Multicultural markets and acculturation: implications for service firms

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose is to construct an analytical framework that encapsulates implications for the marketing offering of service firms as a result of observed intra-national ethnic diversity in these firms' markets of operation.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual approach which promotes the idea that acculturation matters for service firms operating in multicultural markets and adopts relevant propositions related to service firms' strategy in such markets.

Findings

Integrating fragmented insights from consumer behaviour and multicultural marketing, the study suggests that the various interactions and contacts between ethnic groups in a multicultural country can generate acculturation outcomes that lend themselves to novel avenues for empirical research. These avenues move beyond a research focus on the presence of ethnic groups as stand-alone entities of intra-ethnic uniformity.

Practical implications

Firms with a broader market horizon in a multicultural market can employ acculturation in their marketing strategy since an exclusive focus on ethnicity as a basis of segmenting the market reveals shortcomings. Otherwise, a myopic approach that ignores cross-ethnic interactions may lead to bypassing opportunities for more considerate market responses by a service firm.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the only acculturation study in a services context that offers an analytical framework and propositions that can be used as a guide for multicultural, services marketing researchers and practitioners that see the market in a holistic fashion.

Citation

Poulis, K., Poulis, E. and Yamin, M. (2013), "Multicultural markets and acculturation: implications for service firms", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 7, pp. 515-525. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-02-2012-0041