Aksel I. Rokkan, Jan B. Heide, and Kenneth H. Wathne

ABSTRACT

Specific investments, which are tailored to a particular company or value-chain partner, are important components of firms’ marketing strategies. At the same time, extant theory also suggests that such investments pose considerable risk, as they put the receiver in a position to opportunistically exploit the investor. In this paper, we examine this "expropriation" scenario, but also consider whether specific investments, due to their specialized nature, under certain conditions may actually "bond" the receiver and reduce opportunism. These conditions have to do with a focal relationship’s time horizon (i.e., its extendedness) and its particular norms. Our key theoretical argument is that the effect of specific investments on opportunism will shift in a non-monotonic fashion over the range of these relationship conditions. We test our research hypotheses empirically through parallel analyses on each side of 198 matched buyer-supplier dyads. The empirical tests provide general support for our predictions, but also reveal differences between buyers and suppliers regarding the focal effects. The implications of our findings for marketing theory and practice are discussed.

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Nancy Wong, Aric Rindfleisch, and James Burroughs

ABSTRACT

Most measures of consumer behavior have been developed and employed in the United States. Thus, relatively little is known about the cross-cultural applicability of these measures. Using Richins and Dawson’s (1992) Material Values Scale (MVS) as an exemplar, this article focuses on the problems researchers are likely to encounter when employing domestic mixed-worded scales (i.e., scales that contain both positive and reverse-worded items) in cross-cultural applications. Through an initial study among over 800 adults from the U.S., Singapore, Thailand, Japan, and Korea, we show that the cross-cultural measurement equivalence and construct validity of the MVS is challenged by its mixed-worded Likert format. Through a second study among approximately 400 Americans and East Asians, we find that other mixed-worded scales produce similar problems and that the cross-cultural applicability of such scales may be enhanced by replacing items posed as statements with items framed as questions.

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