| The basic research questions of the dissertation are first, how does national culture influence the social network activity related to word-of-mouth referral behavior in the purchase of industrial services (e.g. banking, accounting, advertising), and second, how does a company's location of operation affect that purchase? The theoretical basis of comparison of the two national cultures of the U.S. and Japan as an independent variable has its foundation in Hofstede's collectivism dimension of culture, and Hall's measure of context. The second main effect of location is based on acculturation theory, which deals with the results of two cultures coming in contact with one another. An interaction, basically a foreign versus domestic effect, is theorized by bounded rationality, transaction cost economics, and contextual knowledge seeking in social psychology.;The three dependent measures from social network theory are number of sources consulted, tie strength, and "centrality," or how centralized the referral sources are in one company's purchase network compared to another. The hypotheses are tested by a 2 x 2 (national culture by location) quasi-experimental design using in-depth interviews of managers in Japan and the U.S.;Analysis of variance results supported the national culture hypotheses strongly. Japanese companies, regardless of location, exhibited more social network activity than American companies. Companies of both cultures located in Japan used significantly more referral sources than did companies located in the U.S., but the strength of their relationships is manifest to a greater extent in some measures of tie strength than others. Centrality measures were found to be significant in the dimension concerning number of ties ("degree") in the location results, and in the dimension concerning placement of ties ("betweenness") for the national culture results. This confirms what theory would suggest about hierarchical nature of the Japanese social structure. Multiple regression results demonstrated that of the rival hypotheses, only type of buyer's industry (goods or services) shows a pattern of possible importance. The findings have implications for academicians, managers, and policy makers who are interested in the opening of new commercial service markets with American and Japanese companies. |
