Brand extensions and culture: The impacts of uncertainty avoidance and power distance on extension attitudes

This study expands on prior extension research by testing proven relationships between variables across multiple cultures. It is expected that that respondents from low uncertainty cultures will hold more favourable extension attitudes than respondents from high uncertainty cultures. Additionally, this research will discover if high power distance cultures will rate the extension favourability higher than low power distance cultures. Lastly, most marketing managers understand that they need to adapt portions of their marketing mix in order to develop the desired image in the minds of consumers, who are located in multiple and diverse cultures (Czinkota & Ronkainen 2001; Ghemawat 2001; Ho & Merrilees 2007; Hsieh & Lindridge 2005; Kapferer 2005; Kotler 1986). This study provides guidance to marketers to develop effective brand extension introduction strategies for global brands and contributes to academic research by testing the impact specific cultural dimensions have on the relationships among key extension variables.