توسعه نظریه چشم انداز بین فرهنگی با بررسی تغییر رفتار در مصرف کنندگان و زمینه های کسب و کار شرکت با شرکت

Prospect theory states that an individual in a loss situation is more likely to make a risky financial decision than when they are in a gain frame. Some researchers observe that Asians tend to have a more positive attitude toward risk in financial decisions than Westerners. The first of two studies tests these two phenomena. The study finds Singaporeans and Chinese to be less risk averse than Dutch and New Zealand people over both a gain and a loss frame when making a personal financial decision. A second study extends this finding to individuals in a business relationship switching suppliers, and finds that when switching is framed as a risky decision the same pattern of behavior occurs. New Zealand and American consumers are more risk averse than those from Japan and Singapore, who are more likely to change suppliers under both a gain and a loss frame.

Fundamental to modern marketing is the idea that many companies are no longer interested in simply making a sale, but focus on building lasting relationships with groups of clients in order to ensure an ongoing stream of profitability. A plethora of research identifies antecedents of a good relationship. Among these antecedents are satisfaction, trust, and many of the co-creation variables such as information sharing, personalization, customization and mutual participation. Ensuring loyalty and reducing churn are two reasons for developing a strong relationship with key clients. Another way of expressing this focus is that companies are eager to reduce the incidence of their clients switching to some other provider. Although much research examines the switching costs facing brand defectors, several gaps in this literature exist. Business relationships are no less important in a global than in a domestic context, yet researchers largely ignore the cross-cultural differences in switching behavior. This research informs two studies in the present report. The first study is confirmatory in nature, and seeks to establish differences between the attitude to economic risk in Western and Eastern countries. Some evidence supports the view that people in the more hierarchical, collectivistic Eastern countries have a more positive attitude to financial risk than their more individualistic, egalitarian, Western counterparts. As attitude to risk is so fundamental to switching behavior, this research first confirms this cross-cultural difference in risk aversion. Consumers in the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore and China provide data for this study. The data is analyzed using Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory framework (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). The study provides evidence that this framework does indeed offer insights to financial risky decision-making behavior, and to highlight differences in attitude to risky decision-making between Easterners and Westerners over various environmental frames. The second study builds upon the first. Data from a second multicultural sample (New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, and the USA) are utilized to test two ideas. The first idea is that Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory framework extends to switching behavior, even though such behavior involves more than simply financial risk. Thus, risking a change of supplier is more likely in a loss frame than a gain frame. The second idea is that Easterners are more risk accepting than Westerners when considering such a change of supplier, and are therefore more likely to switch in either a negative or a positive frame.

Although the findings are theoretically important and are in line with expectations, at face value it is puzzling that the results are so diametrically opposed to those of Colgate et al. (2007). This study finds that Asians switch earlier; his and his colleagues' study found that Asians are more loyal in a relationship. A possible explanation to reconcile the findings is that switching behavior is modified by the risk involved, or perceived. In this research the riskiness of switching is obvious to the respondent, whereas Colgate and his colleagues use a research frame emphasizing loyalty. These findings are not irreconcilable; it is quite possible that Easterners are more loyal yet more deal-prone and less adverse to risk that Westerners.