comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

Lee and Soutar (2009) discuss scaling issues with the SVS and with Likert scales in
general. They demonstrate that in fact the SVS item scales are designed not to be
interval but ordinal. Nonetheless, to conform to current practice in the SVS literature I
will employ parametric statistics for hypothesis testing of questions relating central
tendencies of the samples.
CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS
In order to assess the extent to which items have their expected meanings, it is desirable
to do a Smallest Space structural analysis within each sample. This reveals the structure
of relations amongst Schwartz’ ten SVS values and clarifies whether there are problems
in using the standard a priori indexes for group comparisons.
In this research project SVS surveys are being employed to compare randomly selected
businesspeople’s responses to the SVS in Guangzhou, China, and New Zealand, with
the intent of discussing behavioural expectations in business transactions between
people in Chinese-located and New Zealand-located organisations. Due to the
identification of significantly different culture areas in China discussed above, with, a
single region was selected due to cost of data collection considerations. I believe that a
single score for each dimension in China would be a statistical artefact, and not
representative of the country, as the country does not have a monolithic culture.
Response Sets for the Two Samples on the Two Surveys
Inspecting Figure 4.14, depicting the response set for the two samples for the SVS, we
see that the Guangzhou sample tended to use a wider range of anchors than did the New
Zealand Sample. This is also true for the LBDQXII responses.
The SVS survey instructions could have an effect on response set. They consist of:
In this questionnaire you are to ask yourself: “What values are
important to ME as guiding principles in MY life, and what values are
less important to me?” There are two lists of values on the following
pages. These values come from different cultures. In the parentheses
following each value is an explanation that may help you to
understand its meaning.
Your task is to rate how important each value is for you as a guiding
principle in your life. Use the rating scale below:
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