Piotr Chelminski and Robin A. Coulter
Executive Summary
On a daily basis, millions of consumers worldwide experience dissatisfaction with products and services. Nonetheless, a majority of consumers who experience problems do not complain (i.e., voice) to the company at fault. As a consequence, firms are often unaware of consumer dissatisfaction and ultimately lose many customers to competitors. With globalization and the diversity of cultural values, it is important to consider voicing in a global context. In this article, Chelminski and Coulter examine the conceptual and empirical relationships between cultural individualism, self-confidence, and propensity to voice (i.e., the inclination to complain directly to a business or salesperson), providing important implications for organizations serving culturally diverse consumer groups.
Chelminski and Coulter examine the underlying conceptual framework related to the effect of cultural individualism on propensity to voice and the mediating effect of self-confidence. They conducted their research in the United States and South Korea, two countries that historically have differed on the individualism dimension of culture. Their empirical work demonstrates cross-cultural measurement invariance for the measures, treats cultural individualism as an individual difference variable, and conducts pancountry, intracountry, and cross-country analyses using structural equation modeling. Across data from both countries, they document that greater cultural individualism and self-confidence facilitate propensity to voice, and that self-confidence mediates the relationship between cultural individualism and propensity to voice. Thus, regardless of whether a person’s national culture is more or less individualistic, less confident consumers are less likely to complain to companies.
Chelminski and Coulter’s findings have important managerial implications. First, encouragement of voicing is necessary, not only in countries such as the United States, which has its low complaining rates but also, and perhaps even more critically, in the less individualistic societies or consumer groups. Second, managers need to design strategies to empower consumers to reduce any perceived risks associated with voicing. Firms need to convince customers they want to hear and not hide from complaints and that everyone’s opinions provide valuable information to the firm. Publicizing better practices that have been put into place as a consequence of consumers offering feedback would help communicate that consumers’ opinions matter and have the potential to yield improved products, services, and processes. Collaborative efforts between firms and governmental entities may also facilitate voicing related to negative service encounters, shoddy marketing practices, and experiences with unsafe or low-quality products. The effective management of consumer voicing has many desirable outcomes for a firm, such as increased satisfaction, diminished negative word of mouth, and long-term loyalty.
Biography
Piotr Chelminski (PhD, University of Connecticut) is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Providence College School of Business. Dr. Chelminski’s current research interests include cross-cultural consumer behavior, with specific emphasis on consumer complaining behavior and consumer information sharing. Dr. Chelminski is also interested in the methodological challenges of cross-cultural research—especially, measurement equivalence and application of multigroup structural equation models in the cross-cultural research context. His research on various international marketing topics has been published in Psychology and Marketing, Advances in Consumer Research, Journal for Global Business Advancement, Journal of East-West Business, and several other publications. Dr. Chelminski has also presented his studies at several academic conferences in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Robin A. Coulter (PhD, University of Pittsburgh) is Professor of Marketing and Ackerman Scholar at the University of Connecticut School of Business. Her research interests focus on cross-cultural consumer behavior, branding, advertising effects, services marketing, and research methods. She has published in various marketing and social science journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, International Journal for Research in Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Applied Psychology. Dr. Coulter has served as a consultant to Olson Zaltman Associates, New York Life Investment Management, Procter & Gamble, and Astra Zeneca.
Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 15, No. 4, December 2007
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