312 0 obj <>stream For each advertisement, perceived ad complexity was measured with two items with 7-point scales: The message of the advertisement is easy/hard to understand and The message of the advertisement is simple/complex (mean reliability: =.93, range.83.96). This result supported H3 (see the lower part of Figure2). High-context cultures are those in which the rules of communication are primarily transmitted through the use of contextual elements (i.e., body language, a person's status, and tone of voice). Deutsch-lernen.com recommends: Learn melodious standard German at ActiLingua Academy in Vienna. Examples of countries that Hall classified as low-context are Norway and Switzerland; examples of high-context countries are China and Japan. When it comes to the role of context culture on perceived complexity, a linear regression showed, in the first place, that nationality predicted perceived complexity (F (1, 287) = 4.48, p =.035, R2 =.01; B = .216, SE =.102, p =.035): Belgian participants (M = 3.28, SD = 0.86) perceived the ads as less complex than the Dutch participants (M = 3.49, SD = 0.83). We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Unlike low-context cultures, high-context cultures prioritize the group over the individual (Hofstede, 1984). In contrast, high-context cultures use facial expressions, body language, and gestures in a nuanced manner. Honesty is also valued highly because German communication as a whole is incredibly low-context. People tend not to smile in public with people they dont know. Low-context cultures (such as those in North America and Western Europe) depend less on the environment of a situation to convey meaning than do high-context cultures (such as those in Japan, China, and Arab countries). South Korea. On the basis of his review of studies on context theory, one of Cardon's (Citation2008, p. 423) concluding remarks was about this measurement issue: [F]uture research must employ rigorously developed measures. For high-context cultures, language is a kind of social lubricant, easing and harmonizing relations that are defined according to a group or collectivist orientation where we rather than I is the key to identity. Self-motivation and personal identity are important values to Germans. Meaning depends on what is said- the literal content of the message- rather than how it is said. While there is still an emphasis on enjoying oneself and having fun, the overarching mentality for many is live to work. This is defined by the contract between the employer and the employee. In general, both Germany and the U.S. are low-context cultures, meaning that information and meaning are usually communicated explicitly through words. Power Distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. The complexity of a message is actually defined by the comprehension of the receiver. All Rights Reserved. All details are transmitted explicitly. In low-context cultures, gestures and facial expressions are never the primary means of communication; they only serve to clarify or complement a point. 3~_9!1JLW? WC "9T$8jKX@N>@\b}16#Q{E82J7gxQWk7&nr^VRjxL%%o7%os ^URt_aOewb,im_ole)hdc|LE<6%E4TEo o@ W Edited by Liz O. Baylen and Mike Benoist. Your email address will not be published. The results confirmed three of four expected differences: perceived complexity was higher for Dutch than for Spanish participants (but not than for French), and ad liking was lower for Dutch than for Spanish and French participants. Keep away from uncertain situations, and instead focus on the known and practical. Potential participants were invited to take part in an online study. Rather than valuing positions that are based on family connections or age, Germans prefer to put trust in those who demonstrate experience and vast knowledge. These small differences seem to be related to the large similarities between the two populations, both in broad characteristics (e.g., political system, geographical location) and in context culture. Learn more about our academic and editorial standards. Honesty is also valued highly because German communication as a whole is incredibly low-context. Sage Publications. This actually implies that context theory is a powerful explanation for differences in perceived complexity and liking of ads. For an outsider, it is easier to enter into low-context cultures because one does not need to be aware of the shared history/values of the group. In this example, the implicature is that the car that is advertised (but not depicted) is as fast as the leopard shown in the ad. Neuliup, J. W. (2011). In a toothpaste ad that featured a pearl necklace, one version included an explicit headline as verbal anchoring (Makes your teeth pearly white), one version included an implicit headline as verbal anchoring (Flash em), and one version did not include a headline (the complex ad). Brings out best in individual; challenges to produce best possible outcome, yet a strong sense of collaboration persists, Task Orientation In addition to striving for personal accomplishment through masculine traits, Germans also enjoy tokens of status, which often comes from high-quality cars and new technology. Websites catering to high-context audiences had a lot of animation & images. Guffey et al. (Citation2010) also investigated perceived complexity and liking of visual metaphors in advertising among participants from the same three countries. In a high-context culture, there are many contextual elements that help people to understand the rules. Based off those dimensions, there are several cultural aspects of German society that are of great importance when creating a localization strategy. In the example above between the two sisters, they are using high-context communication; however, America is considered a low-context culture. The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau. The indirect effect of nationality on ad liking through participants' individual context score also proved to be significant (b = .04; CI [0.104, 0.005], bootstrapping technique, N = 50,000). In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. Intercultural Communication on Websites: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Websites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures. A high score (Masculine) on this dimension indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner / best in field a value system that starts in school and continues throughout organisational life. High-context cultures, on the other hand, depend on both the spoken words and the context of the situationincluding the shared values/assumptions of the groupto convey meaning. Anchor Press/Doubleday. 8:00AM and 16:00PM CEST They expected consumers from the Philippines to infer more meaning than consumers from the US because of Hall's classification of the Philippines and the US as predominantly a high- or low-context culture, respectively. Self-reliance; responsible for conduct of own life; independence, Balanced Competition Communicators in low-context cultures (such as those in North America, Scandinavia, and Germany) depend little on the context of a situation to convey their meaning. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. The result is a highly structured and punctual culture, which plays into the high masculinity. Besides cultural context, personal experiences and preferences also shape communication. More important, we will test whether the effect formulated in H1 is indeed mediated by participants' context-culture scores (H2): Figure 1. Hofstede, G. (1984). In addition, personal preference for high/low context was measured on a 5-point scale with nine items taken from Richardson and Smith (Citation2007), which were selected on the basis of a principle component analysis run on data collected in a pretest (N = 30, age: M = 23.90, SD = 2.16). Why is managing Cultural Diversity important? ULG covered the basics of the six cultural dimensions in full here. When working with high context cultures repeat yourself less, ask clarifying questions often and work on . increasing your ability to "read the air". Germans tend to think and argue deductively, using theoretical knowledge to build an argument. For the processing of complex messages, the perspective of context theory is very relevant. Finally, it is expected that the effect predicted in H3 is mediated by participants' context-culture scores (H4): H3: Participants from a higher-context culture like ads with visual metaphors better than participants from a lower-context culture. Therefore, communicators who wish to transmit information to a recipient are presumably motivated to construct their messages in a way that the recipient will understand and consider to be informative (Wyer & Shrum, Citation2015, p. 186). The present study had an approach taken in a number of other studies (e.g., Le Pair & Van Mulken, Citation2008; McQuarrie & Mick, Citation1999, Study 2; Van Enschot & Hoeken, Citation2015): participants were asked to report the degree to which they understood the message. Belgian participants have a higher ad liking than Dutch participants, and this national difference is explained by the participants' personal context score. On the other hand, low-context culture does not have any such shared background. Blunt, pragmatic communication styles will be effective in Germany. In doing so, we followed current methodological advice (see Hayes, Citation2009; Rucker, Preacher, Tormala, & Petty, Citation2011) to employ bootstrapping as a mediation technique because of its benefits compared to conventional methods, such as bootstrapping's higher power to detect potential indirect effects (e.g., Baron & Kenny, Citation1986). In other words, people communicate explicitly in low-context cultures. Strong analytical orientation. The current study is the first empirical examination of context theory's role on message comprehension and liking. We cite peer reviewed academic articles wherever possible and reference our sources at the end of our articles. He studied English literature at the University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. That is, not only were ads with more complex metaphors better liked than ads with less complex metaphors, but ads with too complex metaphors were liked less than ads with less complex metaphors (Phillips, Citation2000; Van Mulken etal., Citation2014). (2014, December 10). More responsibility; moving up in the company; time off (as monetary rewards are taxed at a very high rate). In the studies that did investigate the role of context culture in comprehension and persuasion, individuals' nationality was measured but not individuals' context culture. According to the information processing theory of McGuire (Citation1972), for instance, a persuasive communicative attempt is only expected to be successful if it passes a number of critical steps, including the comprehension of the message. These great minds from Germany have come up with . Callow and Schiffman (Citation2002) examined the degree to which consumers infer meaning from images in advertising. They often use written contracts and agreements to clarify expectations (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988). Ratneshwar and Chaiken (Citation1991) demonstrated this effect from the perspective of the HSM. Low-context cultures also want these communications to revolve around basic questions, like: What's happening? What is the perfect Organisational Culture? Two Types of Reflective Writing Assignments, Additional Resources for Improving Writing, Consistency in comparatives and listed elements: Parallelism, A Note on Punctuating the End of List Items, Hofstede Insights country comparison tool, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oYfhTC9lIQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQvqDv4vbEg, https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/42958_2_The_Cultural_Context.pdf, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, Tend to prefer indirect verbal interaction, Tend to understand meaning at one level only, Tend to understand meanings embedded at many sociocultural levels, Are generally less proficient in reading nonverbal cues, Are generally more proficient in reading nonverbal cues, Communication in highly structured messages, provide details, stress literal meaning, Communication is simple, sometimes ambiguous, messages; understand visual messages readily, Define cultural context (Guffey et al., 2013, p. 64), Contrast communicate styles for low-context and high-context cultures (Meyer, 2017, p. 59), Explain how cultural differences can affect workplace communication (Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau, 2014). For example, the head wobble (tilting the head from side to side) in India is a gesture that can convey a variety of meanings depending on the situation. Praise is rarely given, and when it is given, it is understated, e.g. Focus on accomplishing tasks one at a time and sequentially. It relies on the straightforward use of language, without depending much on nonverbal cues. Phillips (Citation2000), for example, constructed ads in three versions. The authors thank Ellen van Maaren for her assistance in the data collection, and Christian Burgers for his suggestion for the data analysis. An example of a fusion metaphor is the ad for Ariel liquid detergent that was discussed in the introduction. Croucher, S., Bruno, A, McGrath, P, Adams, C, McGahan, C, Suits, A & Huckins, A. In countries like Germany, it is a sign of respect and professionalism to speak clearly and leave no room for misinterpretation especially in a difficult conversation. This dimension is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised. endstream endobj 313 0 obj <>stream With Nina Feldman. (2014, May 9). As a preliminary test, we first checked whether Belgian participants indeed scored higher on their personal context score than Dutch participants. A number of scholars have claimed that the comprehension and interpretation of visual metaphors in particular may differ between cultures (e.g., Kvecses, Citation2005; Le Pair & Van Mulken, Citation2008; McQuarrie & Mick, Citation1999; Van Mulken etal., Citation2010). She found out that in high-context countries, the advertising campaigns used more colors, movements, and sounds to provide context. Writing Topic Sentences and Body Paragraphs, 39. Register to receive personalised research and resources by email. Unlike the linear communication style preferred in low-context cultures, high-context communicators may use spiral logic, circling around a topic indirectly and looking at it from many tangential or divergent viewpoints. All the advice on this site is general in nature. Germans tend to say their last name when answering the phone; e.g., Miller!. This allows individuals of different generations to communicate through a shared set of values, which, in turn, provides stability to the culture. A direct and participative communication and meeting style is common, control is disliked and leadership is challenged to show expertise and best accepted when its based on it. The High German languages (German: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (Hochdeutsch) - not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German" - comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and eastern Belgium, as well as in . Produced by Will Reid and Michael Simon Johnson. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(3356907, 'f3c79a54-94fa-4875-95d8-58d85fe04dc8', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); St. Patricks Day, cable-knit wool sweaters, and lush, green rolling landscapes are what people Read More, How people communicate with one another varies wildly from culture to culture. The use of short scales is consistent with recommendations in the marketing literature (Bergkvist & Rossiter, Citation2007). A message that is too simple or too difficult to understand is therefore expected to be less persuasive than a message with matching resources. Moreover, their communication is often task-oriented and driven by rational decision-making, which can further add to their formality.. G~D6cA>`E4SR_.H@vuc_FT_+ QY6PCz~Y*MLH4+p} These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent.
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