CULTURAL BEHAVIORAL CHANGE- BEHIND THE SCENES : An abductive study on cultural dimensional interactions

Sammanfattning: The complex and unpredictable nature of cultural behavioral changes has posed multiple challenges for marketing practitioners during recent years. These challenges include, but are not limited to, inaccurate market forecasts, market failures, wasted resources etc.This study attempts to tackle that problem by exploring cultural dimensional interactions and their potential role in consumers’ cultural behavioral change process. Due to both fields of cultural behavioral change and cultural dimensional interactions being under researched, having insufficient theoretical basis, this study adapted an abductive research approach. Additionally, this study conducted its data gathering process abroad and within the restaurant industry, so as to capture the necessary aspects of the studied phenomenon.The research was conducted by identifying two separate research subgroups: “culturally unaffected” Swedes, living in Sweden, and “culturally affected” Swedes, living in Spain. The two subgroups were interviewed on their preferred consumer behaviors in a restaurant setting. Consequently, their answers were matched against each other, in order to locate any differences in consumer behavioral preferences, indicating potential cultural behavioral changes. When provided with the participants’ rationale for the potential cultural behavioral changes, the study analyzed it through the lens of Hofstede model, looking for possible interactions between its cultural dimensions.The findings of this study suggest that cultural dimensional interactions are, in fact, existent and have a role in consumers’ cultural behavioral change process. The assumption is that the cultural dimensional interactions are regulatory in their nature and are used by the consumers to create desirable consumer situations, in order to maintain their preferred consumer behaviors in a culturally unfamiliar environment. Additionally, the findings suggest a much bigger role of consumer´s core values in the process of cultural behavioral change, than previously thought. Core values are speculated to serve as a trigger that starts the cultural dimensional interactions, due to the consumers’ adamant unwillingness to alter their core values and consumer behaviors linked to them. Due to this study´s abductive research approach, as well as insufficient theoretical basis in the fields of cultural dimensional interactions and cultural behavioral changes, these findings don´t provide any definitive conclusions. As of that, numerous prospects for future research are discussed and recommended.