Summery
“How cultural differences in uncertainty avoidance affect product perceptions”
This summery starts with describing the purpose of the research, second it will mention the hypothesis. The summarized research exist from two studies, the studies will be described and the results will be mentioned. Finally the managerial implications will be summarized.
The purpose of this article is to do research on the relation between uncertainty avoidance in a country and the product uncertainty the citizens accept. Product uncertainty is negatively related to the perceived quality en behavioural intentions. The article creates new knowledge on the subject of the introduction of brands in new markets and whether a market is willing to accept easily a new product. On this subject there has not been done research before.
There are three hypothesis in this research:
Hypothesis 1a: There is a negative relationship between product uncertainty and quality judgements.
When people are uncertain about a product they think the quality is lower.
Hypothesis 1b: There is a negative relationship between product uncertainty and behavioural intentions.
When people are uncertain about a product they have less purchase intentions.
Hypothesis 2: Product uncertainty and uncertainty avoidance will interact such that there will be no differences in quality judgements and behavioural intentions when product uncertainty is low but when product uncertainty is high, people from high uncertainty avoidance countries will have less positive quality judgements and behavioural intentions than people from low uncertainty avoidance countries.
Everyone likes to takes as less risks as possible, so the researchers expect no difference, but when it comes to taking risks the cultures were people avoid uncertainty are less likely to buy the product and, think it is of lower quality.
Hypothesis 3: Consumers with less experience in a product category will be more strongly influenced by uncertainty avoidance in their judgements of high product uncertainty offerings, than those with more experience.
The knowledge can take away a part of the uncertainty.
The first study
The design of the first study was an experiment through a personal interview. The first two hypothesis are tested. The experiment existed from four advertisements, one with Russian vodka, one with Japanese vodka, one with a Russian camera and one with a Japanese camera. So it included two products that are connected with a country (low product uncertainty), and two products with a high product uncertainty. There were 224 valid responses. The respondents were students from a diverse American campus. There were from 22 countries, 6 with a high uncertainty avoidance and 16 with low uncertainty avoidance. The students was showed randomly one of the four advertisements and were asked to answer several questions about the quality of the product and the purchase intentions. To analyse the results they used an ANOVA analysis.
The results
Hypothesis 1a was accepted, the products with a low uncertainty had a higher perceived quality in both categories of uncertainty avoidance. Hypothesis 1b was accept for one part. Cultures that are high and low on uncertainty avoidance both prefer products with a low uncertainty, but the preference for high product uncertainty is higher with the cultures that have a low product uncertainty. Hypothesis 2 is accepted for the part of the quality judgements.
The second study
The second study tested hypothesis 2 and 3. The research design was a large scale survey with 13319 respondents in 10 different countries. They did research at six different product categories, shoes, wine, thee, beer, computers and 35 mm cameras, herewith they choose products that were closely related to the home country and products with a strong original country. They also asked the respondents to there experience with the product. To analyse the results they used a hierarchical binary regression analyses.
The results
The results of study 2 confirm hypothesis 2 for 5 out of 6 product categories. The hypothesis 2 is confirmed for experienced groups and inexperienced groups. The third hypothesis was also accepted. Less experienced customers in uncertainty avoidance countries were most influenced.
Managerial implications
The implications for marketing managers are that customers think that products with a low uncertainty have a higher quality. This effect is stronger for customers form countries that have a high uncertainty avoidance. The suggestion of the researchers is that a brand should introduce a new product first in a country that is has a low uncertainty avoidance and afterwards introduce it in the countries that have a high uncertainty avoidance and use in the marketing the introduction of the product in this first country.