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Watch his deed or examine his words? Exploring the potential of the behavioral experiment method for collecting data to measure culture

Ryan W. Tang (School of Commerce, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia)

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management

ISSN: 2059-5794

Article publication date: 12 October 2017

Issue publication date: 12 October 2017

659

Abstract

Purpose

To address three issues of survey-based methods (i.e. the absence of behaviors, the reference inequivalence, and the lack of cross-cultural interaction), the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of using the behavioral experiment method to collect cross-cultural data as well as the possibility of measuring culture with the experimental data. Moreover, challenges to this method and possible solutions are elaborated for intriguing further discussion on the use of behavioral experiments in international business/international management (IB/IM) research.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper illustrates the merits and downside of the proposed method with an ultimate-game experiment conducted in a behavioral laboratory. The procedure of designing, implementing, and analyzing the behavioral experiment is delineated in detail.

Findings

The exploratory findings show that the ultimate-game experiment may observe participants’ behaviors with comparable references and allow for cross-cultural interaction. The findings also suggest that the fairness-related cultural value may be calibrated with the horizontal and vertical convergence of cross-cultural behaviors (i.e. people’s deed), and this calibration may be strengthened by incorporating complementary methods such as a background survey to include people’s words.

Originality/value

The behavioral experiment method illustrated and discussed in this study contributes to the IB/IM literature by addressing three methodological issues that are not widely recognized in the IB/IM literature.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Sunil Venaik and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The author further acknowledges the helpful suggestions from Timothy Devinney, Andreas Ortamman, Ben Greiner, Tamer Cavusgil, and reviewers and participants of the EIBA Annual Conference. Any error remains to the author.

Citation

W. Tang, R. (2017), "Watch his deed or examine his words? Exploring the potential of the behavioral experiment method for collecting data to measure culture", Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 669-695. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-10-2016-0175

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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