Culture and web communications

Abstract

Various studies find that marketing communications reflect specific cultures. Most of these studies conceptualize culture in terms of one cultural framework, use a two-country sample, focus on print or television advertising, and do not statistically validate the measures used. This study addresses these issues by testing the applicability of the cultural frameworks of Hofstede [Hofstede G. Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values. California: Sage Publications, 1980] and Schwartz [Schwartz S. Beyond individualism/collectivism: new cultural dimensions of values. In: Kim U, Triandis HC, Kagitcibasi C, Choi SC, Yoon G, editors. Individualism and collectivism: theory, method, and applications. California: Sage; 1994. p.85-119] to study the reflection of culture in web communications. The article includes the results of a content analysis of web content from 15 countries. The results suggest that a combination of both frameworks, not either alone, best conceptualizes culture's influence on marketing communications. The findings and the framework guide culturally adapting an existing Taiwanese website. An experiment finds that Taiwanese informants prefer websites adaptations reflecting Taiwanese culture. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.