Cultural Differences and Similarities in Television Commercials in the Arab World and the United States

Understanding the nature and influences of cultural differences is central to international marketing. This article investigates cultural differences in television advertising between the United States and a select group of countries in the Arab world on the cultural dimensions of contextualization, individualism/collectivism, time orientation, and human perception of nature. The results indicate that while there are many differences between the United States and the Arab world, there are also similarities. The results indicate that there are also differences between the Arab countries, and the Arab countries should not be viewed as the same in certain situations.     

Managerial Values and Practices Sharing Common Cultural Heritage: A Comparison of Cultural Values in Hong Kong,Taiwan and the People's Republic of China

ABSTRACT

This paper explores managerial values and practices in three rapidly growing economies in Asia: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China. Differences and similarities in six cultural dimensions were investigated. Although participants in the present study share a common cultural heritage, their cultural values may be very different. Implications for cross-cultural research and practical applications are explored.     

Cultural Meaning,Advertising, and National Culture: A Four-Country Study

Cultural meaning transfer theory and GLOBE dimensions were employed in this comparative study to examine the extent to which cultural meaning presented in advertisements reflected national cultures of the target countries. Content analysis was applied to advertisements from four countries to investigate whether the use of advertising appeals presented in these advertisements mirrored variations in cultures as described by GLOBE Society Values. Results revealed that, in line with the hypotheses, there were similarities and differences in the use of appeals, and only some of them mirrored the cultural variations. GLOBE Society Values were more likely to predict the use of appeals than GLOBE Society Practices, but not for all appeals. Advertisers can draw on national cultures for cultural meanings to be used in advertisements only to a limited extent. It may be that advertisements mold rather than mirror societal values, or that only certain cultural traits are important for advertisers.     

Cultural Values and International Differences in Business Ethics

We analyze ethical policies of firms in industrialized countries and try to find out whether culture is a factor that plays a significant role in explaining country differences. We look into the firm’s human rights policy, its governance of bribery and corruption, and the comprehensiveness, implementation and communication of its codes of ethics. We use a dataset on ethical policies of almost 2,700 firms in 24 countries. We find that there are significant differences among ethical policies of firms headquartered in different countries. When we associate these ethical policies with Hofstede’s cultural indicators, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with a firm’s ethical policies, whereas masculinity and power distance are negatively related to these policies. Bert Scholtens received his Ph.D. at the Universtiy of Amsterdam. Since 1999 he has been working at the Department of Finance of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research particularly looks into the interaction between financial institutions and corporate social responsibility. He has published in, among others, Ecological Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance, Finance Letters, Journal of Investing, Sustainable Development, and Journal of Business Ethics. Lammertjan Dam is a Ph.D. student at the Universtiy of Groningen. He expects to defend his thesis about the integration of corporate social responsibility in economic valuation in Summer 2007.     

合芜蚌综合配套改革试验区文化差异与融合

合芜蚌综合配套改革试验区内三地市存在一定的文化差异：合肥拥有省会城市文化中心的优势,芜湖凸显长江流域的创新文化优势,蚌埠秉承淮河城市质朴自然的文化优势。由于三地区域位置相隔,经济发展不平衡以及文化特质迥异,导致区域文化融合存在“形散神也散”的巨大障碍。因此,在以自主创新为主题的合芜蚌综合配套改革试验区文化融合过程中,应当坚持以创业为核心、以技术为载体和以创新为方向的三个原则。     

Women's Magazines: Construction of Identities and Cultural Consumption in Hong Kong

Consumption is an integral part of contemporary capitalistic society. By means of a textual analysis of letters to the editor of a women's magazine in Hong Kong, as well as in-depth interviews with readers and editors, this paper examines how women's cultural consumption creates, constructs and circulates women's identities. Results reveal that the processes of identification can be constructed on three equivalent consumption levels. Firstly, women readers identify certain "imaginary communities" through reading the magazine, and by modeling the behaviors and styles of the communities they feel they are sustaining their relationship with them. Secondly, women identify with an idealized community-constructed beauty and seek to consume products which collectively suggests this idealized beauty for them. Thirdly, women regard the "communities" as providing shelter for rapport and comfort from the emotional and relational problems of real life. In sum, structured identification-consumption has shaped working class women into an identity, which conforms to society's dominant capitalist logic. Despite these findings, however, there are always a few women who attempt to seek alternative lifestyles.     

离岸服务外包文化差异的评价标准及策略

文化差异是目前导致离岸服务外包交易失败或遇到问题的一个重要原因.本文在现有研究和相关理论基础上,阐述了文化差异对离岸服务外包的作用机理,分析了其在日常外包关系中的关键问题,构建了离岸服务外包文化差异的评价标准,并通过实证调查,识别了该标准体系中各指标的重要性排序.结果显示,在选择外包地点时,文化兼容性和国际化是应该优先考虑的文化因子,尤其是文化兼容性下的共同语言和沟通.为了促进离岸服务外包的文化融合,应从重视文化差异在外包决策中的重要性、提高英语能力、加强沟通、提升国际化水平、开展跨文化培训等方面着手.     

Young adults' perceptions of product placement in films: An exploratory comparison between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong

Even though young adults are a major audience of films and the main target group for product placement, very few studies explore how youngsters across cultures perceive and interpret this marketing communication tool. This study explores this issue through thirty-two in-depth interviews conducted in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. The comparative analysis focused on four aspects: (1) young consumers' movie consumption habits and their exposure to product placement; (2) their general views towards product placement and advertising; (3) their perception of different execution styles of product placement and its impact and (4) the regulatory and ethical concerns of product placement. Results indicate that the young generation actively engages in interpreting brand integration in films and they were generally positive about it. Although interpretations of product placement are reported on an individual basis, this study suggests that culture may also affect how individuals perceive product placement. This exploratory study raises important issues about cultural differences in the perception of brands placed in films and provides insights for further research in the area of product placement.     

浅议东北亚物流网络的三元结构

作为区域经济系统的子系统——东北亚区域物流网络,其内容应该包括物流基础设施网络、物流信息网络、物流组织管理网络三大部分,并在此基础上形成综合物流服务体系。     

Government Policy,Continental Collaboration and the Diffusion of Open Source Software in China,Japan, and South Korea

ABSTRACT

The scale of development and deployment of open source software (OSS) in the three Northeast Asian countries–China, Japan, and South Korea–is large enough to be noticed at the global level. OSS has redefined the dynamics of software markets in the three countries and has brought significant structural changes in their software industries. Governments have played a pivotal role in the development of OSS industry in the region. Governments in the three countries have also created impetus for continental collaborations in OSS projects. This paper examines the roles and contributions of governments to the OSS initiative in the three countries in terms of a number of technology visions and goals.     

Comparison of attitudes towards school lunch by elementary school children in Japan,Korea and Thailand

The attitudes of elementary school children towards school lunch among three Asian countries, namely Japan, Korea and Thailand, were compared. More school children in Japan felt that their teachers gave them advice during the school lunch programme. Japanese and Korean teachers advised their children to eat as much as possible of the lunch. Korean children may be a little more obedient with regard to heeding the advice. However, few teachers in Thailand gave the children advice over eating lunch, and the Thai children looked forward to and enjoyed the school lunch. The different responses between Thailand and other two countries may be attributed in part to the differences in the teachers' instruction in the programme. Elementary school teachers, especially in Thailand and Korea, have to take more classes in food and nutrition in universities or colleges, and positively take part in the school lunch programme.     

Cultural Dimensions and Prototypical Criteria for Multi-Criteria Decision Support in Electronic Markets: A Comparative Analysis of Two Job Markets

Electronic markets are virtual meeting places where buyers and sellers interact to trade products or services. The main motivation for both buyers and sellers to participate in an electronic market is the desire to maximize their private utility (Bakos 1998). Electronic markets therefore usually provide some form of communication, decision or negotiation aid for buyers and sellers to support their utility maximizing goals. This paper presents a comparative analysis of two electronic job market case studies conducted at a university in Europe (Brussels, Belgium) and in the United States (Newark, New Jersey). At the occasion of the universities’ career fairs, students (n = 392) and local companies (n = 57) were invited to participate in an electronic job market to identify the best job offers (n = 137) and students, respectively. Participants were able to create personalized software agents to aid their search and decision making activities in the market. Every software agent was embedded with a multi-criteria decision support tool to produce a rank ordered list of students or job offers. Preference data gathered from market participants’ use of the multi-criteria decision model allow us to construct relational preference structures using a technique based on the mathematical theory of fuzzy relations (Bandler and Kohout 1980). These preference structures express relationships among the criteria that students and companies have used to identify job offers and companies, respectively. The purpose of the paper is to present the communicative and cultural implications of these relational preference structures. The theories of Hofstede (1983), Hall (1977) and Trompenaars (1993) on cultural dimensions allow us to discuss cultural differences on the choice of prototypical criteria. The paper concludes with implications for the use of electronic markets in the staffing industry and the role of software agents in such job markets.     

中日韩3国农产品在美国市场的竞争关系分析

运用产品相似度指数和显示性竞争优势指数,对中日韩3国农产品在美国市场的总体竞争关系、竞争强度和竞争力进行了测算。得出的结论是:中日韩3国农产品在美国市场存在较为明显的竞争关系,某些农产品的竞争强度有上升趋势,但竞争力相差还是较为明显。研究结论可为日后中国农产品贸易的发展提供借鉴。