Culture and Consumer Ethics by

¶ … Culture and Consumer Ethics" by Ziad Swaidan informs the reader of the disparity in consumer ethics that reflect cultural variations. It explains these variations as differences in the collective programming of the mind that differentiates in one culture from another. The study conducted examines discrepencies in consumer ethics beyond cultural dimensions. In order to do this, the study uses Hofstede;s model. Hofstede's model uses masculinity, collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance to determine cultural dimensions.

The study also uses Muncy and Vitell consumer ethics model that utilizes illegal, no harm, passive, and active to perform analysis. These two considerable frames used in conjunction make the study the first of its kind to experimentally explore consumer ethics. Details of the study include testing using four primary hypotheses on seven hundred and sixty one African-American consumers. Present day research revealed in the article shows major differences in ethics between low and high scoring consumers on Hofstede's four cultural dimensions.

What is revealed is that high scorers on collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, but low scorers on masculinity, and power distance scales discard ambiguous activties more so than consumers who scored opposite such as low high on masculinity and power distance, low on collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. Results prove not only the need for studies such as these to be conducted, but also the value they hold for international marketers. The Hofstede's cultural model allows managers easier access to analysis of consumer ethics.

To have the ability to quickly identify variances in consumer ethics across various cultures accomadates for modeling effective marketing strategies. There is an ever present need for marketers to form improved comprehension of the diverse values of subcultures that make up the modern American society. The present and the future needs efficient marketing strategies to utilize all of the population for larger profit and gain. Class Prof Several topics in the article explore the details of the study further. These topics will be discussed in the body.

These topics are as follows: test the hypothesis, sampling methods, normal distribution, confidence intervals, poisson, exponential, binomial. From here evidence is drawn. In order to test the four hypotheses, the study conducted data analysis using ANOVA as a means to explore the differences in consumer ethics along the dimensions of culture. In order to do this, the study seperated the four cultural dimensions and the four dimesnions of the MVQ into independent and dependent variables. The four cultural dimensions were: COL, MAS, PD, and UA.

The four dimensions of MVQ were ILEG, ACTV, PASV, and NHAR. On page 7, the sampling methods were discussed. They occurred at various public locations such as shopping areas over a span of days and varying times. They sampled 800 consumers from a larger metropolitan area in the U.S. The method they used relied on strictly African-American consumers. This prompted them to exclude non-African-American consumers leaving them with 761 responses. Again on page 7 normal distribution was calculated in 3 steps. The first step involved using Muncy-Vitell questionnaire.

The second step they measured culture following Hofstede's dimensions using Dorfman and Howell's scale. Lastly, the third step measured the demographics of the people who particpated in the survey. Confidence intervals seen as ranges, page 5 shows the ranges for individualism which is zero, collective culture to 100, invidiualistic culture. The masculinity index ranges from zero for feminine cultures all the way to 100 for masculine cultures. Power index ranges from zero, culture with a small power distance to 100, culture with a large power distance.

For poisson page 8 or 208 of the article shows the means of high and low collectivism across the four dependent variables. This demonstrates that consumers who score high on the collectivism scale reject illegal, active, passive, and no harm activities more than consumers who score low on the same scale.Statistical analysis reveals significant differences in ethics of consumers who score high/low on the masculinity scale.

Means of high and low masculinity across the four dependent variables illustrate that consumers who score low on the masculinity scale are more sensitive to illegal, active, and passive activities than consumers who score high on the same scales. For binomial, one looks at the mention of 60% of the sample. In this.