the physical product itself. The channels for such a communication are 
 free sanrples, store displays, exhibitions, trade fairs and the like. 
 As Howard and Sheth (1969s Chapter 9) point out the advantage of the 
 significative communication is that it enables the buyer to utilize 
 all of his five senses in evaluating the product. Symbolic communication 
 on the other hand, is limited to linguistic and pictorial representation. 
 The typical channels are the mass media for symbolic coumunication 
 
-17- 
 
 although more subtle forms include direct mail, leaflets and packaging 
 information* The buyer can receive symbolic information only through 
 a combination of the two senses of vision and hearing. 
 
 We believe that symbolic communication is further limited by 
 the problems of linguistic representation in cross-cultural marketing 
 because languages differ substantially in their encoding abilities. 
 In short, we think significative communication, when possible, is 
 likely to prove superior^ in the cross-cultural context of marketing* 
 
 The content of communication consists of a number of characteristics 
 of an innovation which have been found to be critical in the success 
 or failure of that innovation. Rural Sociology abounds with research 
 evidence and is neatly summarized by Rogers and Shoemaker (1971)* 
 Based upon this research, we have included five characteristics as 
 content variables: relative advantage, cotq)atibility, coqplexity, 
 trialability, and observability of Innovation. Relative advantage 
 is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the 
 product or service it supercedes in terms of economic, social or 
 physical consequences arising from consumption* Compatibility is 
 the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent 
 with the existing values, past experiences and needs of the customers. 
 Complexity is the degree to which the innovation is perceived as 
 difficult to understand and use, Trialability is the degree to which 
 it may be experimented with on a limited basis. Finally, observability 
 is the degree to which the consequences of the innovation are visible 
 to others (Rogers and Shoemaker 1971, pp. 22-23), 
 
 As an input variable we are not in a position at this time to 
 explain its structure and changes in a specific communication. To 
 

 5* 
 
-18- 
 
 that extent, it is also an exogeneous variable, 
 5, Cognitive Distortion refers to the process of decoding the 
 communication about innovation and making sense of the information 
 in such a way as to be conrdstent with other knowledge about the 
 innovation and related alternatives* 
 
 It represents both qvcrtzitativ'.i and qualitative changes individuals 
 make in order to con^jrehencl and sasiriilate infoitriatloa, U'e include 
 selective attention, exposure and retention as part of cognitive distortion. 
 The outcome of this cognitive distortion can be visualized as stiicalus- 
 as-coded (s-a-c) which when compared to the actual stimulus represents 
 the magnitude of distortion, Stimuius-as-coded may vary with respect 
 to both the denotative and connotative meaning of information 
 communicated about the innovation as part of cognitive distortion. 
 
 There are strong cross-cultural differpncss in the magnitude 
 (level) and variability of cognitive distortion due to at least four 
 exogeneous variables (DeVos and Hippler 1959; French 1963), The first 
 exogeneous variable is language. It is argued that both vocabulary 
 and syntactic structux'e of a langu? ^e govern the process of thinking 
 to a significant degree, "^ome have evan suggested that the more readily 
 codable a specific experience or Ir-ehavior, the crore readily it can be 
 communicated and tri-? ' • "-•'-i-i-. Finally, there is recently considerable 
 effort to understa.nd the effect of language on thought processes by 
 way of "emic" (content and meaning as experienced by the participants 
 in a culture) and "etic" (outside normative impositions on cultural 
 distinctions) approaches, 
 
 A second exogeneous variable is familiarity. The more familiar 
 the product class to a culture, the less will be the cognitive distortion 
 of communication about the innovation, A third exogeneous variable 
 
-19- 
 
 is tentative and has a controversial history. It is the concept of 
 animism proposed by Piaget (1952), Animism refers to concrete 
 thinking or experiencial thinking often found in children by which 
 the individual tends to vitalize inanimate objects. A number of 
 anthropologists have believed that animistic thinking is more prevalent 
 in primitive societies whereas, abstract thinking is more prevalent 
 in mature societies. The reader is also urged to carefully review 
 Bruner, Olver, and Greenfield (1966) for a critical analysis of 
 Piaget* s theory in cross-cultural context. 
 
 The fourth exogeneous variable is education. Although, there is 
 very little cross-cultural research on the influence of education in 
 cognitive processes, we believe it is an in5)ortant variable because 
 of strong differences in literacy levels of countries. Presumably, 
 the cognitive distortion is likely to be less in a more educated 
 society than in a less educated society holding other factors constant. 
 
 In addition to the four exogeneous variables, there is a feedback 
 effect on cognitive distortion from propensity to change. The greater 
 the interest in a change, the less .•?iil he. cognitive distortion. 
 6. Evaluatio n of Inr.ovaticn is another central construct in our 
 theory. It refers to the degree of perceived instrumentality the 
 innovation offers to a culture in satisfaction of its wants, needs 
 and desires in a specific product class. We presume that each innovation 
 can be profiled from the point of \'iew of consumers in a country with 
 respect to the five basic characteristics of innovations, namely 
 relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and 
 observability. 
 
-20- 
 
 A positive or negative evaluation of the innovation is directly 
 related to three factors: Propensity To Change, Cultural Life Style 
 and Coraraunication About Innovation, The greater the Propensity lo 
 Change, the more positive will be the evaluation of the innovation. 
 The more congruent the innovation to Cultural Life Style the more 
 positively it will be evaluated by the culture. Finally, the 
 communication efforts of the MNC or other sources can bias the positive 
 evaluation of the innovation. 
 
 Once again, we believe that these three variables are compensatory 
 in their relationship. However, the Propensity To Change and Cultural 
 Life Style may be correlated predictors and hence entail the multi- 
 collinearity problem, 
 
 7, Cognitive Sea.rch is the active seeking of information the customers 
 manifest between the time they are aware of the existence of an 
 innovation and the decision to adopt it. Cognitive Search is directly 
 controlled by Evaluation of Innovation, The greater the ambiguity of 
 evaluation, the more will be Cognitive Search, Second, the greater 
 the mixture of positive and negative aspects of evaluation, the more 
 will be the presence of conflict (approach-avoidance tjrpe) and greater 
 will be the search effort to resolve the conflict. Finally, Cognitive 
 Search will be activated by Adoption Tendency which will be explained 
 later. 
 
 Cognitive Search may lead the customers to active seek further 
 information either from the input variables or from opinion leaders 
 in the country, 
 
 8, A doption Tendency refers to the liklihood of the culture adopting 
 
-21- 
 
 the innovation within & prespecified tirae. It reflects the psychological 
 commitment on the part of the consumers to either accept or reject the 
 innovation. 
 
 Adoption Tendency is primarily a function of the profile difference 
 between evaluation of the innovation and the alternative it is likely 
 to replace. This profile difference is with respect to the five 
 characteristics of innovations we discussed above. The greater the 
 difference favoring the innovation, the more likely will the culture 
 commit itself to adopt it. If the positive difference is with respect 
 to all the five characteristics, the diffusion time of the innovation 
 will be very short. On the other hand, if the positive difference is only 
 with respect to some of the characteristics, there will be an incubation 
 period during which the country will nmnifest Cognitive Search from 
 outside sources. 
 
 Positive difference alone, however, is not sufficient to generate 
 psychological comiaitment toward the innovation. We have isolated three 
 exogeneous variables which are likely to inhibit Adoption Tendency. The 
 first is per capita income of the country. Even though the innovation 
 may be highly favored and superior ':o existing alternatives, it may 
 not be adopted at all or adoted very slowly if the economic resources 
 of people are scarce. Similarly, a highly favored innovation may not 
 diffuse as rapidly due to the lack of proper marketing institutions 
 especially with respect to distribution and communication. We are all 
 aware of the acute problems of distribution in the rural areas of less 
 developed countries. Finally, the more value a culture places on time 
 as the scarce resource, the more rapid a diffusion the innovation will 
 experience. This is especially true of innovations which are based on 
 technological breakthroughs. 
 
■22- 
 
 9, Adoption is the actual assimilation of the innovation into a 
 culture on a permanent basis, Ic can be gauged by the level of 
 saturation of the innovation in the country. 
 
 Adoption is the consequence of Adoption Tendency, However, we 
 presume that the consumers in a country- try the new product or service 
 on a limited basis especially those who are the innovators or the gate 
 keepers and assess the impact of innovation on the culture. If this 
 assessment is negative, the innovation will not be adopted. On the 
 other hand, a positive assessment by a small number of people in the 
 country will determine the possibility of permanent adoption by the 
 culture. Murdoch (1965) refers to this as process of social acceptance. 
 
 Even if the innovation is given a go ahead by the gate keepers 
 of the society, it may not be fully adopted by the country due to a 
 number of nonpredictable situational factors. These factors are too 
 many and too randor.i to systematically sort them out and typologize. 
 However, we include a aumber of ad hoc events such as natural disasters, 
 war, government turnover, and the like, 
 
 10, Co nsaquences . Adoption if innovations entail Co nsequences for the 
 culture, i^e have shovm thit es the feedback effects on Cultural Life 
 Style, E-v'aluation of Inno\-3i:ion .^nd Generalized Opinion Leadership, 
 The feedback effect on Evaluation of Innovation is more based on the 
 tradition of cognitive dis^rnance, Th<^ feedback effect of adoption on 
 Cultural Life Styl --■ ' Generalized Opinion Leadership (and, therefore, 
 on Propensity To Cbjinge) can best be characterized as process of cultural 
 change , Murdock (19S5) has provided an exhaustive classification of 
 
 the process of cultural change vrhich v/e believe is relevant to the 
 research on cross-cultural buyer behavior, Murdock distinguishes 
 
-23- 
 
 four different types of innovations: 
 
 a* Variation when the innovation represents a slight modification 
 of preexisting habits* This is exemplified by the introduction 
 of a new brand or a new packagG, Howard and Sheth (1969) call 
 this a minor innovation, 
 
 b. Invention v;hen the innovation involves transfer of elements 
 of habitual behavior from one situational context to another, 
 
 or their combination into new syntheses. Most of the technological 
 breakthroughs which have created new tj^es within a product class 
 fall into this category, Howard and Sheth call these as normal 
 innovations, 
 
 c. Tentation are altogether new product classes and generate new 
 habits. There is little or no continuity with the past in this 
 
 type of innovation. Howard and Sheth call this as major innovations, 
 
 d. Cultural Borrowing when existing habits of one culture are 
 transferred to other cultures. Cultural borrowing is by far the 
 most conimon practice among the MNCs, There is no comparable 
 classification in Howard-Sheth Theory, 
 
 ^* I ntegration when related habits are also adopted as part of 
 the derived deriard resulting from some major innovation. For 
 example, the introduction of television, automobile, computers 
 and air travel in less dcvp.loped countries have brought about 
 demand for related goods and services. 
 
-24- 
 
 Summary Statement 
 
 We have described in a very brief way a comprehensive theory of 
 cross-cultural buyer behavior. The the»jry is our first serious attempt 
 to integrate research from anthropology and diffusion theory and apply it 
 to the area of cross-cultural buyer behavior. This is, therefore, not 
 our final draft but only a preliminary draft. We hope it generates 
 Interest among our colleagues so that we may revise it and make it rigorous 
 based on their comments and criticism. 
 
-25- 
 
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