Construct Validity

This first type of validity, according to the American Psychological Association, "is evaluated by investigating what qualities a test measures, that is, by determining the degree to which certain explanatory concepts or constructs account for performance on the test." It validates the theory underlying the instruments constructed. In fact what is needed are several independent measures of one concept, one construct. In international market research construct validity becomes of utmost importance, in particular when it concerns the validity of concepts: The comparison of concepts is crucial in cross-cultural market research. Even if you try to measure and quantify basic concepts such as friendliness, cleanliness, sex appeal, and (dis)satisfaction, you can observe quite different ways in which they are expressed in behavior and experienced by the individual or group.

It is, for example, well known that complaints about a product or service express a feeling of dissatisfaction in almost all cultures. But in some cultures a complaint is only given in the context of a relationship that needs improvement. In other words, the producer gets another chance. The logic is one where you write down clearly what went wrong so that the next time you'll get better service. In other cultures, on the contrary, a complaint is like a farewell letter, something along the lines of: "Let me tell you why I will never buy your products or services again."

Another area of validity is the one around function. The equivalence of function is very much overestimated in global market research. According to Frijda and Jahoda (1966) you cannot compare any measurement when similar activities or products play different functions in different societies. Quite often similar functions are assumed across cultures in international research by monocultural research teams. The function of an automobile is quite different across cultures. In some it is purely a mode of transportation while in others status plays a dominant role or it is seen as a vehicle to tour around in. A watch is either predominantly an instrument used to read time, a collector's item, or a fashionable attribute.

Another construct validity check is whether measurement equivalence has been attained. The very popular Likert scale, for example, gives quite good discrimination within a culture when you score 23% very good, 17% good, 11% moderate, 42% bad and 7% very bad. In France and Germany people tend to score less extreme on scales (Pras and Angelmar, 1978), which could partly be related to differences in the meaning of translated words. In general, however, there is also evidence that in certain cultures, the extremes (very good or very bad) are used only in highly exceptional cases. Research has also shown that US Americans have a tendency to score significantly more positively than their European counterparts. This viewpoint is confirmed in the analysis of THT's workshop reviews over the past 20 years. The confirmation holds true to both monocultural and international sets of participants attending similar workshops. Although the use of scales is notorious across cultures, it can still be applied in line with the pretested instruments available in the past. The problems frequently arise because there are different interpretations of what "strongly (dis)agree" means, for example, or how respondents seem to be repelled or attracted by the word "undecided."

Different constructs of quality

Most American companies have adopted the Japanese attitude of doing things right the first time. However while Americans pay lip service to the Japanese concept of first-time perfection or zero defects, experience shows that they actually don't want to do it right the first time. Rather there is an attitude based on "no pain, no gain" - you have to learn from your mistakes.

In the auto industry, for example, General Motors found out that selling "perfect" cars with no mistakes decreased the appreciation of their customers significantly. Big jumps in GM's image were made when the small number of mistakes were treated adequately and quickly: "What a great company. When you have a little problem with your car they pick it up, replace it with a new one and the next evening it is brought back. Fixed."The message is clear; the people who had a problem with their cars had a chance to experience how much GM cared..

In a study within AT&T it was revealed that the phrase "total quality control" appealed to Japanese workers, but was deadly for the Americans. None of the managers was interested, so they were asked what they were doing wrong. The program was redesigned, giving managers tasks to do, and they were videotaped failing these tasks. The people who came in talking about "doing it right the first time" and "zero defects" failed again and again, but then learned from their mistakes.

In America "zero defects" means perfection. For the Japanese perfection is attainable; for the Americans, only God can accomplish perfection. The three words ''total quality control" represent the most negative combination possible to the American unconscious. So when AT&T stopped copying the Japanese and starting seeking quality the American way - through trial and error - success was imminent, The training program was devised around quality and started with planned failure. Whereas the Japanese would give managers a rule book to study in order to achieve perfection, AT&T developed a process in which initial failure was built in, so the managers could learn through trial and error to create quality that they would then view as a personal accomplishment.

Companies should not purposefully make products with defects so that they can show customers they care, but they do need to consider another attribute in addition to the quality of the products or service: the quality of the relationship between the product and the customer,^[1]

One way to avoid the problems of differences across cultural scale interpretations is to use forced-choice questionnaires. The standardized questions of a fixed-choice questionnaire can furthermore be designed to incorporate the language and cultural meanings inherent in the respondents' perspectives on daily life and in the questioner's own perspective. By using this type of questionnaire you aim at providing solution types of responses in the different cultural settings related to the "inner" attitudinal states of the (group of) people. In fact, such a use of standardized questions with fixed-choice answers, as Cicourel remarks, provides an empirical solution to the problem of meaning by simply avoiding it. The claim that the "inner" states or "meaning structures" somewhat correspond with the actual response patterns can thus be supported by empirical evidence.

From the outset, however, one needs to realize the limitations of any device which is used to measure meaning in market research, including the forced-choice questionnaire. Note that the "forced" character of the responses restricts the possibility that people's perception and interpretation of the items will be problematic and which, by a static conception of role-taking, does not eliminate the problem of situational definition.

An advantage of this type of survey is that it leads itself to translation into numerical representations. Not many more alternatives are open to overcome these limitations than to minimize the number of possible errors of the measurements of meaning. Any type of questionnaire, however, is an instrument with which the observer communicates with the observed. One other important step, therefore, is the careful analysis of the use of language as the symbolic representation of meaning structures.

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 704