About AMA

Executive Summary
In this study, Dwyer, Mesak, and Hsu explore the influence of national culture on the cross-national diffusion of technological innovations. Firms are increasingly pursuing new sales opportunities in foreign countries. Accordingly, it has become important to determine how consumers in different countries respond to new product introductions. A product that experiences rapid acceptance in one country may take a longer time to penetrate another. Insights into when and, more important, why such varied outcomes occur are especially critical to the globalizing firm. Diffusion studies at the cross-national level can provide such insight into these considerations.

Dwyer, Mesak, and Hsu focus on the diffusion rates of seven technological innovations of relatively high purchase value among 13 European countries over periods that ranged from 8 to 20 years. They examine the influence that national culture, a fundamental factor that distinguishes the consumers of one country from those of another, exerts on these diffusion rates. National culture has been shown to have considerable influence on consumer behavior. This study applies an approach to national culture that recognizes and measures the multidimensional aspects of countries’ cultures. Dwyer, Mesak, and Hsu assess the cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance, individualism–collectivism, masculinity, power distance, and long-term/short-term orientation. These dimensions largely account for cross-cultural differences in people’s values, beliefs, and behavior patterns worldwide.

Dwyer, Mesak, and Hsu find support that links four of the cultural dimensions—individualism, masculinity, power distance, and long-term orientation—to cross-national product diffusion. More specifically, the cultural dimensions of masculinity and power distance are positively associated with diffusion rates, whereas the dimensions of individualism and long-term orientation are negatively related to diffusion rates. In addition, culture exerts a relatively high level of overall influence on diffusion; indeed, more than 50% of the products’ diffusion rates can be attributed to the influence of culture alone. This figure underscores the critical role of national culture appears in the diffusion process.

This study makes a significant contribution because it is among the first to support national culture’s direct influence on product diffusion. Furthermore, the results have considerable managerial significance and offer marketing managers prescriptive guidance with respect to product launch strategies, which are a central determinant of new product success. Focusing specifically on the “where” of the key strategic launch decisions, this study suggests that, ideally, an innovation should be introduced first in countries that are high in collectivism (e.g., South Korea), short-term oriented (e.g., the United States), high in masculinity (e.g., Japan), and/or high in power distance (e.g., France). This would enhance the product’s diffusion rate relative to that of individualist, long-term-oriented, low-masculinity, and low-power-distance cultures. 

This study’s outcomes also provide additional tactical implications with respect to the marketing mix—the “how” of product launch decisions—to facilitate the adoption of innovations by consumers. Marketing management efforts, particularly with respect to promotion, should be focused on and should communicate to the core cultural values that each target country possesses, whether it is individualism, masculinity, power distance, long-term orientation, or some combination of these cultural dimensions. By focusing on these core values, marketing efforts can be leveraged to achieve more rapid consumer adoption of the newly introduced product. In this regard, Dwyer, Mesak, and Hsu conclude by providing global marketers specific marketing examples linked to each of the cultural dimensions.

Biography
Sean Dwyer received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, his MBA from New York University, and his doctoral degree from the University of Alabama. His interests combine his experience in personal selling and his academic background in international marketing. He worked for ten years in industry, during which he held such positions as business broker for VR Business Brokers, financial planner and sales trainer for American Express Financial Advisors, and associate investment manager for Prudential Capital Corporation. His areas of research include international marketing, cross-cultural/global selling, sales force productivity, and cultural diversity. Dwyer has published in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, among others. His consulting experience is in the area of market research and analysis.

Maxwell K. Hsu received his doctoral degree from Louisiana Tech University in 1999 and is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business and Economics at University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. He received the 1999 and 2002 Distinguished Paper Awards from the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educator conference, Best Paper in Sales Track from the 2001 Society of Marketing Advances conference, and the Best Paper Award from the 2000 ACME International Conference of Pacific Rim Management. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than a dozen academic journals, such as Applied Economics Letters, Information & Management, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, and Journal of Services Marketing, among others. His areas of research interest include diffusion of innovations, international marketing, services marketing, and information technology.

Hani I. Mesak is State Farm Endowed Professor and Professor of Quantitative Analysis in the College of Administration and Business at Louisiana Tech University. He earned a doctoral degree in Operations Research from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. His main two research streams focus on the modeling of advertising pulsation decisions and the conceptualization and measurement of the consumer adoption process of technological innovations. He has published in a variety of journals, including Management Science, Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, and Decision Sciences.