Daniel Rupert du Plooy, Anthony Lyons and Emiko S. Kashima
This paper aims to examine the relationship between migrants’ psychological well-being and the extent to which they keep in touch with people in their country of origin.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between migrants’ psychological well-being and the extent to which they keep in touch with people in their country of origin.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey completed by 1,328 Australian migrants from 4 cultural groups (Anglo, Southern Asian, Confucian Asian and other European) assessed 2 facets of well-being, namely, flourishing and psychological distress and the use of 3 modes of online communication, namely, social media, messaging services and phone/video services.
Findings
Overall, keeping in touch with family and friends in their country of origin was associated with more flourishing and less distress amongst migrants. Nonetheless, the preferred modes of communication and how those usages relate with well-being varied considerably across cultural groups. In the Anglo group, communicating through messaging and phone/video services was associated with lower distress and communicating in all modes was associated with higher flourishing. Furthermore, the latter link was accounted for by having a meaningful conversation.
Originality/value
These findings suggest that the psychological well-being of migrant populations may be supported by an understanding of the distinct roles played by specific communication modes that are used to stay in touch with family and friends back home.
Details
Keywords
Konstantinos Poulis, Efthimios Poulis and Mo Yamin
The purpose is to construct an analytical framework that encapsulates implications for the marketing offering of service firms as a result of observed intra-national ethnic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose is to construct an analytical framework that encapsulates implications for the marketing offering of service firms as a result of observed intra-national ethnic diversity in these firms' markets of operation.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual approach which promotes the idea that acculturation matters for service firms operating in multicultural markets and adopts relevant propositions related to service firms' strategy in such markets.
Findings
Integrating fragmented insights from consumer behaviour and multicultural marketing, the study suggests that the various interactions and contacts between ethnic groups in a multicultural country can generate acculturation outcomes that lend themselves to novel avenues for empirical research. These avenues move beyond a research focus on the presence of ethnic groups as stand-alone entities of intra-ethnic uniformity.
Practical implications
Firms with a broader market horizon in a multicultural market can employ acculturation in their marketing strategy since an exclusive focus on ethnicity as a basis of segmenting the market reveals shortcomings. Otherwise, a myopic approach that ignores cross-ethnic interactions may lead to bypassing opportunities for more considerate market responses by a service firm.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the only acculturation study in a services context that offers an analytical framework and propositions that can be used as a guide for multicultural, services marketing researchers and practitioners that see the market in a holistic fashion.