Dealing with culture

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Dealing with culture

• Why not everybody loves Hofstede
• Malene Gram

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Outline for today

• Alternative approaches to culture
• Why doesnt everybody love Hofstede?
• Emic and Etic approaches
• Ex. Danish culture under investigation
• How Danish are the Danes in here?
• Ex. Websites in a cross-cultural perspective
• What can we learn from various approaches?
• Case the Scantecom-Nippontel alliance

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Ethnocentrism

• Tendency to categorise what is known as good and
  what is unknown as bad
• An obstacle to intercultural communication

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Source Schneider and Barsoux
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Source Gary Larsson
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We are the best!
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Cultural Relativism

• Cultural relativism holds that "good" means what
  is "socially approved" by the majority in a given
  culture. Infanticide, for example, isn't good or
  bad objectively rather it's good in a society
  that approves of it, but bad in one that
  disapproves of it.

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Kroeber Kluckhohn found 164 definitions in the
1950s

• "Culture consists of patterns, explicit and
  implicit, of and for, behaviour acquired and
  transmitted by symbols, constituting the
  distinctive achievement of human groups,
  including their embodiments in artefacts the
  essential core of culture consists of traditional
  (i.e., historically derived and selected ) ideas
  and especially their attached values culture
  systems may, on the other hand, be considered as
  products of action, on the other as conditioning
  elements of further action." (1952, p. 181)

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Other definitions

• Hofstede Culture is the collective programming
  of the mind 1980
• Culture behaviour
• Geertz man is an animal suspended in webs of
  significance he himself has spun 1973
• Birmingham school collective subjectivity
• Culture meaning
• What is natural and evident?

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Emic and etic approaches to culture

• Universal components in all cultures
• Hofstede (powerdistance, uncertainty avoidance,
  masculinity vs. feminity, individualism vs.
  collektivism)
• Hall (high and low context communication)
• Unique elements in every culture, product
  categories and consumption situations
• In-depth knowledge to the targetgroup

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Culture matters. But what is culture a few
definitions

• Functionalist approaches
• Hofstede Culture is the collective programming
  of the mind 1980
• Culture behaviour
• Etic approach looking for cultural universals
• Enhance cross-cultural comparisons
• Symbolic approaches
• Geertz man is an animal suspended in webs of
  significance he himself has spun 1973
• Birmingham school collective subjectivity
• Culture meaning
• What is natural and evident?
• The subject is central in the perception of
  communication
• Gadamer communication is about fusing horizons
• Emic approach looking for what is unique to each
  communication situation
• Help to define specific elements

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The symbolic approach

• Covers a broad field of disciplines and
  epistemological traditions
• The subject is central in the perception of
  communication

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What is Danish culture?

• Find 10 words which characterize Danish culture?

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Hofstede and Hall and the Danes? Consequences?

• Power distance
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Masculinity/femininity
• Collectivism/individualism
• Confusian dynamism
• Personal space
• Monochronic/polychronic time perception
• High/Low context communication

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Personal space and context

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Richard Jenkins in Skive

• Used to cold people
• Knew how to approach them
• Problem with cpr.-numbers
• The eyes that see are important.

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Dealing with culture on the Internet

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Culture on the Internet

• A tendency to perceive the Internet as
  culturally neutral (Zhao et al. 1998), but
• Various cultural groups have different
  expectations to a website (Hart, 1998)
• Non English-speaking groups stay twice as long on
  localized websites (Singh og Pereira, 2005)
• Necessary to use local values and symbols to have
  impact (Luna et al, 2002)

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Primarily functionalist approach in research
literature

• Hermekings findings
• High-context cultures prefer little text, very
  visually oriented TV-like webpages (Asia, Latin
  America, Southern Europe)
• Low-context cultures prefer very informative and
  explicit webpages (Scandinavia, Anglo-American
  countries, Germany)
• Singhs findings
• Mexican websites use family relations and titles
  much more than American sites

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Other studies finding cultural differences in
websites

• Asian websites have more consumer-consumer
  interaction, whereas Western websites have more
  consumer-marketer interaction (Cho and Cheon
  2005)
• Chinese websites have more red colours and more
  active elements (animation, bannerads, rotating
  graphics and hyperlinks) compared to American
  websites (Lo Gong, 2005)

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Singh and Pereira (2005) translating cultural
universals to websites

• Powerdistance
• Company Hierarchy Information Information about
  the ranks of company personnel, informationa
  about organizational chart, and information about
  country managers
• Pictures of CEOs Pictures of executives,
  importnat people in the industry or celebrities
• Quality assurance awards mention of awards won,
  metion of quality assurance information and
  quality certification by international and local
  agencies
• Proper titles Titles of the important people in
  the companyu, titles of the people in the contact
  information and in the organizational charts

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Translating cultural universals to websites
(cont)

• Femininity
• Soft-sell approach Use of affective and
  subjective impressions of intangible aspects of a
  product or service, and use of the entertainment
  theme to promote the product
• Aesthetics Attention to aesthetic details,
  liberal use of colors, bold colors, emphasis on
  images and context an duse of love and harmony
  appeal
• Masculinity
• Quizzes and games games, quizzes, fun stuff to
  do on the web site, tips and tricks, recipes and
  other such information
• Realism theme Less fantasy and imagery on the
  web site, to-the-point information
• Product effectiveness durability information,
  product attribut and robustness information
• Clear Gender Roles Separate pages for men and
  women, depiction of women in nurturance roles,
  depiction of women in traditional polisions of
  telephone operators, models, wives and mothers,
  depiction of men as macho, strong, and in
  positions of power

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Translating cultural universals into websites

• High context cultures
• Politeness and Indirectness Greeting from the
  company, images and pictures relfecting
  politeness, flowery language, use of indirect
  workds and humility in company philosophy and
  corporate information
• Soft-sell approach and aesthetics
• TV-style rather than text (Hermeking, 2005)
• Low context cultures
• Hard-sell approach aggressive promotions,
  discounts, coupons, and emphasis on product
  advntages using explicit comparison
• Use of Superlatives Use of superlative words and
  sentences like we are number one, The top
  company, The world leader
• Information rather than TV-style (Hermeking, 2005)

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The emic approach what is unique?

• Knowledge about the products unique
  signification for the targetgroup.
• What is important in a specific product category?
• Examples
• What is the meaning of Gender Roles in specific
  consumption contexts?
• Consumption of holidays in a German setting
• Relatively high masculinity according to Singh
  and Peirera women should be depicted in feminine
  roles.
• Indepth qualitative study shows that German
  mothers cannot be bothered to look after their
  children in the holiday (Gram og Therkelsen,
  2003)
• Danger with general rules
• Ex. Chinese websites should be highcontext and
  collectivist, but
• Chinese commercial websites are torn between
  western and traditional values (Han, Lim and
  Hansen, 2006)

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Tulip in Cyberspace

• What does Tulip do in the French market?
• According to the etic approaches
• The French are
• relatively high on powerdistance compared to the
  Danes
• A high context culture compared to the Danes
  known as a low context culture
• So Tulips French website should be offering e.g.
• Hierarchy information
• Visual rather than textual information

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Concluding questions

• How do we deal with culture in business?
• Standardisation or localization?
• Many seem to operate with translation only.
• Or with an English-speaking global person e.g.
  Aalborg University
• What tools do the research litterature offer?
• Mainly etic approaches and studies.
• Could more emic studies enhance approaches to
  culture to make the websites more sensitive and
  powerful?

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Concluding remarks

• Fruitful merger of functionalist and alternative
  approaches to assure culturally sensitive
  business approach.
• Etic approaches to ask the right questions?
• Emic approaches to find the right answers?

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If more time

• Case study Scantecom-Nippontel alliance