Cultural values and personal selling : A comparison of Australian and Hong Kong retailers’ promotion preferences

This paper compares the promotional practices and perceptions between two countries of disparate cultural backgrounds, namely Australia and Hong Kong. The paper argues that the preference for a particular promotional tool is influenced by the degree of cultural orientation as measured by Hofstede’s collectivism index. The central hypothesis is that countries with a higher score on the collectivism index are likely to favour personal selling promotion tools than will countries with a lower score. This hypothesis is tested with two separate samples of clothing and shoe retailers from Australia and Hong Kong. The hypothesis is supported from the statistical results.