Exploring Cross-National Differences

in Organizational Buyers’ Normative

Expectations of Supplier Performance
Michelle D. Steward, Felicia N. Morgan, Lawrence A. Crosby, and Ajith Kumar

ABSTRACT
The authors analyze data from two cross-national studies to explore differences in organizational buyers’ normative
expectations of supplier performance. These normative expectations encompass what buyers perceive as business stan-
dards or norms, regardless of product/service, supplier, or industry. The first study (four countries) pinpoints the norma-
tive expectations that help explain why managers across countries may evaluate the same supplier performance differ-
ently. The second study provides an illustrative example of these differences in a separate sample drawn from the same
four countries. The inclusion of such normative expectations of supplier performance has the potential to add explana-
tory power to models of performance evaluation in international business-to-business relationships. The findings sug-
gest that if differences in normative expectations of supplier performance are not taken into account, performance rat-
ings may be distorted indicators of actual performance.

Keywords: normative expectations, business-to-business services, supplier performance, national differences,

organizational buying behavior

n business-to-business (B2B) marketing, the most dards of business conduct (e.g., Cooper, Doucet, and

I important markets have been suggested to be “inher-

ently international” (Deshpandé and Farley 2002, p.
6). In these markets, cross-national differences in busi-
ness behavior persist despite the forces of globalization
and ongoing calls for the adoption of worldwide stan-
Michelle D. Steward is Assistant Professor of Marketing,
Calloway School of Business and Accountancy, Wake Forest
University (e-mail: stewarmd@wfu.edu).
Felicia N. Morgan is Assistant Professor of Marketing,
Department of Marketing and Economics, University of West
Florida (e-mail: fmorgan@uwf.edu).
Lawrence A. Crosby is Chief Loyalty Architect, Synovate
Loyalty (e-mail: larry.crosby@synovate.com).
Ajith Kumar is Professor of Marketing, Department of Mar-
keting, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State Univer-
sity (e-mail: ajith.kumar@asu.edu).
Pratt 2007; Paine et al. 2005; Stone-Romero, Stone, and
Salas 2003). Institutional environments within nations
are key sources of behavioral norms (Scott 1995), which
become manifest during the socialization process and
provide people with guidelines for interpreting situa-
tions and forming expectations of others (Griffith and
Myers 2005). Expectations provide the foundation on
which assessments of performance are made, but
national differences “make it difficult to establish com-
mon expectations” (Lin and Germain 1998, p. 183).
Differences in expectations across nations may result in
the adoption of different standards for appropriate
Journal of International Marketing
©2010, American Marketing Association
Vol. 18, No. 1, 2010, pp. 23–40
ISSN 1069-0031X (print) 1547-7215 (electronic)

Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 23

work-related behavior (Bello and Zhu 2006; Johns and
Xie 1998; Lam, Hui, and Law 1999). In turn, these dif-
ferent standards have the potential to affect evaluations
of organizational exchanges in international settings
(Cooper, Doucet, and Pratt 2007).
The guiding question for this research is, How do orga-
nizational buyers in different countries differ in their nor-
mative expectations of the way a supplier—any supplier
regardless of industry, relationship, or location—should
do business? These normative expectations encompass
what organizational buyers perceive as standards of busi-
ness conduct that transcend product/service, vendor, and
industry. Expectations of how any supplier should
behave arise from a host of factors, including historical
national experiences, institutional characteristics, cul-
tural influences, and political and economic structures
(Fukuyama 1995; Kostova 1997; Tsui, Nifadkar, and Ou
2007). Although research has found that different nor-
mative expectations can exist for different kinds of rela-
tionships (Chiu 1990), the norms that shape organiza-
tional buyers’ evaluations of suppliers’ performance are
not well understood. A multinational supplier may per-
form consistently across countries but receive different
evaluations of its performance. The supplier is left not
knowing whether employees executed marketing
strategy differently in some way and/or if buyers reacted
differently to the same fundamental level of service.
Indeed, some researchers have noted the problematic
nature of measuring firm performance outcomes across
countries and aptly have called for caution in comparing
such evaluations cross-nationally (Donthu and Yoo
1998; Witkowski and Wolfinbarger 2002). For exam-
ple, suppose a multinational supplier performs at the
same “objective” level for both a German buyer and a
Japanese buyer. If the two buyers have different norma-
tive expectations of the way any supplier firm should
conduct itself, based on the disconfirmation paradigm,
different performance evaluations would likely result.
Importantly, if these differences in the normative expec-
tations of supplier performance are not taken into
account, it might lead the multinational supplier’s man-
agement to the incorrect, inequitable conclusion that
objective performance levels in Germany and Japan
were different. In turn, any subsequent cross-national
resource allocation decisions (e.g., hiring/firing, budget
increases/decreases, product development/harvesting)
would be based on incorrect assessments.
Understanding how performance evaluations may differ
cross-nationally is critical given that evaluation of sup-
24 Journal of International Marketing
plier performance has been referred to as a “cornerstone
of successful purchasing and supply management”
(Johnsen, Johnsen, and Lamming 2008, p. 274). Fur-
thermore, effective management of supply chain rela-
tionships is contingent on managers’ ability to appro-
priately align, or fit, organizational actions within
particular operating environments (Griffith and Myers
2005). Research focusing on continuous supplier
improvement suggests that firms continually raise
expectations for how suppliers should perform (Joshi
2009). This underscores the need for suppliers operating
in different countries to understand buyers’ expectations
for performance.
The purpose of this study is to establish empirically the
existence of differences in normative expectations of
supplier performance among organizational buyers
across countries. We focus on normative expectations of
supplier performance that reflect core dimensions of
expected supplier behavior that have been established as
key criteria for evaluating suppliers: timeliness, turnover
of key supplier contact personnel, availability, and
follow-up (Gounaris 2005; Kannan and Tan 2002).
This research contributes to the literature in several
ways. First, drawing from the expectancy disconfirma-
tion paradigm, role theory, and institutional theory, we
provide a theoretical foundation for organizational buy-
ers’ normative expectations of supplier performance as
a key source of between-country variation in a buyer’s
assessment of supplier performance that heretofore has
been overlooked. Second, we empirically demonstrate
differences in organizational buyers’ normative expecta-
tions of supplier performance across a sample of four
countries and compare these outcomes with differences
in performance ratings in a separate sample from the
same four countries. Third, we discuss the implications
of the research for marketing theory and practice.
In general, differences in normative expectations have
been studied within a single country across such dimen-
sions as organizational hierarchy (Johns 1994), work
environments (Aquino, Douglas, and Martinko 2004),
and gender (Grossman and Wood 1993). The findings
consistently indicate that normative expectations guide
a person’s evaluation of another. We extend this
research toward uncovering cross-national differences
in the way buyers expect suppliers to perform.
Furthermore, recent research in international marketing
has drawn attention to the value of understanding
national differences in improving B2B relationships
(e.g., Griffith and Myers 2005; Solberg 2008; Zhang,
Hu, and Gu 2008). Given the power of normative
expectations as a frame of reference guiding judgments
(Oliver 1980) and the absence of a fundamental meas-
ure of such expectations that can be used by multi-
national supplier firms, it is important to move toward
addressing this limitation in the literature. We do so by
providing a specific measure that managers can use to
monitor and understand more fully supplier perform-
ance ratings across countries. In addition, by examining
a nationally based, normative component that tran-
scends relationship-, industry-, and product-/service-
specific norms, we further the goal of enhancing the
explanatory power of models of performance assess-
ment in cross-national interorganizational relationships.
Finally, our examination of organizational buyers’
normative expectations contributes to the literature
on buyer–seller relationships. Much research on
buyer–seller relationships has focused on relationship-
specific antecedents of buyers’ assessments of perform-
ance (Homburg et al. 2002; Homburg and Rudolph
2001). The role of normative expectations that
transcend specific relationships has received far less
attention.
We organize the remainder of this article as follows: In
the next section, we present theoretical support for the
importance of expectations in the business domain,
employ role theory to posit the development of norma-
tive expectations of supplier performance among orga-
nizational buyers, and use institutional theory to estab-
lish the significance of the national context. Then, we
discuss our empirical research methodology and present
the results of both the main study and an illustrative
example. We conclude with a discussion of the findings
and implications.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
Expectations
The importance of expectations in business research and
practice has been well established, particularly through
the disconfirmation of expectations paradigm. This
theory posits that buyer evaluations are functions of
prior purchase expectations, perceived performance,
and disconfirmation (Bolton and Drew 1991; Cadotte,
Woodruff, and Jenkins 1987; Oliver 1980, 1997; Tse
and Wilton 1988). Expectations function as anticipa-
tions as well as comparative referents, creating a “frame
of reference about which one makes a comparative judg-
Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 25
ment” (Oliver 1980, p. 460). In the context of service
quality assessments, Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman
(1993, p. 1) proffer a popular definition of expectations:
“Customer expectations are pretrial beliefs about a
product (Olson and Dover 1979) that serve as standards
or reference points against which product performance
is judged.” Expectations have many sources, including
prior experience, vicarious experience, and both inter-
personal and commercial communications.
In general, although a variety of expectations standards
exist, research supports two major types: predictive and
normative expectations (Boulding et al. 1993; Szyman-
ski and Henard 2001). Consumers’ evaluations of an
exchange or a transaction are based on what they expect
will happen (i.e., predictions), what they expect should
happen (i.e., norms or desires), and, after the transac-
tion, what they perceive to have actually happened
(Boulding et al. 1993; Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasura-
man 1993). Several empirical studies have demonstrated
the distinctiveness of normative and predictive expecta-
tions and highlighted the importance of distinguishing
between these two types (Boulding et al. 1993; Laroche
et al. 2004). Tse and Wilton (1988) demonstrate the
simultaneous influence of both predictive and ideal
expectations. They observe that both predictive and
normative expectations contribute to the formation of
evaluations and represent different constructs. They
conclude (pp. 209–210) that “the single-standard model
fails to represent the underlying processes adequately in
comparison with a multiple-standard paradigm.” There
is increasing accord that though the two types of expec-
tations work in tandem within the expectancy disconfir-
mation paradigm, predictive and normative expecta-
tions should be treated separately so that their distinct
roles in the disconfirmation process can be better under-
stood (Oliver 1997; Spreng, MacKenzie, and Olshavsky
1996; Tse and Wilton 1988).
Predictive, or will, expectations are typically category,
firm, or offering specific. They are shaped by distinct
exchange experiences and constantly updated (Boulding
et al. 1993). This type of expectation corresponds to
what consumers believe is likely to happen during a
future transaction or exchange (Oliver 1997; Zeithaml,
Berry, and Parasuraman 1993).
In general, normative standards for performance are
often referred to as should expectations. These expecta-
tions have an important role in exchanges between buy-
ers and sellers. In early work on service quality, expec-
tations were defined as what consumers want or
desire—in other words, what service firms should offer
(Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1988). In a more
precise definition of the concept, should expectations
correspond to the level of service performance buyers
believe an excellent service provider can and should
deliver (Laroche et al. 2004).
Particularly germane to the current research are concep-
tualizations of normative standards that originate
beyond the focal brand, the offering, the firm, or the
transaction. Morris (1976) suggests that there are cul-
tural norms that people use to evaluate performance.
Chao and Moon (2005) suggest that different expecta-
tions associated with various cultural value systems
influence consumers’ subsequent behavior. In accord
with this view, performance assessments result from the
degree to which perceived performance corresponds to a
cultural norm (Griffith and Myers 2005).
Normative Expectations as Role Expectations
The role theoretical perspective provides a strong foun-
dation for developing an understanding of the dynamic
process of intra- and interorganizational exchange rela-
tionships (Broderick 1998). In their seminal work on
role taking, Katz and Kahn (1966) define a role as a col-
lection of recurring behaviors that are appropriate to a
particular position in a social system or organization.
They view the organization as a system of multiple,
independent positions, each defined by a role. Roles can
be applied to a single person, a collection of people such
as a society, or any subset thereof (Biddle 1979). A role
set is the set of people who influence or are affected by
the behavior of a person in a role (Katz and Kahn 1966).
The role set may include members who are adjacent in
work flow processes or organizational hierarchy, as well
as customers or salespersons from other organizations
(Katz and Kahn 1966).
Role expectations consist of the duties, obligations, and
privileges of any occupant of a social position, or role
holder (Sarbin and Allen 1968). A basic tenet of role
theory is that people “share expectations for their own
behavior and that of others” (Biddle 1979, p. 115).
Rules for specific positions originate from culturally
shaped conceptions about what behavior is appropriate
or inappropriate for that position as well as from more
individual interpretations derived from interpersonal
interactions (Turner 1988). When any of these rules are
enacted by a role holder in relation to other positions
within a social system, these rules become expectations
for subsequent interactions.
26 Journal of International Marketing
On the basis of the foregoing discussion, we suggest that
a supplier is a commonly recognized identity in the con-
text of B2B markets and occupies what Biddle (1979,
pp. 65–66) calls a “positional role.” Organizational
buyers’ role expectations for suppliers include experi-
ence-based norms (i.e., normative expectations) that
develop within the context of interorganizational mar-
keting exchanges. Therefore, we postulate that suppliers
are members of organizational buyers’ role sets, and in
turn, buyers develop standards of behavior for those
members performing the role of supplier.
National Influences on Behavioral Norms and
Expectations
According to Katz and Kahn (1966), numerous extraor-
ganizational factors are important determinants of the
expectations that role set members develop about a role
holder’s behavior. These include the broader environ-
ments of the firm’s industry and home and host coun-
tries. According to Biddle (1979), role expectations may
differ on the extent to which they are common (or
shared) expectations or more individual ones. Expecta-
tions can focus either on others’ positions (expectations
for others) or on one’s own position (expectations for
self). Thus, in our context, the expectations in one coun-
try for the role of the supplier may not necessarily be
construed in the same manner as those in another.
Griffith and Myers (2005) show that relational norms
developed within a particular supply chain relationship
are embedded in national cultural norm expectations.
Furthermore, their results indicate that firm perform-
ance improved when national cultural norm expecta-
tions were met. Yaconi (2001) finds that expectations of
managerial and employee roles are different across
country subsidiaries of the same multinational company.
A role holder’s failure to comply with role expectations
has the potential to strain work-flow processes and even
prevent others from performing their roles. We maintain
that this type of role discrepancy can be particularly
disruptive in an interorganizational context, such as
cross-national exchanges between a buyer and a
supplier, in which the goals of the participants are likely
to include building a relationship. Therefore, national
context profoundly shapes role-based normative expec-
tations per se.
The worldview of a group of people, such as a nation
(Triandis 1994), encompasses the group’s values, beliefs,
and norms regarding how people manage social rela-
tions (Hofstede 2001; Triandis 1987). Hofstede (1991,
p. 12) establishes the notion of national culture, noting
that nations “are the source of considerable amount of
common mental programming of their citizens.”
Research has validated the existence of national differ-
ences empirically (for a recent review, see Tsui, Nifad-
kar, and Ou 2007). National differences are rooted in
highly stable norms and values that may be somewhat
immutable in the face of the more ephemeral culture of
organizations (e.g., Laurent 1986). Fundamental values
acquired in the early years of life may be already
entrenched by the time people are socialized by an
organization (Schneider and Barsoux 1996). Thus,
although corporate culture may have the potential to
modify some values, beliefs, and behaviors, it is not
capable of modifying core convictions derived from a
particular national environment (Laurent 1986).
This view is also supported by evidence from research
examining “the collision of cultures” (Stone-Romero,
Stone, and Salas 2003, p. 332) that occurs when people
of different cultural orientations endeavor to work
together in intra- and interorganizational settings. For
example, studies of cultural difference (Macduff 2006)
have regularly identified differences in perceptions of
time. Stone-Romero, Stone, and Salas (2003) discuss the
influence of culture on work-related scripts. The typical
American work script calls for people to arrive on time
for work and meetings; lateness is evaluated negatively.
In contrast, the Hispanic culture is characterized as
polychronic; that is, people in Latin America are less
likely than people in the United States to stress punctu-
ality and are more likely to use a great deal of latitude
in judging lateness (Okun, Fried, and Okun 1999).
An Institutional Approach to the National
Context
Much of the extant literature on international
buyer–supplier relationships has focused on the dimen-
sions of culture (e.g., Hofstede 2001; Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner 1998). However, although nationality
has been established as an acceptable proxy for culture
(Tsui, Nifadkar, and Ou 2007), culture is not necessarily
an acceptable proxy for nation (Hall and Taylor 1996;
Kostova 1997). Thus, our approach is polycontextual
(Tsui, Nifadkar, and Ou 2007). Drawing on modern
institutionalism (Hall and Taylor 1996; Scott 1995;
Zucker 1991), we view culture as but one of the major
contexts that define a nation. Other major contexts may
include the economic, political, social, and historical
(Kostova 1997). Researchers have modeled the multi-
plicity of contexts that define a nation in different ways.
Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 27
For example, Peterson and Smith (1997) suggest that
“nation” is a delimiter of culture. They model ten deter-
minants, including language, religion, economic sys-
tems, economic development (industrialization), major
industry, climate, and topography. These multiple con-
texts provide different sources of meaning, which in
turn form the foundation for different ways of knowing
by people in a given nation. These ways of knowing
determine the meaning of work or organizations.
The domain of institutional theory accommodates the
polycontextuality of national environments and pro-
vides for a multidimensional, systemic approach to
examining structural influences at both macro and
micro levels; thus, it is suitable for exploring national
differences in business conduct. Grewal and Dharwad-
kar (2002) find that the institutional approach is appli-
cable for channels research; in their influential article,
they highlight the key role of the institutional environ-
ment and adapt a core framework from institutional
theory for studying channel structures and processes.
Much of the research in modern institutionalism
involves the pervasive influence of institutions on
human behavior through rules, norms, and other frame-
works (Scott 1995, p. 33): “Institutions consist of cog-
nitive, normative, and regulative structures and activi-
ties that provide stability and meaning to social
behavior. Institutions are transported by various carri-
ers—cultures, structures, and routines—and they oper-
ate at multiple levels of jurisdiction.” Essentially, these
cognitive, normative, and regulative structures—the
three pillars of institutionalism as Scott conceptual-
izes—are both imposed on and sustained by actors’
behavior. When a given institution is internalized by an
actor through a socialization process, it transforms into
a script (patterned behavior). When the actor behaves
according to the script, the institution is enacted. An
institution’s enactment enables other actors to see that
the institution is in play, and a new round of socializa-
tion begins. In this way, institutions are constantly
reproduced. Over time, the institution—and the result-
ing patterned behavior—becomes established and taken
for granted. Actors may be unaware that their behavior
is partly controlled by an institution. Those who share
the institution view acting in accordance with it as
rational (Bjorck 2004).
Every organizational actor is influenced by the broader
environment. To survive, organizations must do more
than succeed economically; they must establish legiti-
macy within the institutional environment. According to
Scott (1995, p. 132), “institutional environments are
characterized by the elaboration of rules and require-
ments to which individual organizations must conform
in order to receive legitimacy and support.” Legitimacy,
a key factor in assessing social fitness, is a general per-
ception that the actions of an entity are appropriate
within a particular social system (Suchman 1995). In
essence, conforming to expectations (i.e., achieving a fit
with prevailing rules and norms) is the basis of achiev-
ing legitimacy. The institutional perspective maintains
that in an effort to conform to mechanisms of influence,
organizations sharing the same environment engage in
similar practices and thus become isomorphic with each
other (Grewal and Dharwadkar 2002).
Many elements of the institutional environment—
such as legal systems, politics, and culture—are specific
to a nation (Rosenzweig and Singh 1991); thus, organi-
zational practices can be expected to diverge across
countries. “Cross-national dissimilarities in institutional
structures are likely to create management practices that
vary from country to country, regardless of the fact
that management theories are often rapidly dissemi-
nated across national borders” (Gooderham, Nord-
haug, and Ringdal 1999, p. 508). The ample evidence in
support of this view includes the work of Orru, Biggar,
and Hamilton (1991), who find that organizations
in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan base their opera-
tions on different institutional principles and
have dissimilar organizational and interorganizational
structures. Furthermore, Kostova (1997) introduces
the notion of a country institutional profile to explain
how Scott’s (1995) three pillars of institutionalism
(political/regulatory systems, cognitive/social knowl-
edge, and normative/value systems) affect a nation’s
business activities.
Role theory is an integral component of the normative
pillar of institutions (Scott 1995). Role expectations are
shaped by institutional environments. Specifically,
according to Scott (1995, p. 38), conceptions of appro-
priate action for particular people or specified social
positions are termed “roles”: “These conceptions are
not simply anticipations or predictions but prescrip-
tions—normative expectations—of what the actors are
supposed to do. The expectations are held by other
salient actors in the situation and so are experienced as
external pressures by the focal actor.” Berger and Luck-
mann (1967, p. 74) highlight the centrality of roles for
institutions: “All institutionalized conduct involves
roles. Thus roles share in the controlling character of
institutionalization. As soon as actors are typified as
28 Journal of International Marketing
role performers, their conduct is ipso facto susceptible
to enforcement.”
In summary, the nature of the modern global business
environment suggests that multifaceted institutional
environments have significant influence on the behav-
ioral norms of buyers and suppliers. Moreover, the insti-
tutional approach supports national differences in role
expectations. On the basis of the foregoing discussion,
we maintain that normative expectations of supplier
performance are shaped by the national context.
In the following sections, we present a methodology for
measuring the normative expectations of supplier per-
formance held by organizational buyers, an empirical
test of differences in these normative expectations across
a four-country sample, an illustrative example using
another sample of the same four countries, and a discus-
sion of the results.
MEASURING ORGANIZATIONAL BUYERS’
NORMATIVE EXPECTATIONS OF SUPPLIER
PERFORMANCE
We used a modified version of the expectations scales
found in the literature, removing any reference to a spe-
cific supplier. We eliminated ambiguity by introducing
quantitative referents (see Appendix A); in addition,
these referents enhance comparability across countries
by minimizing (though probably not eliminating com-
pletely) interpretive bias.
As part of the scale development process, we conducted
qualitative research through interviews with organiza-
tional buyers in each country. In addition to the inter-
views, we drew on secondary data from specific local
marketing research firms to gain insight from other B2B
surveys that the firms had conducted previously. These
local marketing research firms were affiliates of the U.S.
marketing research firm that managed the data collec-
tion process for this study. Using these inputs, we gener-
ated a set of items that reflect common business stan-
dards relevant to the B2B domain, with the constraint
that the items were relevant and common to all coun-
tries in the sample.
Specifically, normative expectations of supplier per-
formance reflect core business expectations in areas
such as timeliness, turnover of key supplier contact per-
sonnel, availability, and follow-up. The newly developed
items have two critical features: (1) They are not rela-
tionship specific and thus reflect nationally based nor-
mative expectations, and (2) they include specific
numerical referents such as “75%” and “10 minutes”
that are easily translatable and universally understood
and thus provide comparisons across our sample coun-
tries that are relatively free of interpretive bias (as com-
pared with terms such as “frequently” and “rarely”).
For each item in the scale, a higher score reflects greater
expectations of general supplier performance.
We conducted item analysis to purify the measures and
retained items with high loadings. Appendix A indicates
the measures and scale reliability (as measured by coef-
ficient alpha) for each country. The variation in reliabil-
ities reflects the trade-off between selecting items that
might perform very well within a given country and
selecting a set of common items that perform moder-
ately well across all four countries.
In the following sections, we describe our data collec-
tion procedure, the multigroup structural equation
modeling approach used to estimate and test organiza-
tional buyers’ normative expectations of supplier per-
formance, empirical tests of differences among coun-
tries, and the implications of our study results for
measuring and interpreting performance ratings.
Local professional market research firms administered
the survey questionnaire to senior purchasing managers
in four different countries: the United States, Japan,
Germany, and the United Kingdom. All are well-
developed countries. We selected these countries on the
basis of both practical considerations (e.g., access) and
a desire to include a range of countries from different
areas of the world.
These four countries include top countries in which For-
tune Global 500 companies are based, and collectively
they are those in which 60% of the Fortune Global
500 companies are headquartered (Demos 2007). These
countries represent regions of North America, Asia, and
Europe. As Deshpandé and Farley (2002, pp. 9–10) note
in their study (which includes the countries in our study,
as well as France):
These countries are comparable in terms of eco-
nomic development and demographics. They are
five of the six largest highly developed economies
and all with per capita [gross domestic product]
above US $20,000. They are comparable on liter-
acy (very high), average age (old by global stan-
dards), population growth (low), industry struc-
Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 29
ture, and the growing dominance of their service
sectors. However, the five differ markedly on his-
torical aspects of national culture.
The questionnaires were translated into the native lan-
guage of each country when required. The market
research firms responsible for data collection followed
standard back-translation procedures (Brislin 1980).
They used a quota sampling plan, and the sampling
objective was to secure approximately 100 responses
from each country within a specified time frame. This
sampling choice is appropriate given our objectives of
examining and comparing cross-national differences
(Reynolds, Simintiras, and Diamantopoulos 2003).
Respondents were employed by a cross-section of firms
including large multinational companies, regional firms,
and small businesses. A range of industries was repre-
sented, including manufacturers, governments, not-for-
profits, and service firms. The managers were asked to
read statements of general supplier behaviors (not linked
to the performance of any specific supplier) and to rate
these behaviors on a five-point scale (1 = “excellent,”
and 5 = “poor”). In all, 472 respondents completed the
survey in the specified time frame. Of these, 100 were
from senior purchasing managers in the United States,
101 from Japan, 106 from Germany, and 102 from the
United Kingdom. Although trade-offs exist between the
number of managers surveyed in each country and the
number of countries compared, our sample sizes are
comparable to those in other B2B studies (e.g., Hom-
burg, Workman, and Krohmer 1999; Money and Gra-
ham 1999; Wathne, Biong, and Heide 2001).
RESULTS
We conceptualized organizational buyers’ normative
expectations of supplier performance as a latent
variable. This led us to select multigroup structural
equation modeling as the most appropriate methodol-
ogy for this study because it provides rigorous tests of
measurement equivalence (Bollen 1989). After we
selected seven items that loaded on a single factor in
each of the four countries, we assessed the invariance of
parameters associated with the single latent factor
underlying the items across the four countries.
We used LISREL 8.30 (Jöreskog and Sörbom 1997) to
analyze the data. Following previous literature (Byrne,
Shavelson, and Muthen 1989; Singh 1995; Steenkamp
and Baumgartner 1998), we started with the most strin-
gent tests of equality of covariance matrices and mean
vectors. That is, we tested the equivalence of the covari-
ance matrices and mean vectors together and separately.
The results for tests of homogeneity of covariance matri-
ces and mean vectors suggest that the data should not be
pooled across countries. Table 1 presents these results.
Given these results, the next step in the process was
to determine whether configural and metric invariance
requirements were satisfied, using only covariance
matrices as the input. Table 2 presents the results for this
series of tests. The hypothesis of configural invariance
was supported; that is, a single-factor model fit all four
groups (χ2 = 114.99, d.f. = 56; incremental fit index
[IFI] = .94; nonnormed fit index [NNFI] = .90; and com-
parative fit index [CFI] = .93).1 The test of full metric
invariance, or invariance of all factor loadings across
all four countries, also provided good fit (χ2 = 153.24,
d.f. = 74; IFI = .91; NNFI = .90; and CFI = .91).
Between these two plausible models, we selected the
metric invariant model given its greater degree of parsi-
mony over the configurally invariant model. Because of
the nearly identical fit of these two models, we elected
not to conduct tests of partial invariance (i.e., in which
only a subset of two or more loadings is constrained to
be invariant across groups).
Next, we conducted various tests of scalar invariance. In
all these tests, we constrained the factor mean for one
group to zero for identification and allowed the other
means to vary freely. The model with complete scalar
invariance fit the data poorly. Among the tests of partial
scalar invariance (i.e., in which pairs of item intercepts
are constrained to be invariant across groups), the
model for which the intercepts for the fifth and the sev-
enth items (τ5 and τ7) were constrained to be invariant
Table 1. Tests of Equality of Covariance Matrices and Means
H0: Σ(1) = Σ(2) = … Σ(4) and μ(1) = μ(2) = … μ(4)
(Invariance of covariance matrices and mean vectors)
H0: Σ(1) = Σ(2) = … Σ(4)
(Invariance of covariance matrices)
H0: μ(1) = μ(2) = … μ(4)
(Invariance of mean vectors)
30 Journal of International Marketing
gave the best fit to the data. Table 3 presents the
parameter estimates and fit indexes for this model.
For identification purposes, we set the latent mean of
the reference country (United States) to zero (thus, κ(1) =
0). For the remaining three countries (Japan, Germany,
and the United Kingdom), we estimated the latent factor
means relative to that of the United States. The standard
errors associated with these factor means showed that
the countries had latent means that were significantly
different from zero. (The latent means for Japan, Ger-
many, and the United Kingdom were .69, .80, and .75,
respectively.) Given the five-point scale (1 = “excellent,”
and 5 = “poor”), respondents with greater normative
expectations of supplier performance would be more
likely to rate the items closer to 5.
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
The factor means obtained in the data analysis indicate
that buyers in Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom
have greater normative expectations of supplier per-
formance than buyers in the United States. Thus, for the
same delivered level of performance by the supplier, we
would expect to find lower performance evaluations in
Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom than in the
United States. Conversely, higher levels of performance
in Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom could pro-
duce performance evaluations equivalent to those pro-
duced by lower levels of performance in the United
States. These differences would not be uncovered in tra-
ditional surveys assessing a supplier’s performance, nor
could they be adjusted to allocate organizational
resources appropriately. Why might buyers in the United
States have lower normative expectations of supplier
χ2 d.f. IFI NNFI CFI
408.38 105 .65 .73 .66
213.57 84 .86 .86 .86
158.77 21 .86 .38 .85
performance? These differences in normative expecta-
tions of supplier performance are rooted in a variety of
national circumstances and institutional environmental
influences. For example, research on adherence to rules
and procedures illustrates that Germany and Japan have
a much stricter view of the importance of adherence to
rules than the United States, where flexibility is sup-
ported and “rules are important, but changes with situa-
tion and/or criteria are prevalent given new informa-
tion” (Lackman, Hanson, and Lanasa 1997, p. 150;
note that their study did not include analysis of the
United Kingdom).
In addition, the differences we found are consistent with
the patterns found in Inglehart’s (1997) world value
model, in which a comprehensive set of measures from
a range of domains is aggregated to produce a contin-
uum of values, from “traditional” to “secular rational.”
Inglehart’s (1997, p. 81) work illustrates that “various
religious, social, economic, and political components”
of a nation form nonrandom combinations that enable
comparison. In this world value model, the United
States ranks in the “traditional value” sector, which is
characterized by people who “have high levels of
national pride, favor more respect for authority,” and
“accept national authority passively” with time-
honored ideals regarding family and religion (Inglehart
and Baker 2000, p. 25). The other countries in our sam-
ple fall in the “secular-rational values” sector of the
model, exhibiting characteristics that are opposite those
of the traditional sector.
Research on the pace of life (Levine 1997), which may
be related to perceptions of suppliers’ timeliness, also
mirrors this pattern of results, with Germany, Japan,
and the United Kingdom ranking in the top half of
countries with faster paces of life and the United States
ranking in the bottom half of countries. Finally, the pat-
terns found in our research also can be found in research
that measures the extent to which the values of a nation
support competitiveness. The World Competitiveness
Report (International Institute of Management and
Development and World Economic Forum 2004) indi-
cates that Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom
score lower as nations that have values supporting com-
petitiveness than the United States. In light of our find-
ings, this implies that managers in a nation with a more
competitive environment (e.g., the United States) may
have lower normative expectations of supplier conduct
because of the more varied behavior suppliers present in
their attempts to seek competitive advantage. Paradoxi-
cally, the reduction in formal structure and standards in

Table 2. Model Fit Results: Tests of Invariance

χ2 d.f. IFI NNFI CFI

H0: One factor fits all groups 114.99 56 .94 .90 .93
(Configural invariance)

H0: Λ(1) = Λ(2) = … Λ(4) 153.24 74 .91 .90 .91

(Metric invariance)

H0: Φ(1) = Φ(2) = … Φ(4) 123.73 59 .93 .90 .93

(Invariance of phi matrices)

H0: Θ(1) = Θ(2) = … Θ(4) 184.84 77 .88 .87 .88

(Invariance of theta delta matrices)

H0: Λ(1) = Λ(2) = … Λ(4) and 199.78 77 .86 .85 .86

Φ(1) = Φ(2) = … Φ(4)
(Metric invariance and invariance of phi matrices)

H0: Λ(1) = Λ(2) = … Λ(4) and 211.23 95 .87 .89 .87

Θ(1) = Θ(2) = … Θ(4)
(Metric invariance and invariance of theta delta matrices)

Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 31

a more competitive environment may actually result in
lower normative expectations.
Furthermore, historical institutional analysis suggests
that developed countries can be classified as either socie-
tal or statist; the former is an institutional model in
which national governance tends to be defined, limited,
and diffused, and the latter is marked by centralized
power that is more intertwined with economy (Katzen-
stein 1978; Spencer, Murtha, and Lenway 2005). In

Table 3. Parameter Estimates and Fit Indexes for Best-Fitting Model of Full Metric and Partial Scalar Invariance
(H0: Λ(1) = Λ(2) = … Λ(4), Τ5(1) = Τ5(2) = … Τ5(4), and Τ7(1) = Τ7(2) = … Τ7(4))

United States Japan Germany United Kingdom Common

Item 1
Λ 1.00a
τ 3.21 2.50 2.85 3.00
Θδ 1.40 1.13 .67 .78

Item 2
Λ .92
τ 2.77 3.06 2.47 2.73
Θδ 1.22 .87 .85 1.31

Item 3
Λ 1.09
τ 3.67 3.37 3.62 3.37
Θδ .68 .62 .42 .72

Item 4
Λ .96
τ 3.39 2.16 2.78 2.97
Θδ .91 .96 .83 .93

Item 5
Λ 1.00
τ 3.83 3.83 3.83 3.83
Θδ .69 .49 .34 .41

Item 6
Λ .70
τ 3.20 3.00 3.65 3.09
Θδ .68 .68 .58 .62

Item 7
Λ .91
τ 3.81 3.81 3.81 3.81
Θδ .67 .65 .33 .34

κ 0a .69 .80 .75

Φ .89 .25 .19 .33

Fit Indexes
χ2 = 160.33
d.f. = 77
NNFI = .90
CFI = .91
IFI = .91

aItem is fixed for identification.

32 Journal of International Marketing

relative terms, Japan, Germany, and the United King-
dom tend to be statist nations, whereas the United States
fits better into the societal classification. Another aspect
of the macroenvironment that shapes nations and mir-
rors patterns found in our results is the differences in
the structure and practices of regulatory institutional
systems. For example, stricter regulations regarding
businesses, such as those found in European nations
(Huang and Sternquist 2007), may reduce uncertainty
and thus increase expectations. Other institutional dif-
ferences among the countries in our study include differ-
ences in the way ownership of business is structured.
For example, in the United States, ownership in public
firms is widely dispersed among often diverse sharehold-
ers, while in Germany and Japan, ownership is much
more concentrated (Crossland and Hambrick 2007).
These varieties in political systems, economic history and
practice, regulatory environments, and other institutional
structures shape the environment in which expectations
are formed. Our results indicate that national environ-
ments with more structure, certainty, and concentrated
governance may produce greater normative expectations
of supplier performance than those in which more uncer-
tainty and flexibility are found. Given the variety of envi-
ronmental forces that shape a country, the measure of
normative expectations of supplier conduct we present
offers suppliers a specific, practical way to identify
nationally derived differences that can influence a buyer’s
evaluation of services directly. It would be a daunting task
for a supplier to measure every aspect, or even key dimen-
sions, of a collection of countries in which the supplier
operates in an attempt to get a sense of national institu-
tional differences. Instead, the measure of normative
expectations of supplier performance can be administered
relatively easily with standard satisfaction surveys and
tracked and compared across different countries.
In the next section, we examine data from a separate
study involving a near commodity product (printers),
for which performance ratings are likely to be more
similar than not across buyers. The second study pro-
vides an illustrative example of why expectations should
be incorporated in multinational corporations’ assess-
ments of performance.
COMPARISON OF PERFORMANCE
MEASURES: AN ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE
The results in the previous section suggest that in situa-
tions in which delivered performance is nearly identical
Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 33
across countries, performance ratings should be lower in
Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan than in the
United States. To offer an example of this informal predic-
tion, we analyzed an independent set of data that a profes-
sional marketing research firm made available to us.
The data were from a global organizational survey of
senior information technology purchasing managers
carried out for a leading technology multinational
corporation. The 1693 respondents were asked to eval-
uate the performance of the supplier firm’s printers on a
four-item scale. The items were submitted to confirma-
tory factor analysis and demonstrated good fit for a
single latent factor. Appendix B presents the items and
reliabilities.
We selected data pertaining to printers because our goal
was to demonstrate that differences in normative expec-
tations can affect performance ratings. This example
isolates the potential ramifications of not accounting for
differences in organizational buyers’ normative expecta-
tions of supplier performance. Printers come close to
being a globally standardized product (Regenold 2004),
and thus objective performance is likely to be similar
across countries for a given brand. This also makes it
more likely that will expectations would follow the
same updating patterns across countries (Boulding et al.
1993). Our research implies that any differences among
countries in the latent performance means may be
attributed (at least partially) to latent differences in nor-
mative expectations.
Following our strategy of analysis for multigroup assess-
ment of differences in normative expectations of sup-
plier performance described previously, we assessed dif-
ferences in performance across the four countries. Table
4 reports the results for the best-fitting model. We found
that the model with full metric invariance and the
invariance of item intercepts for the first and the fourth
items best fit the data (χ2 = 85.61, d.f. = 20; NNFI = .98;
CFI = .98; and IFI = .98). The resulting factor means
were all significantly different from the reference coun-
try (United States; factor mean set to zero). Consistent
with the results of our previous analysis, each of the fac-
tor means was lower than the mean for the United States
(–1.33 for Japan, –.34 for Germany, and –.23 for the
United Kingdom). Note that in these data, negative fac-
tor means imply greater normative expectations because
the item anchors are reversed (1 = “very poor,” and
10 = “excellent”). These results illustrate the possible
influence of organizational buyers’ normative expecta-
tions of supplier performance on performance ratings in
Table 4. Parameter Estimates and Fit Indexes for Best-Fitting Model of Full Metric and Partial Scalar Invariance:
Illustrative Example
(H0: Λ(1) = Λ(2) = … Λ(4), Τ1(1) = Τ1(2) = … Τ1(4), and Τ4(1) = Τ4(2) = … Τ4(4))

United States Japan Germany United Kingdom Common

Item 1
Λ 1.00a
τ 8.58 8.58 8.58 8.58
Θδ .56 1.84 .66 .53

Item 2
Λ 1.11
τ 8.60 9.43 8.65 8.66
Θδ .32 .33 .60 .46

Item 3
Λ 1.05
τ 8.44 9.01 8.55 8.48
Θδ .55 .84 .57 .46

Item 4
Λ .92
τ 8.04 8.04 8.04 8.04
Θδ 1.56 1.70 2.49 1.57

κ 0a –1.33 –.34 –.23

Φ 1.16 1.49 1.17 .90

Fit Indexes
χ2 = 85.61
d.f. = 20
NNFI = .98
CFI = .98
IFI = .98
aItem is fixed for identification.

cross-national business markets. The results also point
to challenges that arise when assessing performance in
situations in which normative expectations are not
addressed.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Using a theoretical foundation drawn from the discon-
firmation paradigm, role theory, and institutional
theory, this research empirically establishes the existence
of differences in normative expectations of supplier per-
formance across buyers from four different countries.
Specifically, we found that buyers in the United States
had lower normative expectations of supplier perform-
ance than buyers in Germany, Japan, and the United
Kingdom. Two separate studies produced the same pat-
tern of results, providing strong support for normative
expectations of supplier performance as a key source of
between-country variation in buyers’ evaluation of sup-
plier performance. Thus, this conceptualization and
empirical examination of normative expectations of
supplier performance represents a step toward a more
comprehensive explanation of the variance in supplier
performance ratings across countries. In addition, this
research extends the literature on normative expecta-
tions toward uncovering cross-national differences in
the way buyers expect suppliers to perform. Globaliza-
tion and the increased pace of change have increased the
complexity and difficulty of environmental scanning for
international marketing managers. A keen understand-
ing of cross-national differences has never been more
valuable or necessary for establishing and maintaining

34 Journal of International Marketing

successful B2B relationships. This study presents a spe-
cific measure that managers can implement easily to
track and compare normative expectations across coun-
tries. Finally, we contribute to the buyer–supplier litera-
ture by focusing on an antecedent of performance
evaluations that originates beyond specific transactions
and products/services.
Managerial Implications
This research demonstrates the need for managers to
explicitly measure and understand what buyers in differ-
ent countries expect from those in the role of supplier.
The ramifications of not fully understanding expec-
tations, a key variable underlying buyer satisfaction,
can be substantial. A firm’s current assessments of per-
formance might provide conflicting evidence, not
because of the measures themselves, but because of fun-
damental differences in buyers’ normative expectations
of supplier performance. If such differences are found,
one solution to this problem is to track changes in key
variables of interest within a country across time and
make compensation judgments based on the longitudi-
nal improvement/decline of buyer ratings. This exami-
nation of differences among national buyers would be
particularly prudent when performance ratings are used
as a managerial reward lever for global account sales-
people or divisions that manage multiple customer
accounts across various countries.
The introduction of normative expectations of supplier
performance provides managers in international con-
texts with an easy-to-use diagnostic tool that can help
facilitate the discovery of differences in expectations
across customer groups in different countries. Firms can
measure these expectations themselves or encourage
international trade organizations or industry associa-
tions to conduct such research. Because the normative
expectations of supplier performance are not relation-
ship or product based, trade associations or other
broader organizations might measure these expectations
as a service to their members. The measurement of these
normative expectations through the seven-item scale
offers companies a way to tease out nation-based
sources of differences that may exist among customers.
In this way, companies can improve the utility and
application of their performance measures. Given the
preponderance of global studies of performance—
including those by multinational corporations such as
IBM, international government-affiliated organizations
such as the International Organizations for Standardiza-
tion (Frate 2001), and the World Health Organization
Organizational Buyers’ Normative Expectations 35
(Murray, Kawabata, and Valentine 2001)—this type of
analysis may be of considerable value to practitioners. If
differences in customers’ normative expectations of sup-
plier performance are found to exist, suppliers can begin
to understand how their actions are perceived by cus-
tomer groups, improve awareness among employees of
national differences in expectations of supplier perform-
ance, and use training to adapt behavior to different
market expectations.
This research has implications for global account manager
training. First, global account managers must be made
aware of the multiple contextual sources of buyer expec-
tations. Training that focuses only on product/service
expectations will result in an incomplete understanding of
buyers’ motivations and perceptions. Second, role-based
training may allow employees of the supplier firm to mas-
ter new role scripts adapted to each market. International
managers should become cognizant of the underlying
nation-based expectations of supplier conduct, which will
aid in interpreting performance evaluations and creating
more successful buyer–supplier relationships.
The implications of this study point to the trade-off
between providing a uniformly high level of service
across countries (standardization of marketing activi-
ties) and customizing levels of service according to a
county’s expectations of suppliers (adaptation of mar-
keting activities; Shoham et al. 2008). If globally dis-
persed buyers expect varying levels of service, compa-
nies must determine whether resources should be shifted
according to the degree of service expected. For decades,
the debate has continued over whether a company
should standardize or customize services across coun-
tries (see Levitt 1983). The debate centers on whether
the national context is still pertinent to global busi-
nesses. Furthermore, the international marketing litera-
ture has recently shown that international managers
have few research-based guidelines for optimizing the
mix of standardization and adaptation (Shoham et al.
2008, p. 121): “Given the conflicting arguments, the
impact of standardization/adaptation of the marketing
mix on international performance becomes an empirical
question.” In other words—in the absence of guidelines
or established practices—measure.
The measure of normative expectations of supplier per-
formance offers companies a managerial metric to track
the evolution of world change and aid in decisions on
standardization. If the normative expectations of sup-
plier performance across countries converge over time, a
company may seek to standardize services. However, if
expectations continue to differ, as our study indicates,
the prevalence of national institutional forces should be
accounted for in a firm’s marketing strategy.
Limitations and Further Research
The results from this study are preliminary but suggest
several areas ripe for further investigation. First,
although the study suggests that a country’s institutional
environment shapes the normative expectations of sup-
plier performance, we did not examine specific
antecedents to the construct. Future studies should con-
sider key variables that heighten (or lower) buyers’
expectations of a supplier. For example, consistent with
an institutional profile approach, and pertinent to buy-
ers’ expectations of suppliers, a high degree of rule clar-
ity, common values, and shared knowledge may raise
the normative expectations of supplier performance.
Moreover, buyers in countries with greater general
expectations of product quality, higher levels of educa-
tion, and greater membership in professional associa-
tions also may have greater expectations than buyers in
countries with lower levels of these factors (Grewal and
Dharwadkar 2002; Scott 1995).
Second, this study does not address the will expectations
of suppliers in an international business setting. Our
consideration was restricted to the role of more endur-
ing should, or normative, expectations. The difficulty of
disentangling will expectations from prior performance
notwithstanding, further research aimed at examining
the role of will expectations in shaping national prefer-
ence would be of value. In addition, further research is
needed to compare the effect sizes of different types of
expectations. Third, our sample includes only four
countries. Although these countries represent regions of
the world that are dominant in commerce, further
research should include more countries with differing
levels of economic development and possibly consider
regional areas within countries if significant regional
differences are evident. Finally, this initial work has rele-
vance to other areas of buyer assessment of firm behav-
ior, such as research involving satisfaction and service
quality. For example, given that expectations are funda-
mental to the formation of satisfaction assessments,
these normative expectations could be used to develop a
method of recalibrating satisfaction scores based on
national differences in factor means across countries.
Evaluating the normative expectations of supplier per-
formance has the potential to strengthen models of sup-
plier evaluation in a variety of cross-cultural or cross-
36 Journal of International Marketing
national business settings. Our suggestion to include
nation-based normative expectations when measuring
performance is applicable whenever higher-order influ-
ences may be present—that is, when differences stem
from national or subnational cultures. Marketing
research has established the value of expectations as
drivers of marketing-related outcomes such as satisfac-
tion. By discerning country differences in expectations
of business practice, suppliers can develop targeted
approaches to improving a buyer’s experience.
APPENDIX A
All items are anchored by 1 = “excellent” and 5 = “poor.”
1. A supplier typically returns 2 of 3 calls.
2. A supplier failed to keep an appointment only once.
3. A supplier averages 10 minutes late for meetings.
4. A supplier’s follow-through on requests you make is
about 75% without a reminder from you.
5. A supplier’s bills and invoices contain inaccuracies
about 10% of the time.
6. The people you deal with in a supplier firm change
about once every 2 years.
7. Your initial rejection rate of work performed by a
supplier is about 15%.
Cronbach’s alpha by country:
U.S. sample = .85
Japan sample = .68
Germany sample = .70
U.K. sample = .76
APPENDIX B
All items are anchored by 1 = “very poor” and 10 =
“excellent.”
1. How would you rate the overall performance of the
supplier as a provider of printers?
2. How would you rate the overall reliability of the
printer provided by the supplier?
3. How would you rate the hardware provided by the
supplier for the printer?
4. How would you rate the software provided by the
supplier for the printer?
Cronbach’s alpha for scale by country:
U.S. sample = .87
Japan sample = .85
Germany sample = .82
U.K. sample = .84
NOTE
1. Reasonable fit is indicated by CFI, IFI, and NNFI val-
ues at or greater than .90 (Bentler 1990; Bollen
1989). The use of these global fit measures is encour-
aged in contemporary structural equation modeling
research because diagnostics such as root mean
square error of approximation can lead to “incorrect
decisions such as too frequently rejecting true models
or too infrequently rejecting misspecified models”
(Chen et al. 2008, p. 486).
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THE AUTHORS
Michelle D. Steward is Assistant Professor of Marketing
at Wake Forest University. Her research interests are in
business-to-business marketing and customer expecta-
tion management. Her research has been published in
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal
of Business Research, and Journal of Business & Indus-
trial Marketing.
Felicia N. Morgan is Assistant Professor of Marketing at
University of West Florida. Her research interests are in
services marketing and customer expectation manage-
ment. Her research has been published in California
Management Review and Journal of Business & Indus-
trial Marketing.
Lawrence A. Crosby is the chief loyalty architect of Syn-
ovate Customer Experience. His research has been pub-
lished in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing
Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
and Journal of Business Research.
Ajith Kumar is Professor of Marketing at Arizona State
University. His research has been published in Journal of
Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Mar-
keting Science, Journal of Business Research, Journal of
Personal Selling & Sales Management, and Journal of
Retailing.
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