trustornottheroleofself-construalininteractingwith.docVIP

Extended Abstract Today’s marketplace is one that is internationally diverse. Individuals from different cultures have distinct self-construals (Resnick 1991), which suggest that marketing messages need to be tailored to their individual backgrounds. Individualist (Western) cultures tend to hold independence in high regard which makes the independent self chronically accessible, while collectivist (Eastern) cultures focus on interdependence which makes the interdependent self chronically accessible (Cousins, 1994). Cultural research on persuasion reveals that North American consumers have more favourable attitudes toward persuasion appeals that focus on the independent self, whereas persuasion appeals that focus on interdependent self have more positive effects on Asian consumers (Han Shavitt, 1994). However, these persuasion appeals that are effective in advertisements may not operate the same way in retailing contexts in which salespeople interact directly with consumers. The current paper attempts to investigate the potential ways for salespeople to communicate with consumers from different cultures in which people may form distinct self-construals (independence vs. interdependence). In a dynamic interaction between salespeople and consumers, trust is crucial to facilitate the purchase experience. As a result, it is important to understand how culture and trust interact and how to develop trust based on cultural differences in an interpersonal marketplace. Over time, consumers develop knowledge about the behaviours of salespeople they encounter and persuasion attempts used by advertisements. Persuasion knowledge (Friestad Wright, 1994) is a resource that influences how, when, and why consumers respond to marketer’s persuasion attempts. The situation in which persuasion messages match with consumers’ self-construals has been applied in advertisements, so the same situation that occurs in retailing contexts may make consumers easily activate persuasion knowl