文化差异及其对广告诉求的影响:基于中美比较的视角(英文)

全球营销获得成功的首要条件是理解不同文化之间的价值观的相似性和差异性。由于缺乏以研究为基础获得的信息,这一任务对于试图与中国做生意的公司而言尤为艰巨。本研究采用霍夫斯塔德文化模型中的最新价值观来比较中美之间波莱广告诉求的有效性。在以文化维度为基础预测有效诉求的20个假设中,有9个得到了支持。另外一个假设也非常显著,但是与预想的方向正好相反。这些研究发现意味着,采用霍夫斯塔德文化维度作为有效广告诉求的唯一预测指标是不明智的。霍夫斯塔德维度或许缺乏可以有效预测各种广告诉求成功度所必需的结构。此外,广告诉求的有效性还可能由于其他因素(例如,年龄、社会趋势、政治法律环境及产品用法)而有所调整。     

The paradox and change of Russian cultural values

Existing studies on Russian culture using the dominant dimensional theory of culture (e.g., Hofstede’s), in general, offer “stereotypical” characterization of that country’s societal culture but fail to capture the dynamics of cultural values that exist in Russian business and society. We argue that this weakness stems from the either/or logic associated with such an approach. We echo the call for improving the quality of cross-cultural research by going beyond Hofstede (Tung & Verbeke, 2010) through studying cultural paradoxes and their embedded contexts (e.g., Osland & Bird, 2000) in historical and contemporary Russia. To this end, we have applied Faure & Fang’s (2008) framework which builds on the holistic, dynamic, and paradoxical Yin Yang thinking to unravel the paradox inherent and changes to Russian cultural values over time. We find that underlying paradoxical values that traditionally coexisted in Russian culture during the Communist regime have been further reinforced as a consequence of Russia’s interactions with the rest of the world. In post-Communist Russia, traditional values have not disappeared; rather, they coexist and interact with new values as a result of cultural learning and knowledge transfer in global economy. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research.     

Young Europeans abroad in Scotland: an exploration of how their attitudes to consumer credit reflect dimensions of culture

Nineteen young Europeans from across the Continent took part in in‐depth interviews where a wide range of consumer‐related issues were explored. These issues ranged from specific consumer behaviours and consumer value gained to consumer protection and other aspects of policy. Respondents were postgraduates studying at Scottish universities or young professionals currently working in Scotland. The interviews were structured around a number of key themes that were developed both from the literature and from an in‐depth pilot study. One of these themes was designed to explore the respondents’ attitudes towards saving and borrowing, in particular, consumer credit; and this forms the focus for the current paper. The theme had been developed initially with reference to Hofstede’s cultural dimension of ‘uncertainty avoidance’. However, it also successfully illuminated some of the other cultural dimensions in Hofstede’s typology. As anticipated, respondents tended to benchmark consumer culture in their home country against that of the host country (Scotland). What was surprising was the consensus with which they considered the Scottish/British consumers to be the ‘odd ones out’. This observed convergence appears to indicate that historical cultural differences between continental and Anglo‐Saxon cultures survive and may be stronger and more sustained than any differences between the post‐World War II socialist and market democracies.     

Constructing Image-Based Culture Definitions Using Metaphors: Impact of a Cross-Cultural Immersive Experience

This study provides an approach to teaching and learning in the international business (IB) classroom about cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms through the study of cultural metaphor. The methodology is based on established qualitative methods by using participants’ visual pictures and written explanations—representative of their initial perspectives of another culture—as units of analysis. Prior to and after a cross-cultural immersion experience in China, students are asked to contribute a tangible visual image of their impression of Chinese culture and briefly write about it. Upon their return, students are once again asked to submit another image of culture along with an additional written explanation in order to explicate their further understanding of culture’s role in cross-border interactions. Findings point to the increased capacity to construct redefinitions of culture based upon their experiences. They also reveal a glimpse into the ideas, imaginings, and attitudes of students as they attempt to make sense of unfamiliar world views, practices, and norms in light of the increasing interconnection in our world.     

Vanishing acts

This exploratory cross-cultural study examines the experiences of women in advertising creative departments in Spain and the United States. The study, an exploration of the creative environment and its impact on female creatives, is framed by Hofstede’s dimensional model of national culture (Hofstede 2001; de Mooij & Hofstede 2010) and signalling theory (Spence 1974). Interviews with 35 top female creatives suggest that the challenges women face are rooted in the ‘fraternity culture’ or ‘territorio de chicos’ of creative departments in both countries. The data further suggest that the gender-bound cultural environment of advertising creative departments may be a global phenomenon, one that may adversely affect the creative process and impact women’s upward mobility.     

Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research

A content analysis of 99 articles focuses on the comparative cross-cultural marketing research in 14 leading marketing and business journals from 1990 to 2008. The content analysis indicates strong growth in cross-cultural studies, especially in terms of studies on consumer attitudes and behavior and on promotion-related topics. This study classifies articles according to a series of conceptual (e.g., cultural dimensions employed in the study) and methodological (e.g., use of analytical technique) criteria. Although researchers have advanced in both conceptual and methodological respects, the studies still focus strongly on the dimensions from Hofstede (2001); methodologically, the dominance of two-country studies is problematic. Further, survey data from North America and Europe and researchers based and trained in North America and Europe are still dominant in the research field.     

国家文化距离对中国对外贸易的影响——基于31个国家和地区贸易数据的引力模型分析

随着国际贸易的不断发展,国家文化因素对它的影响作用逐渐得到重视。本文利用中国与31个国家和地区1995-2009年的贸易数据,引入Hofstede的国家文化维度建立中国对外贸易引力模型,研究国家文化距离对中国对外贸易的影响。研究显示,国家文化距离对中国贸易存在双重影响,作为整体变量,它对中国对外贸易有负面影响,作为组合变量,权力距离等几个维度对中国对外贸易有正面影响;此外,国家文化距离对中国进出口贸易的影响程度存在差异。     

中美文化禀赋差异和国际贸易进入策略探索

在文化禀赋差异下,中美贸易进入,文化禀赋差异既是一种挑战,又是一个竞争优势来源。根据国际贸易文化互补和文化禀赋理论,采用霍夫斯德跨文化研究模型,分析了中美文化差异,跨文化禀赋贸易必须慎重对待文化禀赋差异,通过跨文化理解和跨文化沟通来尽量消除文化禀赋差异带来的不利影响,选择合适的贸易进入方式。     

Best for baby? Framing weaning practice and motherhood in web-mediated marketing

The aim is to illustrate how web marketing frame commercial baby food as a value-adding part of weaning practice and discuss how various ways of framing relate to contemporary mothering ideals. Drawing on “practice” and “frame analysis,” we illustrate how four baby food producers’ web marketing frame commercial baby food and weaning as “medical,” “fun” or “convenient.” The analysis shows that the web material offers a range of images and ideals that could function as discursive resources in mothers’ everyday feeding practices, while at the same time providing a good fit with several, rather than one specific mothering ideal. Besides adding to our knowledge on mothering this work illustrates the role that marketing play in configuring consumer practices. As a form of representation of consumer practice marketing involves a range of images offering discursive resources and supports consumers in negotiating actual and ideal practices linked to cultural ideals on consumption.     

Impact of national culture on the quality of information delivery in services

A nation’s culture has a significant influence on an employee’s behavior and communication. Culture-specific characteristics cause information delivery biases, especially in services. This paper studies how a nation’s culture affects the quality of information delivery using a global airline dataset. Cultural differences are measured by two commonly used datasets, Hofstede and Globe projects. Our results show that cultural characteristics have statistically significant effects on the website quality, inflight media options, and inflight communications. We suggest firms in each culture become aware of these findings and step forward to remedy their shortcomings or to bolster their performance.     

A metacultural approach to predicting self-employment across the globe

Drawing from neo-institutional theory, we examine the relationship between preference for entrepreneurship and actual entrepreneurship behavior across multiple countries and cultures. We elucidate how multiple societal-level cultural models, namely Hofstede, Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE), and Schwartz affect the individual-level process connecting expressed preference for self-employment and actual behavior. Our hypotheses were tested using a multilevel technique on a sample of 20,755 individuals across 24 countries. The findings indicate that the moderating effect of predominant cultural cognition is partially supported. Contributions and implications for theory and practice are also discussed.     

Culturally Customizing Websites for Immigrant Communities in the United States

Recent research suggests that the customization of online marketing messages to meet the cultural preferences of immigrant communities increases preferences for those messages. Level of acculturation may be used as a segmentation variable that accounts for this effect, with lower levels of acculturation matching the preference for the home country's culture in marketing messages. Comparisons between Asian- and Hispanic-American preferences across levels of acculturation are made, and possible convergences in preferences through acculturation are examined. The results indicate that Taiwanese-Americans have culturally-rooted preferences for web content based on their acculturation levels. Furthermore, the study shows that the web content preferences of Taiwanese- and Hispanic-American consumers converge as members of these groups acculturate.     

Culture and Consumer Ethics

Disparity in consumer ethics reflects cultural variations; these are differences in the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one culture from another. This study explores the differences in consumer ethics across cultural dimensions using Hofstede??s (in Culture??s consequences: international differences in work-related values, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1980) model (collectivism, masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance) and Muncy and Vitell (in J Bus Res 24(4):297?C311, 1992) consumer ethics model (i.e., illegal, active, passive, and no harm). This is the first study to empirically explore consumer ethics using these two major constructs. Seven hundred sixty one African American consumers were used to test the four major hypotheses developed in this study. Current research has revealed that there are significant differences in ethics between consumers who score high and consumers who score low on Hofstede??s four cultural dimensions. In general, this research revealed that consumers who score high on collectivism, high on uncertainty avoidance, low on masculinity, and low on power distance scales reject questionable activities more than consumers who score low on collectivism, low on uncertainty avoidance, high on masculinity, and high on power distance. This study should prove valuable to international marketers because the Hofstede cultural model allows managers to identify differences in consumer ethics across different cultures and thus provides a theoretical base for designing effective marketing strategies.     

Factors affecting family firms’ communication behaviour: a cross-cultural study

This study explores heterogeneity in family firms’ communication behaviour across cultures. The authors propose that variations in the background of family firms, including culture, industry, public or private status, and age, influence their propensity to reference their family identity on their corporate web communications. Websites have become an increasingly important medium of marketing communications in today’s interconnected world. Yet, limited research has been done to understand firms’ web communication behaviour. Based on a study of 432 family firms from 41 countries across the world, this research empirically demonstrates that family firms which are from collectivist cultures and publicly traded are significantly less likely to reference their family identity in online marketing communications compared to their counterparts. In addition, the research shows that there is an inverted-U curvilinear relationship between a family firm’s age and the likelihood of referencing their family background. Contributions and implications of the research and findings are discussed.     

Television’s Glocal Advertising in Veridical Product Narrative: A SE Asian Reception Study of Consumer Alignment/Alienation

Drawing on post‐Marxist screen reception studies in Malaysia, our article establishes a theoretical framework enabling analysis of consumer identification with/cultural distancing from television advertising and its aesthetics. We develop a hermeneutic model of audience response to audio‐visual text as ludic or play‐like in cognitively pursuing a meaning for veridical (mediated yet transparently accessible) marketing narrative sketches of everyday life transcended. Illustrating and illuminating this thesis, we report on a small SE Asian university research project whose participants articulate written reactions to two televised advertisements displaying transcultural product morphing (or glocal goods). Customer identification with consumers shown in television marketing is argued to be fundamentally hermeneutic. Brought into focus through analysis, that is, customer/consumer alignment is conceptual, conscious, and cultural where both project (expect and establish) a screen narrative shared epistemologically (as interpretative knowledge) and ontologically (as involving their activity). The reader’s propositional identification with a text’s perceived normative statement is enabled. On the other hand, discourses of consumer alienation emerge in response to advertisements inappropriately addressing audience horizons of expectation.     

A Simplified Approach to Teaching the Value of Multinational Diversification

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which a specific time-based country experience outside of the subject’s native regional cultural cluster, would be able to explain the subject’s level of cultural intelligence. Using a sample of 143 subjects, the results suggest individuals who have identified the country within which they have spent the most total time to be a non-Anglo country had developed a higher level of cultural intelligence than demographically similar U.S. citizens in the sample who spent their most significant amount of time in an Anglo cluster country. In addition, it was found that those subjects within the Anglo culture cluster group who traveled internationally but spent the greater amount of time in a foreign Anglo culture country (i.e., non-USA), did not significantly differ in three of the four cultural dimensions from those who never traveled outside of the USA. These results suggest country choice can make a difference.     

A cross-cultural longitudinal analysis of the meaning of work and the socialization process of career starters

This research examines the cultural variations in the socialization process of youth, from seven different countries during their transition into the world of work. It represents one of the very few longitudinal studies among young career starters and their work values. We study the extent to which work centrality is trans-national or culturally/nationally specific. The most significant increase in work centrality was found to occur during the second year of employment. At the national level, cultural differences were identified using Hofstede’s (1980) measures. Countries low in uncertainty avoidance were shown to have increased work centrality, while those high in masculinity–femininity appeared weakly influential.     

Master's Level Education in Business Marketing: Quo Vadis?

ABSTRACT

Given the paucity of knowledge on the state of business marketing education at the master's level, we conducted an exploratory survey of instructors at selected universities in North America and Europe. We supplemented results from this survey with discussions with our colleagues who teach business marketing at the master's level, and a review of articles on master's level programs.

Through our investigations, we discovered that there is a shortage of management cases that address contemporary issues in business marketing. We learned that nearly half of survey participants do not use a textbook and that the remaining participants use a wide variety of textbooks. We observed that many instructors still teach business marketing courses from a traditional functional perspective. Instead, we believe that business marketing courses must address a host of emerging issues such as value and its assessment, business process reengineering, global marketing, working relationships and business networks, and cross-functional coordination issues, among other things.

We believe that scholars can rejuvenate the discipline by tailoring business marketing courses to the new generation of accelerated master's programs, by creating a network for sharing information on new cases and teaching materials, and by writing more relevant and timely business marketing cases. Finally, we believe that the time is right for a faculty consortium on teaching business marketing.     

Content,Pedagogy, and Learning Outcomes in the International Marketing Course

Abstract

The early internationalization of business school curricula was in response to corporate needs and expectations, and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) fostered changes by instituting accreditation outcomes that focused upon international content in the curriculum. By the late 1990s, a course in international marketing was standard at most accredited college and universities, and faculty in these courses reported on various approaches to teaching the course. The main objective of the current study was to examine the course content, pedagogy, and learning outcomes of current international marketing courses. As such, a content analysis of international marketing syllabi from 89 colleges and universities was conducted. Findings from this indepth analysis offer insights regarding knowledge content coverage, pedagogical strategy, and learning outcomes assessment and provide an update on the current status of teaching international marketing in schools of business.     

Distance,Transaction Costs,and Preferences in European Trade

Beckerman (1956) and Linder (1961) have suggested that international trade is not determined by supply-side factors alone—perceptions about foreign countries and country preferences matter. We explore the relation between exports, cultural distance, and country preferences in Europe. The results show that several distance and preference-related variables, based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, income gaps, and voting patterns in the Eurovision Song Contest, are significantly related to bilateral trade. We conclude that cultural distance and preferences influence trade through several channels, both indirectly through transaction costs and more directly, as countries seem to prefer some trade partners before others.