Cultural Diversity

A variety of nations join forces to study the importance of Texas branding within the United States beef market. Texas Tech is fueling the fire of curiosity by potentially providing for beef markets outside of the U.S. Our country is known for our beef products, specifically Texas, but is the beef demand just as high in other countries?

Dr. Carpio, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, partnered with Dr. Darren Hudson, professor and Combest Chair of the department, as well as 2 other faculty and 2 graduate students. This research team brings a unique cultural aspect to the table.

A generous amount of hard work and dedication goes into every research project, but this specific project demonstrates a higher level of difficulty, due to the range of communication being international.

One of the most unique things about Texas Tech University is the cultural diversity. The research team within the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics showcases that characteristic.

The team is comprised of 5 different nationalities including Ecuador, Guatemala, Thailand, China and the United States. These ethnic backgrounds are helpful to the project because data is being collected from Mexico and China.

“You have to adapt to the culture.”

Luckily for the department, there are a few bilingual team members that are helping conduct this research study. Research assistant, Manuel Garcia, is familiar with the Spanish language, and Chenggang Wang is familiar with the Chinese language.

Without these bilingual research assistants, Dr. Hudson and Dr. Carpio would have hired a translator in order to communicate questions and answers between countries.

The purpose of this research study is to answer the question, “Will the Texas brand in beef marketing encourage outside countries such as Mexico and China to buy from the United States?”

In order to answer this question as accurate as possible, the research team put together a survey for Mexico and China consumers. This survey is managed by Qualtrics Survey Software allowing the team to distribute this survey to a panel of consumers in outside countries. However, Qualtrics does not translate the survey questions and answers on its own. That is why our culturally diverse team is so unique to this process.

Research assistant Tullaya Boonsaeng says, “You have to adapt to the culture.” When putting together a list of questions for the survey, team members have to later translate those questions to Spanish and Chinese, and you cannot use google translate.

Assistant Wang mentions the importance of knowing the culture as questions are often asked in different ways. It is not just the translation of words, but the understanding of a completely different communication process. Not only do the questions have to be translated, but so do the answers once they receive the completed surveys.