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Two Essays on the Consumer Acculturation Process – a Need for and Development of a Consumer Acculturation Measure Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration College of Business (Strome) Summer 2019 Two Essays on the Consumer Acculturation Process – A Need for and Development of a Consumer Acculturation Measure Kristina Marie Harrison Old Dominion University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/businessadministration_etds Part of the Marketing Commons Recommended Citation Harrison, Kristina M.. "Two Essays on the Consumer Acculturation Process – A Need for and Development of a Consumer Acculturation Measure" (2019). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dissertation, , Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/ttw1-hs11 https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/businessadministration_etds/122 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Business (Strome) at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i TWO ESSAYS ON THE CONSUMER ACCULTURATION PROCESS – A NEED FOR AND DEVELOPMENT OF A CONSUMER ACCULTURATION MEASURE By Kristina Marie Harrison MBA, May 2015, George Mason University B.Sc., May 2008, Virginia Tech Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Old Dominion University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIONS – MARKETING OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY AUGUST 2019 Approved by: Dr. John Ford (Director) Dr. Kiran Karande (Member) Dr. Altaf Merchant (Member) Dr. Weiyong Zhang (Member) ii ABSTRACT TWO ESSAYS ON THE CONSUMER ACCULTURATION PROCESS Kristina Marie Harrison Old Dominion University, 2019 Director: Dr. John Ford The United States is becoming increasingly multi-cultural and there are various new immigrant consumer groups that businesses try to reach through ethnic-based segmentation and targeting. Often, businesses offer accommodation strategies to their ethnic consumer groups through language or other cultural accommodation tactics. There are inconsistencies in the literature for the efficacy of ethnic-based targeting and accommodation strategies: often these do not have the desired results and there is evidence that ethnic identification may be fading over time for many immigrant groups. There is evidence that acculturation may be a better predictor of consumer behavior such as preferences for brand, services, and/or marketing communications. Acculturation is the adoption by a person or group of the culture of another social group, or the process leading to acculturation, and assimilation is the complete adoption so that a person has left behind their former culture. There are various existing measurement tools to identify an individual’s level of acculturation; however, there are concerns with the existing tools. All but one measurement tool treat acculturation as a reflective scale, all view acculturation as a one-time event, and the tools have been largely developed for specific contexts such as mental healthcare. Also, many scales lump all ethnicities into one group such as the Suinn-Lew Asian Acculturation Measurement iii Scale, and this presents theoretical cultural concerns. The difficulty is that the acculturation process involves both formative and reflective components, and it is a process which can change over time. Through conducting two qualitative studies with 57 participants on both the east and west coasts of the country (Virginia, New York, and California), we found that in order to effectively examine acculturation, there must first be a desire or propensity to assimilate and then that propensity in turn will influence actual acculturation behaviors. Through two separate studies we then developed (N=222) and validated (N=248) a parsimonious propensity to assimilate index. Testing it in a nomological net (N=504), we found that the index causally influences subsequent acculturation behaviors, cultural orientations, and brand preferences. To develop the index, we used Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer’s (2001) index-development protocols. We also adapted existing Asian context acculturation measures using the Churchilll (1979) scale-development ptotocols (N=222 for the EFA and N=504 for the CFA). In order to eliminate cultural confounding effects, we kept our sample to the Chinese culture and used only Chinese immigrants and first- and second-generation Chinese Americans. All data was collected by Qualtrics panels and included strong quality control measures. The index and scale were developed, refined, and tested in a nomological net, and the index was reduced to three items and the scale was refined to ten items. Antecedents to someone’s propensity to assimilate are cosmopolitanism, age, and generational status. Through testing in structural equation modeling in AMOS, we show that the index influences an individual’s acculturation behaviors, brand preferences, and cultural orientations. Additionally, strength of ethnic identity is a moderator in the theoretical model with stronger ethnic identity weakening the relationship between an individual’s propensity to assimilate and their acculturation behaviors. We found that the higher iv an individual’s propensity to assimilate, the more likely they are to prefer American-made brands. The insights from this research will help marketing managers better understand, segment, and target their consumers’ propensity to assimilate and subsequent acculturation behaviors. Future research may examine the predictive capacity of the propensity to assimilate index vs. the acculturation behavior scale; explore the acculturation behavior segmentation categories; examine other outcomes such as purchase intentions; and conduct experiments on the index’s ability to predict consumer’s preferences for advertisements, sales personnel, products, and desired aspects of services encounters. v Copyright, 2019, by Kristina Marie Harrison, All Rights Reserved. vi DEDICATION To my mom and dad, Kathryn and Timothy Harrison, who without their continual love and support, none of my successes in life would have been possible. vii ACKNOWLEGEMENT I have many individuals that I would like to thank for the knowledge, support, and experience I gained throughout the doctoral program at Old Dominion University. First, I would like to thank Dr. John Ford for his tireless dedication and support for this dissertation as well as his guidance throughout the doctoral program. He is a great researcher, mentor, and instructor and without his support, none of this would have been possible. I would also like to thank my entire dissertation committee whose support and guidance greatly contributed to this dissertation, Dr. Kiran Karande, Dr. Altaf Merchant, and Dr. Weiyong Zhang. This dissertation was a great experience because of my committee and each member played an integral role in offering feedback or being available to offer help and answer questions. I sincerely appreciated everyone’s efforts to continually communicate with me through this process. I realize I am very fortunate in having an extremely talented and dedicated committee. Additionally, I would like to thank Katrina Davenport for her role in providing emotional and administrative support throughout my entire time in the doctoral program as I don’t know what I would have done without her help. I would also like to thank all the faculty, staff, and classmates who I had the pleasure of interacting with and learning from during my time at Old Dominion University. My experience was rich and diverse, and while sometimes I experienced challenges, it made this journey more valuable. I am also grateful for the support of my friends and family who continually uplifted me and encouraged me onwards. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………...X LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………...…………………………………….XII 1. ESSAY ONE: The Consumer Acculturation Process: A Theoretical Framework on Immigrant Consumers’ Acculturation …………………………………………………………………….1 1.1. INTRODUCTION……………...........................................................................................2 1.2. ACCULTURAITON THEORIES………………………………………………………...7 1.3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL..................................................................................................11 1.4. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS………………………………………………….40 2. TRANSITION TO ESSAY TWO: How Can Service Firms Successfully Segment Consumers Culturally? ………………………………………………………………………...………….44 3. ESSAY TWO: Development and Testing of a Propensity to Assimilate Index, an Adapted Acculturation Behavior Scale, and Testing Both in a Nomological Net……………………...60 3.1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………60 3.2. THE PROPENSITY TO ASSIMILATE CONSTRUCT – GROUNDED THEORY QUALITATIVE FINDINGS………………………………...………………………………..69 3.3 ITEM GENERATION FOR INDEX DEVELOPMENT AND SCALE ADAPTATION……………………………………………………………………………….87 3.4 REFINEMENT OF THE INDEX………………………………………………………...95 3.5 INDEX VALIDATION…………………………………………………………………..99 3.6 SCALE ADAPATATION………………………………………………………………101 3.7 PLACE IN NOMOLOGICAL NET AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT…………111 3.8 TESTING OF THE NOMOLOGICAL NET……………………………………………125 ix 3.9 FINDINGS…………………………………………………………………………….133 3.10 DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………………...138 3.11 MANAGERIAL INSIGHTS AND FUTURE RESEARCH…………………………139 3.12 SUMMARY OF ESSAY ONE AND ESSAY TWO…………………………………144 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………......147 APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………………164 VITA………………………………………………………………………………………..258
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