Developing an Individual-Level Scale for Indulgence vs. Restraint: The Sixth Dimension of Hofstede’s Framework: An Abstract

Abstract

Despite the important role of culture in consumer behavior studies, there has been no study of effect of indulgence vs. restraint, the sixth and last dimension of Hofstede’s cultural framework, at the individual-level in consumer behavior. This is mainly because there has been no scale yet developed to measure indulgence vs. restraint at the individual-level. Given that ascribing national-level cultural scores to individuals causes an ecological fallacy, the four studies of this research conceptualize and develop a measure for individual-level indulgence and establish the reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, as well as the nomological validity of this new scale.

First, we developed an 8-items scale to measure indulgence vs. restraint, the sixth dimension of Hofstede’s cultural framework, at the individual level. The wording of the items of this scale was designed to measure indulgence. A high score in indulgence means a low score on restraint and vice versa. Then, through four different studies, we carefully followed all the classic steps in the scale development process, including reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and finally nomological validity.

More specifically, the nomological study of this research shows that hedonic and utilitarian attitudes fully mediate the relationship between individual-level indulgence and repurchase intentions and between individual-level indulgence and WOM, and this mediation effect is stronger for hedonic attitudes than that for utilitarian attitudes. Moreover, post-purchase positive emotions fully mediate the relationship between individual-level indulgence and utilitarian attitudes and between individual-level indulgence and hedonic attitudes.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Fonds de recherche société et culture (Quebec).