117 Table 4-8: Comparison of the UK and Ukraine Samples by Gender and Age
(Frequencies) questionnaire. The rationale for selection of this survey administration procedure is two-fold. First, self-completion survey administration is identified as one of the ways to minimise the confounding influence of social desirability bias and interviewer bias, particularly in cross-cultural research (Randall, Huo and Pawelk, 1993; Van de Vijver, 2001; Malhotra and Birks, 2007). Social desirability varies across cultural settings and may be triggered by interaction with the interviewer, particularly if the interviewee perceives interviewer’s status to be higher than his/her own or the interviewer has a different cultural background (Douglas and Craig, 2005). Assessment of literacy levels confirmed that in both countries the vast majority of consumers are literate: 99.7% in Ukraine, as estimated in 2011, and 99% in the UK, as estimated in 2003, and therefore the self-completion method of survey administration was not a problem (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014).
Second, upon assessment of the Internet penetration levels major differences were identified, as shown in Table 4-9. Therefore, online administration of the survey was ruled out and administration of a pen and paper questionnaire was considered most adequately suited to maintaining sampling frame equivalence. To ensure ethical research and in light of the selected administration format, a participant information sheet with the study details was developed and attached to each distributed questionnaire, as shown in Appendix 2 (p:261). The sheet contained an overview of the study to ascertain that respondents provide an informed consent to participating in the
118 survey. The questionnaire was administered in English in the UK and in Russian in Ukraine. The Ukraine version of the questionnaire was translated and back-translated by a native Russian speaker who works in the UK as a professional Russian-English interpreter in the public sector and subsequently verified with Ukraine collaborators (Malhotra, 1996; Douglas and Craig, 2005).
Table 4-9: Proportion of Internet Users to Total Population – UK and Ukraine13
UK Ukraine
Sources: Ukraine State Office for National Statistics (2001); UK Office for National Statistics (2011); Central Intelligence Agency (2014)
4.4.1.3 Instrument
The final survey instrument consists of 4 parts, summarised below. A full copy of the instrument is provided in Appendix 2, p:261, (UK version of the questionnaire is provided).
1. Part 1 is the participant information sheet that provides the respondents with the details of the study and the professional contact details of the researcher in case the participant decides to withdraw from the study. Each participant information sheet and questionnaire attached to it were given a unique code number, to enable the researcher to identify the withdrawn data should a respondent wish to withdraw and to utilise this number in data input.
2. Part 2 defines the Local, Global and Foreign cultures (LC, GC, FC) and asks the respondents to evaluate them in relation to their level of interaction with these cultures and to their importance for the respondent. The overall task was designed by adapting instructions utilised in seminal acculturation studies identified from the literature review, to reflect the cultures in question
13 Total population numbers as per the most recent population census available (UK, 2011; Ukraine, 2001). Internet user numbers as at 2012.
119 (i.e. Phinney, 1992; Benet-Martinez et al., 2006). The instruction to evaluate cultures by the level of interaction and the level of importance is designed to differentiate between cultures respondents may be exposed to and those cultures that inform their identification. While the respondents’ ranking of cultures given on this page are not utilised as part of the measures, the task was designed to act as an environmental stimulus to activate respondents’ cultural identification as a frame of evaluation (Reed II, 2002; Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Prior studies identify that cultural dispositions dominate what individuals think and feel, and among multicultural individuals all internalised cultures are active attitudinal and behavioural drivers (Higgins, King and Marvin, 1987; Lau-Gesk, 2003).
Definitions of cultures provided to respondents are based on conceptual definitions of LC, GC and FC(s) and the analysis of meanings assigned to these cultures uncovered in qualitative work (see Chapter 5, p:151). Finally, Part 2 lists ten specific foreign cultures and, following Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011), provides four open lines to give respondents the opportunity to identify further foreign cultures of relevance to them, since the importance of a particular foreign culture is evaluated on an individual level.14 Procedure and rationale for selection of foreign cultures to be included on the list is detailed in Section 4.4.2.2.1.
3. Part 3 is the main part of questionnaire and consists of series of statements based on a 5-point Likert scale. These statements comprise items of eight scales included in the study, as follows:
- Three scales containing identically-worded items to measure importance (value) assigned to three cultures: Local Culture Affiliation (LCA) scale, Global Culture Affiliation (GCA) scale and Foreign Culture(s) Affiliation (FCA) scale. These scales were developed for this study and the development and validation of these scales is reported in the next Chapter 5.
- Two scales to measure cultural attitudes, specifically cosmopolitanism and consumer ethnocentrism. Cosmopolitanism was measured with scale by
14 The list of foreign cultures provided to respondents for evaluation differed in the UK and Ukraine questionnaires. The list of cultures, along with procedure and rationale for their inclusion on the list is detailed in Section 4.4.2.2.1.
120 Cleveland and Laroche (2007), and consumer ethnocentrism was measured using a reduced version of CETSCALE by Shimp and Sharma (1987).
- Three scales to measure Willingness to Buy products and brands assigned with cultural meanings reflecting the hypothesised cultural identity orientation strategies. Published scales by Darling and colleagues (Darling and Arnold 1988; Darling and Wood 1990; Wood and Darling 1993) and Klein et al., (1998) adapted to reflect cultural meanings were used.
Given the purpose to measure respondents’ dispositions to three types of cultures, the cultures are listed under each statement reflecting cultural affiliation. To avoid response bias, the order of listing cultures under each statement was randomly rotated. The same rotating procedure was applied to the order of presenting items measuring willingness to buy products and brands associated with different cultural meanings. In addition, all statements have been randomly interspersed.
4. Part 4 is designed to collect demographic characteristics of the respondent: age, gender and ethnic origin. To protect respondents’ anonymity, no information was requested that could potentially identify individual respondents.