Multicultural Marketplace Research Articles

Exploring AI's Role in Supporting Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives in Multicultural Marketplaces

This paper explores the relationship between diversity, inclusion, and artificial intelligence (AI) in multicultural workplaces and markets. Growing recognition of the value of diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives is changing organizational practices globally. Despite progress, challenges such as unconscious bias, resistance to change, and difficulty in measuring progress still exist.This study is based on a comprehensive literature review that adheres to academic ethical standards. These findings highlight the potential of AI to improve recruitment processes, personalize marketing strategies, and develop inclusive technologies. However, challenges such as bias in AI algorithms and limited data diversity need to be addressed.The paper emphasizes the need for ethical AI frameworks, diverse representation in AI development, and transparency in the use of AI to promote justice. AI has the potential to foster a more equitable society by encouraging diversity and inclusion. Further research is needed to explore the long-term impact of AI on diversity and inclusion and to develop ethical AI frameworks tailored to different industries and cultural contexts.The study also explores how AI can support D&I initiatives by providing data-driven insights, automating processes, and offering personalized interventions to reduce bias and increase inclusivity. By reviewing recent research and case studies, this paper offers practical recommendations for leveraging AI in D&I efforts, aiming to build a more inclusive and equitable workplace culture.

The Dubious Nature of the Buying Power and Discretionary Income of the Multicultural Marketplace: The Case and a Model for Multicultural Spending

The Dubious Nature of the Buying Power and Discretionary Income of the Multicultural Marketplace: The Case and a Model for Multicultural Spending

Looking for negativity! How review sentiment and review subjectivity form review helpfulness across cultures

AbstractNowadays, many consumers rely heavily on product reviews before making decisions; however, not all reviews are similar in terms of sentiment and helpfulness. Moreover, reviewers' linguistic styles vary according to their culture. Although various multinational companies such as eBay and Amazon operate worldwide, little research has been devoted to understanding how review sentiment influences the subjectivity and helpfulness of product reviews in a multicultural marketplace. Therefore, the present research identifies how review subjectivity explains the relationship between review sentiment and review helpfulness in individualistic (i.e., the U.S.) and collectivistic (i.e., India) cultures. By means of two studies, the first using secondary data collected from Amazon.com and the second a controlled experiment setting, we find that review subjectivity mediates the influence of review sentiments only in individualistic cultures such as the U.S., but not in collectivistic cultures like India. Furthermore, we find that the moderated mediation is evident only when comparing positive and negative sentiments. This research has implications for academic and industry practitioners in terms of incorporating culture in decisions on review helpfulness.

Untangling Ethnoracial Underrepresentation in Adland: The Role of Political Bias and the Potential of Multicultural Education

Abstract: The United States advertising workforce remains predominantly White with only slight gains in ethnic/racial demographics over the decades. Cultural intelligence is invaluable in the rapidly diversifying US populace; the advertising industry could benefit from a workforce that fully represents the communities they serve. This inquiry seeks to understand why meaningful change is difficult, what factors are involved, and how advertising educators can assist in diversification efforts. Our national survey of US advertising professionals in all fifty states probed topics including the talent pipeline, benefits of diversity, valued skill sets, and political ideology for this study. Findings revealed differences in how self-identified conservatives and liberals viewed these topics, providing a relevant but rarely explored lens. One ideology emerged as more resistant to change, aligning with neuroscience studies addressing unconscious bias as associated with political ideology. Findings also correlate with another study that finds political ideology is indeed a factor in perceptions of ethnic/racial diversity. How political ideology affects diversity in the advertising industry deserves further research. Contact hypothesis suggests educators can counterbalance unconscious bias through multicultural education. Recommendations include a review of multicultural education approaches to update programs with cultural intelligence. The implication is that advertising educators can better equip the next generation for a multicultural marketplace while creating a path for consequential diversification in the advertising workforce.

Local consumer well‐being in a multicultural marketplace: From conflict to engagement

AbstractThis study offers a nuanced understanding of how local consumers experience, interpret and acculturate to expatriates' practices within a multicultural marketplace. We adopt Demangeot et al. bridge framework and its marketplace domains (security, visibility, opportunity, utility, intercultural competence and cultural navigability) to unpack locals' consumption patterns and experiences that produce multicultural tensions or multicultural engagement that contributes to locals' well‐being. Data were collected via 2 focus groups and 20 in‐depth interviews with local consumers in Qatar. The findings offer several theoretical and managerial insights that could enrich the scant literature on acculturation of local minorities within multicultural non‐homogenous societies and enhance our understanding of how local consumers engage with culturally different experiences.

A Multicontextual Lens on Racism and Discrimination in the Multicultural Marketplace

This article highlights the generative properties of context for consumer experiences of racism and discrimination. Drawing from conceptualizations of context in social anthropology and human geography, it develops a framework to systematically catalogue intersections of various micro- and macrosocial contexts that configure within and across marketplace geographies and inform racism and discrimination. The framework is applied to an integrative review of studies on marketplace racism and discrimination. The review illuminates that (1) application of intersectional perspectives varies significantly across cultural difference dimensions, (2) knowledge is clustered within specific microsocial context expressions of cultural difference dimensions, (3) studies intersecting micro- and macrosocial expressions commonly reveal underexplored discrimination instances, and (4) knowledge on macrosocial contextual forces significantly lacks non-Western perspectives. Drawing on the review findings, a list of areas of advancement for future scholarship is presented, along with recommendations for marketing practitioners acting toward identifying, understanding, and counteracting racism and discrimination.

Research areas in consumer vulnerability a systematic literature review

Consumer Vulnerability is a phenomenon used to explain the powerlessness of consumers in marketplace interactions. Comprehension of different areas of vulnerabilities that consumers face in the modern marketplace is a central and broadly discussed topic in current literature. Further, the majority of current studies on Consumer Vulnerability focus on consumer demographics, such as income, age, education, minority status, and area of living. However, the field lacks studies on possible causes, victims, and effects of consumer vulnerability in consumption contexts. Thus, this systematic literature review was conducted to fill the extant knowledge gaps and identify research areas related to vulnerability with specific consumer groups and reasons. Based on a comprehensive review protocol, 60 papers selected from 750 articles, were reviewed using the mixed-method approach. Further, primary study selection was done on the grounds that the articles; were published within the 2005-2020 period, relevant to the field of Consumer Vulnerability, published in English, have more than 3 pages in the paper. The findings of the study revealed five areas of consumer vulnerability; namely, Online Consumer Vulnerability, TV Advertising and Child Consumer Vulnerability, Low literacy and Consumer Vulnerability, Older Consumer Vulnerability, and Consumer Vulnerability in the Multi-cultural marketplace. The results indicated that the impact of the internet, social media, and TV advertising on young consumer vulnerability should be studied in greater depth in future research.

Consumer animosity and perceived cultural distance: Toward mutual well‐being for refugees and host countries

AbstractGlobal migration is changing the world into multicultural marketplaces, creating challenges, and opportunities for consumers. This study examines how animosity toward refugees and Perceived Cultural Distance from them affects Lebanese consumers' service‐quality expectations and Willingness‐to‐Buy from inclusive services of Syrians forcibly displaced by war. Findings from a survey of 499 Lebanese consumers revealed that War and Economic Animosity negatively affect Lebanese consumers' Expected Service Quality when delivered by a Syrian refugee; furthermore, Perceived Cultural Distance between Lebanese and Syrians appears to negatively affect Willingness‐to‐Buy. The authors share thoughts on implications for theoretical contributions, management, and policy for reducing animosity and its harmful impact on refugees and the consumer‐citizens of their host countries. In a world of more than 80 million refugees this article offers findings and insights that may facilitate a more welcoming inclusion of refugees, in ways that contribute to consumer, marketplace, and societal well‐being.

Marketer acculturation to diversity needs: The case of modest fashion across two multicultural contexts

Intersecting neo-institutional and acculturation theory, this paper investigates how national acculturation ideologies inform attitudes towards modest fashion, comparing the United Kingdom and French contexts. Modest fashion, an emerging market phenomenon with roots in the conservative notion of ‘modesty’, has been a controversial cultural flashpoint.We analyze public discourse towards modest fashion using UK and French press media articles through content analysis. The UK press shows institutional work towards the legitimization of a modest fashion subfield, integrated within the global fashion field. The French press shows institutional work involving heterogenous actors, where modest fashion is framed as destabilizing the Western fashion field, and stigmatized. Theoretical and managerial implications are considered.Our work contributes to acculturation and multicultural marketplaces literature by showing how, in contexts that are similarly multicultural, large-scale institutions can structure markets in widely different ways, and shape the realm of opportunities for marketers to cater to minority needs.

Consumer multiculturation in multicultural marketplaces: Mexican immigrants’ responses to the global consumer culture construction of Tex-Mex as Mexican food

This study examines the consumer multiculturation of Mexican immigrants in the context of their food consumption practices in the UK multicultural marketplace. Adopting a qualitative methodology involving interviews and participant observation allows participants to share their responses to global consumer culture constructions that equate Tex-Mex with ‘authentic’ Mexican food culture. Focusing on situated, dynamic interactions among multiple cultural elements – consumers, brands, marketing ideology - within multicultural marketplaces our research contributes to the theoretical development of consumer multiculturation by: (1) broadening the concept to embrace the intercultural dynamics of production (specifically crafting); (2) conceptualising creolisation cooking practices as a contextually contingent creative, productive and tangible means through which immigrant consumers exercise agency during consumer multiculturation; and (3) identifying clarifying practices that translate immigrant consumers’ home food culture for others, simultaneously problematising the cultural meanings of globalised foreign/ethnic food brands. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications for cultural branding strategy.

Institutionalizing Diversity-and-Inclusion-Engaged Marketing for Multicultural Marketplace Well-Being

Within an institutional theory framework, this article identifies three interconnected fields of the marketing institution—research, education, and practice—that contribute to advancing the diversity and inclusion discourse in promoting multicultural marketplace well-being. Conducting three studies, one in each field and across contexts in three continents, the authors identify barriers that inhibit effective implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives in today’s multicultural marketplaces. These barriers exist within and across fields and pertain to cultural-cognitive (shared meanings), normative (normative factors), and regulatory (rules and systems) pillars supporting the existence or transformation of institutions. From the research findings, the authors provide specific guidance for institutional work within marketing’s fields and policy developments needed to advance diversity-and-inclusion-engaged marketing for enhancing multicultural marketplace well-being.

Within, in-between, out-of-bounds? Locating researcher positionalities in multicultural marketplaces

Culturally heterogenous and globally interconnected societies represent complex and fluid research fields, in which the multiple and dynamic identity affiliations of researchers intersect with those of research collaborators, contributors and with wider contextual factors. These intersections can shift and distort researchers’ cultural positionality stances. Researcher positionality dynamics and complexities thus pose unique benefits and challenges to epistemological, methodological and ethical aspects of contemporary cultural research within consumer realities. Yet, marketing and consumer research literature lacks frameworks that denote and explicate the dynamic and complex nature of researchers’ cultural positionalities. This paper examines the potential implications of cultural positionality complexity and dynamics for cultural research and develops sensitizing considerations for determining and operationalizing cultural positionalities in individual and collaborative research in multicultural marketplaces.

The Impact of Brand Transposition Strategies and Firm Type on Consumer Ratings of Brand: An Analytical Study of Cosmetic Brands

Selecting an appropriate brand transposition strategy across different language systems is crucial to a brand’s success in the multi-cultural global marketplace. Drawing upon appraisal theory and using a large data set of 3,100 real cosmetic brands and their consumer ratings in China, we analyze the effectiveness of three common brand transposition strategies across three types of firms. The results show that the brand transposition strategies differ in their effects on consumer ratings of brand, and the effects depend on the firm type (foreign, joint venture, and domestic firms). Specifically, a semantic brand transposition strategy exerts positive effects on consumer ratings of foreign brands and joint venture brands but not of domestic brands. The phonetic transposition strategy and the phonosemantic transposition strategy benefit only foreign brands, and not joint venture brands or domestic brands. To better understand brand transposition between two language systems, we also provide descriptive analyses of the transposing patterns of Chinese character usage across firm types as well as the most frequently used Chinese characters in cosmetic brand names.

Reassessing positive dispositions for the consumption of products and services with different cultural meanings: A motivational perspective

This paper offers a motivational perspective on why consumers engage with products and services assigned with diverse cultural meanings, in multicultural marketplace contexts, where interactions with multiple cultures occur routinely, voluntarily and involuntarily. It conceptualizes and empirically delineates the different motivations that underpin consumers’ positive dispositions for culturally plural consumption (PDCPC) via 31 interviews conducted in a multicultural city in the United Kingdom. It identifies three types of motivations: integrative (the desire to identify with an ideal social group or a worldview); instrumental (the desire for self-development and knowledge accumulation); and mundane (the desire for convenience). The paper extends international marketing literature on PDCPC by identifying three distinct motivations, and multicultural marketplaces literature by showing how consumers can be multiculturally adaptive for instrumental or mundane reasons. It provides insights for intercultural service encounters research into how different motivations for engagement with cultural diversity inform consumers’ perceptions of service experiences.

Ethnic marketing to the global millennial consumers: Challenges and opportunities

This paper reports on an exploratory interpretivist study of global millennial consumers' subjective interpretations of ethnic targeted marketing communications in a multicultural marketplace. Although millennials are the most ethnically diverse generational cohort that has ever existed, little is known about their interpretation of ethnicity depiction in advertising and how they draw from advertising imagery to infer their ethnic identity, social acceptance and inclusion in a culturally diverse society. Within the broader context of the global consumer culture, this paper draws on theories of social identity, persuasion and multiculturalism to investigate whether ethnic marketing is still applicable to reach the diverse millennial consumers. In-depth interviews with the photo elicitation technique were conducted with an ethnically heterogeneous sample of twenty-three millennial individuals in the UK. The findings show that ethnic millennials' multicultural identities cannot be primed through mono-ethnic targeted messages, whereas multi-ethnic embedded marketing communications provide a more effective access for the ethnically diverse millennial consumers in the modern society and can potentially be a viable solution towards enhanced wellbeing and lower prejudice. This study contributes to insights into millennial consumers' experience in the multicultural marketplace, the sociocultural meanings of ethnic advertising and the opportunities and challenges of reaching to this diverse audience.

Constructing a bridge to multicultural marketplace well-being: A consumer-centered framework for marketer action

As modern societies have become increasingly diverse, we witness elevated tensions between different cultural groups. Through spaces and representations they create, marketers provide interaction for various groups and we argue that marketing science, education and practice can play a transformative role in addressing these tensions. Towards this end, this paper contributes in three areas. First, we examine the structures and mechanisms underlying tensions and argue for a change from current policies of tolerance that merely recognize diversity, to actively seeking a well-being-enhancing multicultural engagement. Second, we provide a conceptual framework, employing a bridge metaphor that identifies the interactive marketplace domains of multicultural engagement (security, visibility, opportunity, utility, competence, and cultural navigability). Third, from the framework, we derive an agenda for actions by marketing academe and practice to support each domain.

When does uncertainty avoidance promote customer-to-customer intercultural service encounters?

PurposePrevious literature has reported inconsistent findings regarding the impact of uncertainty avoidance (UA) on intercultural experiences. This includes positive, negative and insignificant associations between UA on the one hand and cosmopolitanism or comfort with intercultural service encounters (ICSE) on the other hand. The purpose of this paper is to participate in addressing these contradictions. More specifically, this study examines how UA affects expatriate cosmopolitanism as well as approach of service environments patronized by local customers by introducing two moderators: national identification and perceived discrimination.Design/methodology/approachThe authors propose a conceptual model based on the results of a literature review. The authors test it with survey data collected from Indian expatriates (n=341) living in Qatar, using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results corroborate the moderating role of national identification. Under low identification, expatriate consumers engage in a prospective form of uncertainty management, leading them to adopt a more cosmopolitan stance. Under high identification, their uncertainty plays an inhibitory role, reducing their cosmopolitanism and negatively affecting their approach of service places patronized by local consumers. Perceived discrimination did not moderate the impact of UA as expected on either cosmopolitanism or approach.Originality/valueThis paper extends the prior research on UA by testing how two moderators could activate either a prospective or an inhibitory form of uncertainty. It also contributes to research on ICSE, by focusing on customer-to-customer interactions in a multicultural marketplace.

Religion as a field of transcultural practices in multicultural marketplaces

This paper reframes the dominant marketing conceptualization of religion as a driver of consumer differences toward religion as a field of transcultural practices within multicultural marketplaces. Through depth interviews with 24 consumers from multiple religious backgrounds and multiple Southeast Asian nations living in New Zealand, we demonstrate how divergent religious communities facilitate five key transcultural consumption practices. Our paper makes two contributions to the literature on religion and marketing. First, we highlight the role that religion plays in facilitating entry into and mutual entanglement within multicultural marketplaces. Second, in addition to the present focus on how religion produces differences in marketplace behaviors, we underline the transcultural properties of religion which are shared across diverse religious traditions. This study demonstrates how religion can perform an important role in facilitating the transcultural character of contemporary multicultural marketplaces, offering novel implications about how managers should engage with consumers in these markets.

Effect of intergroup-based emotions on attitude towards cross-ethnic products

PurposeWhile researchers have argued that multicultural marketplaces are conceptually different from other types of marketplaces, the marketing literature has only recently begun to develop multicultural perspective studies, and very little research has been done to examine intergroup complexities in consumption contexts (Demangeot et al., 2015). The purpose of this study is to fill this research gap by developing and empirically testing a research model to examine the effects of socio-political constructs and intergroup-based emotional variables on consumer decisions to consume cross-ethnic products.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire designed to assess the effects of socio-political constructs and intergroup-based emotional variables on consumer decisions to consume cross-ethnic products was developed and administered to 294 students at a Midwestern US university. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) techniques.FindingsResults indicate that all path coefficients are significant. Social dominance, intergroup anxiety and intergroup experience were found to be important predictors of intergroup tolerance and, importantly, intergroup tolerance was found to significantly affect consumer attitude toward cross-ethnic products.Research limitations/implicationsIn terms of limitations and future research implications, this research suffers from inherent limitations associated with self-reported survey research in a limited geographic region. Accordingly, study respondents may not be representative of consumers across the nation or the world, the respondents may not have understood the questions in the intended manner, and reported intentions may not reflect actual behaviour. This study was conducted among college students, but other target segments may have different intergroup experiences and perceptions of ethnic products.Practical implicationsFindings from this research suggest that firms offering ethnic products can increase crossover consumption appeal by implementing marketing communication programmes that integrate cultural forums and event tactics to promote positive intergroup experiences and tolerance among their multicultural customers.Social implicationsRegarding policy implications, public policymakers and social thinkers may use the findings of this study as a prism to better explicate intercultural dealings among multicultural consumers. The contention of this study about public policy implications is supported by Neal et al.’s (2013) perspectives on how consumption situations can serve as a lens for explicating intergroup emotions in multicultural marketplaces.Originality/valueThis is one of only a few studies in marketing to assess the effects of socio-political constructs in a consumption context. This is the first known study to underscore the importance of intranational ethnic differences and assess the effects of socio-political and intergroup-based emotional variables on attitude to consume ethnic products, specifically.

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior: Use of Local Language for Market Communication—A Study in Region Friuli Venetia Giulia (Italy)

ABSTRACTCross-cultural consumer behavior is of market interest due to globalization of marketplaces, migration, multicultural marketplaces, and diffusion in the EU of many languages. The objective of this study is to check whether the local language used in a marketing communication could affect the consumers’ preferences for food products. The theoretical foundation is the consumer motivational approach that goes deeper into motivations interfering with the consumers’ preference order. The multivariate conjoint analysis is used to evaluate the preferences for attributes described in different languages. A number of students from the University of Udine (located in the northeastern part of Italy) have been submitted to interviews to examine their preferences for a simulated sandwich package reporting information in different languages, distributed by vendor machine. The results suggest that the consumer’s reaction to local language depends on sociodemographic profile, cultural background, language knowledge, and family education, and the local language could actually be used as a market tool for market segmentation. These results are of interest to many EU countries with bilingual communities such as Spain, Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, and most of the Italian regions where local languages are still alive.