A Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods for the Cross-National Measurement of Consumers’ National Values

Abstract

Establishing results that are comparable across national entities is the core objective in cross-national marketing research. However certain national idiosyncrasies may hamper cross-national research endeavours.Consequently certain aspects or constructs may be unique to a particular country or expressed in a significantly different way. Therefore different measurement methods and instruments are needed in different countries and this will limit the cross-national comparability of respective results. In the social sciences two approaches have been introduced in order to cope with the dilemma. The two approaches can be seen as two extremes on the continuum of cross-national research methodology. The ernie school of thought, which states that attitudinal and behavioral phenomena are unique to a culture and the etic approach, which is basically concerned with the identification and assessment of universal, culture-free measures.