The Effects of Cultural Adaptation on Business Relationships: Americans Selling to Japanese and Thais

A 2 × 4 (culture of participants × degrees of cultural adaptation) experimental design with 145 Thai and 101 Japanese professionals is used to investigate the effect of cultural adaptation on attraction and outcomes when Americans adapt to Japanese and Thais. This study extends the research of Francis (1991). The curvilinear relationship between adaptation and attraction found in Francis is not replicated. For Thais, the relationship appears monotonic positive. For Japanese, it reaches a plateau beyond moderate adaptation.© 1999 JIBS. Journal of International Business Studies (1999) 30, 317–337

The effectiveness of cultural adaptation : Americans selling to Japanese and Thais

A 2 x 4 factorial design (cultural dyads x levels of cultural adaptation) is used to investigate the effect of cultural adaptation on attraction, outcomes, perceived compliment, and perceived trustworthiness when Americans sell to Japanese and Thais. This dissertation extends the research of Francis (1989, 1991) by taking into account the influence of collectivism, perceived status differential, similarity-attraction, and social identity. The curvilinear relationship found by Francis to exist between cultural adaptation and attraction when Japanese adapt to American norms and behaviors is not replicated by the experiments. Both Thai and Japanese subjects generally perceive Americans as having a higher status than themselves. They are not threatened by Americans’ adaptation to their cultural norms and practices. For Thai subjects, the relationship between cultural adaptation and attraction, outcomes, and perceived compliment appears to be monotonic positive. For Japanese subjects, the relationship reaches a plateau beyond moderate adaptation. The no adaptation condition is rated lower in perceived trustworthiness than is the substantial adaptation condition in both the Thai and the Japanese experiments, contradicting the findings of Francis.Business, Sauder School ofMarketing, Division ofGraduat

Transcultural properties of the Composite Scale of Morningness: The relevance of the "morning affect" factor

Morningness scales have been translated into several languages, but it lack of normative data and methodological differences make cross-cultural comparisons difficult. This study examines the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM) in samples from five countries: France (n = 627), Italy (n, = 702), Spain (n = 391), Thailand (n. = 503), and Australia (17 = 654). Strong national differences are identified. A quadratic relationship between age and CSM total score was apparent in the Australian data with a downward trend after age 35 yrs. There was no age effect in air), sample in the range from 18 to 29 yrs. Factor analysis identified a three-factor solution in all groups for both men and women. Tucker's congruence coefficients indicate that: (1) this solution is highly congruent between sexes in each culture, and (2) a morning affect factor is highly congruent between cultures. These results indicate there are national differences in factorial structure and that cut-off scores used to categorize participants as morning- and evening-types should be established for different cultural and age groups