When Difference Doesn’t Mean Different

Global organisations require global market research programmes. Global Customer Experience (CX) programmes are invaluable for standardising feedback and highlighting systemic issues across markets.

But cultural response bias poses significant challenges when comparing survey data between markets. 

In a nutshell, cultural response bias makes it very difficult to gauge whether disparities are the result of true differences in the performance measured or simply in cultural response styles.

Updated for 2026, this Ipsos Views paper dives into the phenomenon of cultural response bias, demonstrating how cultural nuances can skew data and misinform insights from global research programmes. 

In this third edition, we include CX KPI data, exploring whether these cultural response patterns still play out in real world CX metrics, drawing on our CX Benchmark database.

We also explore what this bias looks like outside of CX, examining Brand Health, Employee and Societal metrics, to explore how pervasive cultural response bias may be.

Read When Difference Doesn’t Mean Different to discover:

• Three common types of response style and their impact on multi-market studies.
• Where we see consistent regional patterns in response style, and where we see more nuanced trends and exceptions.
• The methodologies recommended to mitigate the impact of cultural response bias.
• The importance of market-level specificity rather than relying solely on regional response patterns.