Contribution of cultural intelligence to adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling of salespeople at international trade shows: does cultural similarity matter?
| Date | 07 January 2019 |
| Published date | 07 January 2019 |
| Pages | 79-96 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-08-2017-0138 |
| Author | Arti Pandey,Peerayuth Charoensukmongkol |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
Contribution of cultural intelligence to
adaptive selling and customer-oriented
selling of salespeople at international trade
shows: does cultural similarity matter?
Arti Pandey and Peerayuth Charoensukmongkol
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to examine the contribution of cultural intelligence (CQ) to the level of
adaptive selling behavior and customer-oriented selling behavior of salespeople in a cross-cultural
sellingcontext.
Design/methodology/approach –This study collected data from a totalof 210 Thai salespeople who
had beenassigned to work at trade shows in Japan (n= 110) and in Vietnam(n= 100).
Findings –The findings show that salespeoplewith higher CQ tend to demonstrate a higher degree of
adaptive selling behavior and customer-oriented selling behavior in both countries. The moderating
effect analysis shows that the positive relationship between CQ and adaptive selling behavior is
significantlyhigher for Thai salespeoplein Japanese trade shows than in Vietnamesetrade shows.
Research limitations/implications –This study uses cross-sectional data collection; therefore, the
resultshave been interpreted as associations,but not causations.
Practical implications –The study suggests that CQ development programs could beconsidered as
part of the training that organizations provide to salespeople to developcross-cultural competencies to
deal effectivelywith foreign customers.
Originality/value –This study provides additional evidence concerning the benefits of CQ in an
occupational area that has not been previously explored. More importantly, the result regarding the
positive linkage between CQ and adaptive selling behavior was significantly stronger in the country
characterized by higher cultural differences. This also contributed to CQ research by showing that
differences in a cultural context might also influence the benefits of CQ in relation to the outcome
variables.
Keywords Culture, Human resource management, Developing countries, Cross-cultural management,
International context, International business
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
International trade shows are effective channels that businesses use to expand globally
because these shows allow businesses to expose their company and products to a large
number of prospective customers in a short period of time (Kellezi, 2014). However,
although international trade shows can provide great opportunities for businesses to build
business positions in the international market, one of the major challenges that the
companies need to be concerned with is the difficulty of salespeople dealing effectively
with foreign customers whose cultures differ significantly from the local culture (Lu, 2012).
Because foreign consumers are different from local customers in buying behaviors and
preferences (Mooij, 2017), applyingselling techniques that are effective in home markets to
Arti Pandey is based at the
International College,
National Institute of
Developmental
Administration, Bangkok,
Thailand. Peerayuth
Charoensukmongkol is
Assistant Professor at the
International College,
National Institute of
Developmental
Administration, Bangkok,
Thailand.
Received 31 August 2017
Revised 27 December 2017
13 March 2018
24 May 2018
Accepted 9 July 2018
DOI 10.1108/JABS-08-2017-0138 VOL. 13 NO. 1 2019, pp. 75-92, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jPAGE 75
foreign customers may not result in a successful outcome (Jones and Alexander, 2000).
Therefore, it is important for salespeople to have a good understanding of foreign cultures
and adapt their selling techniques to match the cultural expectations of foreign customers,
thus enhancing the potential to create customer satisfaction and success in cross-cultural
selling (Hansen et al.,2011).
Although cross-cultural selling is a topic that has gained more attention in literature,
research about competenciesof salespeople in cross-cultural selling is still scant. To fillthis
research gap, the present study focuses on the role of cultural intelligence (CQ), which is a
cross-cultural competency that will assist salespeople to become more effective in cross-
cultural selling. CQ is a recent conceptualization of cross-cultural competence that has
gained more popularity in research (Ott and Michailova, 2016). CQ has been found
to enhance cross-cultural performance in many areas (Guðmundsd
ottir, 2015;
Charoensukmongkol, 2016;Alshaibani and Bakir, 2016). However, despite these broad
areas of performance outcome associated with CQ, there is no empirical evidence
concerning the contributions of CQ to cross-cultural selling. Therefore, this study aims to
provide empirical evidence by using data collected from salespeople in Thailand, who
worked at international trade shows, to investigate the contributions of CQ in this cross-
cultural selling context.
The objective of this research is to examine the relationship between the CQ of salespeople
and two selling behaviors that might be essential in cross-cultural selling; these are (1)
adaptive selling behavior and (2) customer-oriented selling behavior. While adaptive selling
behavior is the ability of salespeople to tailor sales presentations to fit individual customers’
needs and preferences (Abed and Haghighi, 2009), customer-oriented selling behavior is
the extent to which salespeople understand and care about target customers and are
willing to create superior value forthem (Saxe and Weitz, 1982). These two selling behaviors
have been supported in research as productive selling behaviors that strongly enhance
sales performance (Romon and Iacobucci, 2010;Arndt and Karande, 2012;Mehrabi et al.,
2012). Because CQ is a characteristic that allowsindividuals to be effective in cross-cultural
situations (Earley, 2002;Earley and Ang, 2003), it might well be a cultural competency that
facilitates these two selling behaviors in cross-culture selling situations and, thus, requires
deep understanding about foreign cultures to demonstrate these selling behaviors
appropriately (Hansen et al.,2011).
Evidence in prior research shows that the benefits of CQ tend to exist in culturally
heterogeneous contexts rather than in culturally homogeneous contexts (Collins et al.,2016;
Rockstuhl et al.,2011;Groves and Feyerherm, 2011). The present study collected data from
two groups of Thai salespeople who worked at trade shows in Japan and Vietnam to compa re
whether the role of CQ differs between salespeople in these two countries. Because Japanese
culture was perceived by salespeople to be very different from Thai culture compared t o
Vietnamese culture, this study postulated that the role of CQ on adaptive selling behavior and
customer-oriented selling behavior would be more important when dealing with Japanese
consumers than Vietnamese consumers. To date, little research has compared the roles of CQ
in diverse cultural contexts to explore the moderating effect of cultural differences. Thus, the
results from this research not only fill research gaps in CQ literature that still lack empirical
evidence about the roles of CQ in cross-cultural selling, but also provide additional insight
regarding the influence of cultural differences that could moderate the cont ributions of CQ to
cross-cultural outcome variables.
2. Literature review
2.1 CQ
CQ is defined by Earley and Ang (2003) as a set of skills that make individuals function
effectively in cross-cultural situations. CQ is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional
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