International Journal of Hospitality Management 36 (2014) 156–166 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Hospitality Management jou rn al hom ep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman Assessing equivalence of hotel brand equity measures in cross-cultural contexts  Haemoon Oh a,∗ , Cathy H.C. Hsu b,1 a Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 90 Campus Center Way Flint 107, Amherst, MA 01003, United States b School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17 Science Museum Rd., TST East, Kowloon, Hong Kong a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Hotel brand Brand equity Brand choice Measurement invariance Equivalence Cross-cultural a b s t r a c t The authors synthesize the measurement equivalence or invariance literature and illustrate how to con- duct equivalence analyses by using a hotel brand equity model as an example. The illustration focuses on how to assess the model’s generalizability across three selected cultural or cross-country factors: the hotel’s brand identity (domestic vs. foreign), the customer’s first language (Mandarin vs. English), and the customer’s country of residence (Asia vs. Europe vs. North America). Results support the model’s configural and metric generalizability across the three cross-cultural contexts. The authors show how to interpret the results of equivalence analyses and discuss a few related methodological issues. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Measuring brand equity (BE) in the hotel industry often demands cross-national or cross-cultural research design and analyses. Not only is the nature of the hotel business global in operations, but the business also constantly, and increasingly, deals with customers from diverse national or cultural back- grounds. Such diversity in background becomes frequent sources of variance in customer perceptions and behaviors, also causing con- cerns in customer-based measurement of hotel BE (Motameni and Shahrokhi, 1998). Consequently, researchers face numerous ques- tions associated with whether a model developed in one cultural context will work in another (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998). For example, would a model structure remain consistent across cultural groups or segments of customers? Is the strength of theo- retical relationships among the model constructs equivalent across cultural contexts? Understanding variances attributable to contex- tual differences like these will advance theoretical knowledge on BE measurement as well as managerial decisions on building global BE strategies (Kish et al., 2001; Yoo and Donthu, 2002). The BE literature, especially of hospitality and tourism, generally lacks research efforts to address potential cross-cultural variations. Although researchers have proposed models for measuring hotel BE  The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Project no. 8-ZH74). ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 413 545 2061; fax: +1 413 545 3765. E-mail addresses: oh@isenberg.umass.edu (H. Oh), cathy.hsu@polyu.edu.hk (C.H.C. Hsu). 1 Tel.: +852 3400 2323; fax: +852 2362 9362. (e.g., Bailey and Ball, 2006; Hsu et al., 2012; Kayaman and Arasli, 2007; Prasad and Dev, 2000; So and King, 2010; Xu and Chan, 2010), few have assessed their models for equivalence or generalizability across the cultural backgrounds of customers. While measuring and tracking hotel BE has a number of significant reasons, such as under- standing customer feedback, the hotel’s competitive position, and the impact of marketing mix (Prasad and Dev, 2000), relying on a BE model that is robust to likely cultural influences will make these reasons more valid. Both interests in and needs for cross-cultural studies seem to have emerged boldly enough to necessitate a methodological illustration for future applications broadly in general hospitality research, needless to say hospitality BE research. In their com- prehensive review of hospitality marketing research, Line and Runyan (2012) summed (p. 485): “The methodological goal of most domains has recently moved toward the examination of the cross- cultural validity of scales commonly used within the domain. . .. Utilizing such scales cross-culturally is important, but ensuring that the scales are cross-culturally valid is an equally important methodology issue, often ignored in [hospitality] research. . .. The proper method of establishing cross-cultural validity is to test for measurement invariance (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998). Unfortunately, such tests are rarely enacted. Indeed, although pop- ular measurement scales of hospitality phenomena are employed cross-culturally, invariance research is absent in top hospitality journals. As such, we suggest that future studies address invari- ance as it relates to the cross-cultural employment of hospitality marketing constructs.” This study responds to Line and Runyan’s (2012) call and aims to introduce and illustrate a methodological procedure of assessing and validating measurement invariance of a research model, 0278-4319/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2013.09.002