Title: Stereotypes of Taiwanese salespeople at the service interface

Authors: Nick Lee, Amanda Beatson, Yuh-Jiin Lin

Addresses: Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK. ' School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology, G.P.O. Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia. ' Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK

Abstract: Stereotypes of salespeople are common currency in US media outlets and research suggests that these stereotypes are uniformly negative. However, there is no reason to expect that stereotypes will be consistent across cultures. The present paper provides the first empirical examination of salesperson stereotypes in an Asian country, specifically Taiwan. Using accepted psychological methods, Taiwanese salesperson stereotypes are found to be twofold, with a negative stereotype being quite congruent with existing US stereotypes, but also a positive stereotype, which may be related to the specific culture of Taiwan.

Keywords: salespeople; negative stereotypes; positive stereotypes; international marketing; Taiwan; stereotyping; service interfaces; service personnel.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2010.034329

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2010 Vol.14 No.2/3, pp.217 - 232

Published online: 01 Aug 2010 *

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