H2: Participants' personal context scores mediate the effect of nationality on perceived complexity. 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. Two studies have empirically tested this expectation. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. First, whereas the present study took a linear relationship between comprehension and liking as a starting point, future research may examine nonlinear relationships. In low-context cultures, people are said to prefer explicit, task-related language. Chapter 2 sets the theoretical background on leadership styles, and the differentiation between high- and low-context . Copyright 2023 United Language Group. When it comes to complex messages in the advertising domain, though, there have been empirical studies that based their expectations on context theory. As Hall (Citation1976, p. 79) states: A high-context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. A message that is too simple or too difficult to understand is therefore expected to be less persuasive than a message with matching resources. G~D6cA>`E4SR_.H@vuc_FT_+ QY6PCz~Y*MLH4+p} German families are prone to center mostly on their immediate relatives, which stands in contrast to collectivist cultures. In order to accurately demonstrate the role of context theory, participants' individual context scores should be assessed. In public, space is less of a physical concept: people bump into each other in the street and push others when queuing; it is more a concept of the mind. As a result, context theory predicts complex messages containing visual metaphors to be better understood and to be better appreciated in high- rather than in low-context cultures. That is, the more benefits they expect, the more willing they are to invest in processing the message. Performance and target-based; subject expertise important; in public/government institutions, length of service is one aspect of performance appraisal. Imagine an ad for a sports car that does not feature the car, but instead shows a leopard running on a coastal road. They rely less on context & non-verbal cues and instead convey meaning more directly. It can imply understanding or agreement, but it can also mean their conversea lack of certainty. 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. Bernstein, B. Finally, place focus on personal achievement, success, and competition, values which drive the German business world. The United States is the lowest context culture in the world followed by Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. The upper half of the figure models the relationship between receiver nationality and perceived complexity of the message. [6] How does her experience in Japan demonstrate what youve learned so far about the different dimensions of culture? The Culture Map - Communication: Low and High context cultures. By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies. (2012). 8:00AM and 16:00PM CEST Let us help you make your transition easy! jCA(/pq/2?$O-@$h8KYGd N. Writing Topic Sentences and Body Paragraphs, 39. This dimension is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised. Xu & Wyer, Citation2010), or foreign languages (cf. In the example above between the two sisters, they are using high-context communication; however, America is considered a low-context culture. Produced by Will Reid and Michael Simon Johnson. Edward T. Hall describes low-context culture as one in which: most of the information is either in the explicit code or readily available elsewhere (Hall, 1976). IOR collects cookies to improve your experience on our website. They show an ability to adapt traditions easily to changed conditions, a strong propensity to save and invest, thriftiness, and perseverance in achieving results. April 28, 2023. Therefore, empirical evidence was also found for H4, which means that participants' personal context scores indeed mediated the effect of nationality on ad liking. In a comparative survey-based study, Dutch and Belgian participants read and judged 12 full-color advertisements that were taken from two advertising databases. 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. Self-reliance; responsible for conduct of own life; independence, Balanced Competition The lower part of Figure1 models the relationship between receiver nationality and ad appreciation. From the perspective of ELM, studies have also underlined that the recipients' background influences perceived complexity. In such circumstances, a less complex message is more effective. When it comes to the role of context culture on liking, a linear regression first showed that nationality predicted ad liking (F (1, 287) = 4.39, p =.037, R2 =.01; B =.206, SE =.098): Belgian participants (M = 4.33, SD = 0.77) liked the ads better than the Dutch participants (M = 4.13, SD = 0.89). Copyright 2023 Helpful Professor. Sourabh Yadav is a freelance writer & filmmaker. The mean scores for perceived complexity and ad liking were submitted to regression analyses for the direct effect of nationality on perceived complexity (H1) and ad liking (H3). 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. Examples of high-context cultures include Japan, Korea, and India. As expected by context theory, perceived complexity was lower for Belgian (a higher-context culture) than for Dutch participants (a lower-context culture), and participants' personal context culture score fully accounted for this difference. This can be very confusing for person who does not understand the 'unwritten rules' of the culture. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. Each participant judged all ads in the same order. While Germany isnt nearly as individualistic as some Western countries, it still scores high in the category. It should be noted that the present study cannot rule out a potential role of the participants' study background, as we did not assess this in the questionnaire. Their communication is often indirect and requires a nuanced understanding, so outsiders might find it more difficult to enter their culture. 4>`~O{][-Pq [b'E2=XQb9^F4dD$",gM)0:s^>{ I-T9.,8#PT" h_%4H~ This actually implies that context theory is a powerful explanation for differences in perceived complexity and liking of ads. Readers will themselves have to make the inference that the detergent is as effective in removing stains as the crocodile is in eating its prey. Low-context and high-context cultures are the ends of a continuum portraying how cultures communicate. Phillips (Citation2000), for example, constructed ads in three versions. 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. This study provides a unique contribution to the domain of culture and advertising in that it presents empirical evidence for the role that Hall's (Citation1976; Hall & Hall, Citation1990) context culture plays in cross-cultural communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. One challenge that confronts humanity, now and in the past, is the degree to which small children are socialized. Speakers should not expect that listeners will figure out what they really mean unless the intended message is stated precisely. /T?KrGM7IL];K7,~`}b`x2Zp|yMkX1h1s]0;Vq4{i `{DXB=1 u`sBY.I43VO9#"43puz qAZf6I'a^OD. An expert on metaphors in advertising checked the ads on the metaphors that were included, and another expert ensured the cross-cultural equivalence of the material in the Netherlands and Belgium. GI?Ln T9a`"-&k 16 KWGWC1?Q'_}]G- 4XmyxKLsx%yIj `y This can be quite confusing to an outsider, especially someone from a low-context culture who is used to communicating via explicit messages. Because directness may be thought of as disrespectful, discussions in high-context cultures can be circuitous, circling key issues rather than addressing them head-on. German society also stresses compartmentalizing personal and professional lives in this pursuit of success. Managers are expected to be decisive and assertive. 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. 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. - |Cjg@Q.TN"8. People with this orientation have the perception that their actions are Restrained by social norms and feel that indulging themselves is somewhat wrong. In general, not a high touch culture. This work deals with the most common leadership theories in due consideration of their applicability in high- and low-context cultures, more precisely with the leadership styles which are mainly being used Turkey and Germany. Wurtz found something similar while analyzing website design. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 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). The current study is the first empirical examination of context theory's role on message comprehension and liking. Unlike low-context cultures, high-context cultures prioritize the group over the individual (Hofstede, 1984). Future studies should, however, incorporate study background as a personal characteristic. Use our contact page or Well, which Read More, 1550 Utica Avenue South,Suite 420Minneapolis, MN 55416. A low-context (LC) communication is just the opposite; i.e., the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code. For the processing of complex messages, the perspective of context theory is very relevant. According to Hall's context theory, people from different cultures may react differently to complex messages. A low score (Feminine) on the dimension means that the dominant values in society are caring for others and quality of life. High-context cultures rely heavily on non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, etc. It does so by examining the role of context culture for one example of complex messages: advertisements with visual metaphors. The use of short scales is consistent with recommendations in the marketing literature (Bergkvist & Rossiter, Citation2007). Intercultural Business Communication by Confederation College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. In such circumstances, recipients are persuaded by other elements in the message for which comprehension is less relevant. endstream endobj 316 0 obj <>stream Fewer words can often lead to better understanding. In. 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). 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). It is the reader who has to infer the so-called implicatures, the inferential steps that are needed to decipher the message (Sperber & Wilson, Citation1995). Learn more about our academic and editorial standards. The American legal system, for example, relies on low context communication. H4: Participants' personal context scores mediate the effect of nationality on ad liking. What is the perfect Organisational Culture? 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 . 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). Germany has produced some great philosophers including Albertus Magnus from the Middle Ages, Leibniz in the 17 th century, and the famous Immanuel Kant. Low-context cultures tend to focus more on the individual than the group, which is why they value individualism and autonomy. Second, it seems useful to conduct conceptual replications of this kind of study with other complex ads that do not contain visual metaphors, but instead contain other complex message characteristics. (_CC Deutsch-lernen.com recommends: Learn melodious standard German at ActiLingua Academy in Vienna. This work argues that message persistence (i.e., the temporal extent to which messages can be accessed by users) is a central affordance of many . Stability desired, less tolerance for risk. High and low context cultures were a concept that emerged from anthropology in the 1950s and became more prevalent starting in the 1990s. Getting the message across. Anchor Press/Doubleday. and the German culture is referred to low context and status-oriented cultures [Kulikova, 2006; Kotthoff, 2003; Gnther, 2002; Khorrami . Your email address will not be published. Universalism This is why complex messages are sometimes more effective than less complex messages. Required fields are marked *, This Article was Last Expert Reviewed on March 15, 2023 by Chris Drew, PhD. #o2G]K(@Z1 It has worked in the past will not buy you much credibility. Germans tend to make a strict distinction between work and social life; therefore expect little small talk in a business context. The study had a one-factor design: advertisements with visual metaphors were presented to participants with the Belgian or the Dutch nationality (between-subject design). Likewise, large numbers of studies have measured cultural values on participants' level to examine how these values relate to other variables (for an overview of such studies, see Soares, Farhangmehr, & Shoham, Citation2007; Taras, Kirkman, & Steel, Citation2010). 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 . This, in turn, may make employers (particularly of smaller companies) very cautious and selective when hiring people. Measuring a cultural construct responsible for the expected cultural differences at the level of the studies' participants is an essential methodological tool to enable attributing empirical, cultural differences to that cultural construct (Hoeken & Korzilius, Citation2003; Van de Vijver & Leung, Citation1997). All the advice on this site is general in nature. However, no country is low-context or high-context in absolute terms; instead, there is a mix of explicit & implicit communication everywhere. Order Free Brochure. Listen to business speaker Erin Meyer explain how cultural differences can affect communication. Restrained Emotions are discredited as unprofessional; in a business context, trust and credibility are developed through suppression of emotions; tendency to be more emotionally expressive with family and friends, particularly in southern Germany. These countries were selected because they are similar in many respects, but differ in context culture. Hall defines intercultural communication as a form of communication that shares information across different cultures and social groups. To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. South Korea. The work of Hofstede is data-driven: nations have been given precise numerical scores on cultural dimensions on the basis of empirical research. Germany has a "low context culture"; the information which is made explicit is extensive. Eye contact, for example, which is encouraged in North America, may have ambiguous meaning or be considered disrespectful in certain high-context cultures. Long Term Orientation describes how a society deals with the challenges of the present and future, while also continuing to uphold time-honored traditions. ;#EtZ-P`IsPv;SFMx+CS~!v}w\ `p>cgVX The low score of 40 on this dimension indicates that the German culture is Restrained in nature. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Framework: Intercultural model.

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