Therefore, empirical evidence was found for H2, which means that participants' personal context scores indeed mediated the effect of nationality on perceived complexity. 8:00AM and 16:00PM CEST Germany. Information is transmitted not through words alone but also through non-verbal cues such as gestures, voice inflection, and facial expression, which can have different meanings in different cultures. 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. The result is a highly structured and punctual culture, which plays into the high masculinity. Respect for authority; yet open and even confrontational discussions between subordinate and superior are accepted if they are fact-based and related to the subject-expertise of the subordinate. According to this hypothesis, the highest level of persuasion is obtained if there is a balance between the required cognitive resources for understanding the message and the cognitive resources that are available from the receiver. It can imply understanding or agreement, but it can also mean their conversea lack of certainty. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. The context refers to the information, with regards to communication and cultural issues conveyed via action, behavior, or speech. An overview of high context culture. In K. Berardo & D. K. Deardorff, eds. This dimension describes how every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future, and societies prioritise these two existential goals differently. Context High context. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(3356907, '2a8a93c6-0c6a-4fe5-9e63-52c235f8ec9d', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); With its sizable middle class and decentralized society, Germany has a low power distance. Which of the following statements best describes a larger power distance. Belgian participants have a higher ad liking than Dutch participants, and this national difference is explained by the participants' personal context score. Germany is valued around the world for its precision engineering, especially in the auto industry. Performance and target-based; subject expertise important; in public/government institutions, length of service is one aspect of performance appraisal. Potential characteristics may be verbal metaphors (cf. Fourth, in future empirical studies on the role of context theory in comprehension and persuasion, it may be worthwhile to vary the ways in which message comprehension is measured. The effect size is small, but what matters is the relationship between personal context score, on the one hand, and perceived complexity and ad liking on the other. Coming from a high context culture, I found the German colleagues too wordy when writing minutes of meeting and focus too much on details in discussions. Relatively weak control is called Indulgence and relatively strong control is called Restraint. H2: Participants' personal context scores mediate the effect of nationality on perceived complexity. jCA(/pq/2?$O-@$h8KYGd N. An example of such a complex ad is an ad for liquid detergent that was used in Western Europe. However, is it context culture that is responsible for this variation? Status is often shown, especially by cars, watches and technical devices. Guffey, M. E., Lowey, D., Rhodes, K., & Rogin, P. (2013). Meaning is determined not by what is said but by how it is said and by how social implications such as the communicators status and position come into play. Even if not stated exactly, a speaker's intent will rarely be misunderstood. Such measures would allow a basis for effectively contrasting cultures and would allow for replication and extension studies.. Finally, place focus on personal achievement, success, and competition, values which drive the German business world. Germany has produced some great philosophers including Albertus Magnus from the Middle Ages, Leibniz in the 17 th century, and the famous Immanuel Kant. To become successful as a cross-cultural communicator in Germany: Keep away from uncertain situations, and instead focus on the known and practical. The methodological problem of this approach is that potential differences in comprehension and appreciation cannot be empirically attributed to context culture, but only to the broader notion of nationality. and the German culture is referred to low context and status-oriented cultures [Kulikova, 2006; Kotthoff, 2003; Gnther, 2002; Khorrami . %PDF-1.6 % However, be sure to consider that your communication style doesnt highlight instant gratification or a can-do emotion. Repetition is appreciated for purposes of clarification, as is putting . Croucher, S., Bruno, A, McGrath, P, Adams, C, McGahan, C, Suits, A & Huckins, A. It will be based on the book entitled The Culture Map by an INSEAD professor and cross-cultural specialist Erin Meyer. The Belgian and Dutch students did not differ in mean age (F (1, 287) = 3.67, p =.056) or in gender distribution (X2(1) = 3.27, p =.071). Two studies have empirically tested this expectation. Cultural map of the world according to the World Values Survey, describing Germany as high in "Rational-Secular Values" and low in "Self Expression Values" Germany is a modern, advanced society, . When doing business with German clients, having employees in place who command respect with extensive knowledge and a willingness to have an open mind will be a huge asset. . Cultures and languages are defined as higher or lower context on a spectrum. In order to present participants with ads that varied in complexity, different metaphors were used, including the juxtaposition metaphor, the fusion metaphor, and the replacement metaphor (cf. First, it is expected that participants from a higher-context culture perceive the message as less complex than participants from a lower-context culture (H1). In Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, Citation1995), the principle of relevance holds that people search for a balance between the effort they have to put into understanding the message and the benefits they expect the effort to provide them. They were Belgian (n = 174) or Dutch (n = 115) students. Those with a culture which scores high, on the other hand, take a more pragmatic approach: they encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future. Based on their fact-orientation, they may appear confrontational and overly critical. Studies mainly have accepted Hall's theoretical classification of high- and low-context cultures without attempts to substantiate it empirically (Kittler etal., Citation2011). aV )I~Wo='h6&XY+]fo)'M@y~. endstream endobj 313 0 obj <>stream As we discuss culture, we are making generalizations to create cultural prototypes. Let's analyse the first dimension today! Each participant judged all ads in the same order. 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). It will examine whether it is indeed people's individual context score that affects the degree of comprehension and liking of complex messages. 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). However, to access this market and connect with German partners and clients, localization is essential.Developing a strategy based on a holistic cultural analysis can feel difficult, if not impossible, to do without an organized approach. )&ucLHDcgVX In total, 289 students participated in this comparative survey-based study. Register a free Taylor & Francis Online account today to boost your research and gain these benefits: The Influence of High-/Low-Context Culture on Perceived Ad Complexity and Liking, Centre for Language Studies, Communication and Information Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, Review of a 40-source debate in international advertising: Practitioner and academician perspectives to the standardization/adaptation issue, Ease of message processing as a moderator of repetition effects in advertising, The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations, The predictive validity of multiple-item versus single-item measures of the same constructs, Implicit meaning in visual print advertisements: A cross-cultural examination of the contextual communication effect, A critique of Hall's contexting model: A meta-analysis of literature on intercultural business and technical communication, How to persuade Belgian, French and Dutch business people to listen to your presentation, Beyond Baron and Kenny: Statistical mediation analysis in the new millennium, A new approach to country segmentation utilizing multinational diffusion patterns, Conducting experiments on cultural aspects of document design: Why and how, Adapting consumer advertising appeals to cultural values: A meta-analytic review of effects on persuasiveness and ad liking, Foreign language display in advertising from a psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspective: A review and research agenda, High- versus low-context culture: A comparison of Chinese, Korean, and American cultures, Beyond culture or beyond control? Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Listen to business speaker Erin Meyer explain how cultural differences can affect communication. Self-motivation and personal identity are important values to Germans. All Rights Reserved. Germans have a decidedly pragmatic approach to this dimension, and score very high in this aspect. In combination with their low Power Distance, where the certainty for own decisions is not covered by the larger responsibility of the boss, Germans prefer to compensate for their higher uncertainty by strongly relying on expertise. 17 Germany is an excellent example for a low context country as its population is commonly known for its direct way of stating opinions and its logical, almost emotionless . The upper half of the figure models the relationship between receiver nationality and perceived complexity of the message. Hornikx & Van Meurs, Citation2015). This concept was first advanced by Edward T. Hall in the 1950s. The low score of 40 on this dimension indicates that the German culture is Restrained in nature. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Depending on the amount of information conveyed, cultures are classified as being high-context and low-context. 2023 IOR Global Services. It is understood that advertising messages targeted at audiences from different parts of the world do not always travel, which increases the need for adapting messages across the globe instead of standardizing them (e.g., Agrawal, Citation1995; Hornikx & O'Keefe, Citation2009; La Ferle, Edwards, & Lee, Citation2008). Some ideas are better understood when left unsaid. Meaning depends on what is said- the literal content of the message- rather than how it is said. Websites catering to high-context audiences had a lot of animation & images. However, scholars have noted an increase in the use of complex advertisements; for instance, through visual images (Phillips, Citation1997; Scott, Citation1993). Start by finding experienced, knowledgeable employees within your own company. In two studies, they observed that participants' attitudes towards the product were affected by the source's expertise when the message was difficult to understand. Hofstede Insights enables you to solve Intercultural and Organisational Culture challenges by utilising our effective and proven frameworks. As a preliminary test, we first checked whether Belgian participants indeed scored higher on their personal context score than Dutch participants. They are not simply complementary but are often used as the primary means of conveying a message and require the members to have greater cultural understanding. A similar conclusion is also drawn from another perspective, which is the resource matching hypothesis (Anand & Sternthal, Citation1990; Larsen, Luna, & Peracchio, Citation2004). The current study is the first empirical examination of context theory's role on message comprehension and liking. 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. C\s{58id]wE&= 4y3H[K302LQB7LU] #Bnf+cC Honesty is also valued highly because German communication as a whole is incredibly low-context. Germanys need for structure is again seen in its moderately high uncertainty avoidance. This is defined by the contract between the employer and the employee. (2014, May 9). Callow and Schiffman (Citation2002) examined the degree to which consumers infer meaning from images in advertising. Measure your personal cultural preferences on Hofstedes 6D model, compare them to the culture of a selected country and become aware of cultural pitfalls. Those in management are expected to have both, while also keeping an open mind to respectful critiques and challenges. German families are prone to center mostly on their immediate relatives, which stands in contrast to collectivist cultures. Well, which Read More, 1550 Utica Avenue South,Suite 420Minneapolis, MN 55416. These results are visualized in the upper part of Figure2. Repeat key points. From the perspectives of both ELM and HSM, comprehension does play a part in the persuasion process, but it is not a necessary condition for persuasion to take place. The indirect effect of nationality on perceived complexity through participants' individual context score proved to be significant (b = .05; CI [0.117, 0.007], bootstrapping technique, N = 50,000). In the main study, the scale proved to be just adequate ( =.68). April 28, 2023. In our fully Read More, Is your business looking for French translation services or interpreting services? as explicit as possible. Wurtz studied McDonalds online advertising in various countries such as Japan, Germany, the United States, etc. Germany has a relatively low score when it comes to indulgence, meaning the country is restrained in nature. Establishing relationships is an important part of communicating and interacting. This assignment will discuss the cultural differences in China and Germany using, Hofstede's and Schwartz's theories, monochronic-pluralistic, compare high and low context culture, Trompenaar`s framework and other concepts.