international research on relationship marketing (RM), it is unclear whether or how RM should be adapted across
cultures. The authors adopt Hofstede’s dimensions of culture to conduct a comprehensive, multivariate,
metaregression analysis of 47,864 relationships across 170 studies, 36 countries, and six continents. To guide
theory, they propose four tenets that parsimoniously capture the essence of culture’s effects on RM. Study 1 affirms
these tenets and emphasizes the importance of taking a fine-grained perspective to understand the role of culture
in RM because of the high degree of heterogeneity across different cultural dimensions and RM linkages. For
example, the magnitude of individualism’s effect is 71% greater on RM than other cultural dimensions, whereas
masculinity has almost no effect; however, accounting only for individualism ignores significant moderating effects
of power distance and uncertainty avoidance dimensions. To guide managers, Study 2 adopts a country-level
approach and reveals that RM is much more effective outside the United States such that relationships are 55%
more effective, on average, for increasing business performance in Brazil, Russia, India, and China.