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Summary of assigned articles - LET-CIWB152-IBC (InterculturalComm)
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Summary of assigned articles - LET-CIWB152-IBC (InterculturalCommunication)
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INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONnotes from the articles
“style congrugency and persuasion: A Cross-cultural Study Into the Influence of Differences in Style
Dimensions on the Persuasiveness of Business Newsletters in Great Britain and the Netherlands”
by b. hendriks, f. van meurs (week 7)
• What are the key style dimensions discussed in the study, and how do they impact persuasion in different
cultural contexts?
• What can businesses and communicators learn from this study about tailoring messages for cross-cultural
audiences?
should organizations take a standardization or localization approach?
standardization: argue that globalization will lead to converging needs and tastes of consumers and a gradual
erosion of differences between cultures, which facilitates standardization of marketing communication
localization: increasing globalization will lead people to stress their local cultural identity and that
companies would thus be well-advised to adapt their marketing communication to the needs and preferences
of local target markets
compromise: standardization and adaptation are regarded as two ends of the same continuum and where the
choice for standardization or adaptation is determined by situation-specific aspects —> If an organization
decides to localize its communication strategy, the question is how messages should be adapted to appeal to
audiences in different cultures
studies investigating cross-cultural variation in advertisements have pointed to the importance of value
congruency in designing messages for audiences from different cultural backgrounds; they found —>
adapting the values expressed in advertising messages to prevalent values in the target culture led to more
persuasive advertising than messages that were not adapted to local cultural preferences
• individualistic cultures — communication tends to be straightforward and direct
• collectivist cultures — communication tends to be more ambiguous and indirect
little is known to date about whether style congruency may affect the persuasiveness of a message
>>> purpose of the article / research: to investigate whether style congruency on two dimensions (succinct-
elaborate and instrumental-affective) influenced the persuasiveness of business newsletters in the
Netherlands and Great Britain
research question: To what extent is a writing style more persuasive in a country with cultural
preferences that are congruent with this writing style than in a country with cultural preferences that
are not congruent with this writing style?
—> knowledge about the effect of style congruency is essential in that this allows them to decide whether
adjusting the style of their documents is worth the costs involved in producing different style-congruent
documents for audiences with different cultural backgrounds.
literature review — to provide a theoretical background to our study
theoretical framework:
- based on 2 areas of research
1) theories relating to differences in value hierarchies between cultures and the way these different value
orientations impact on the persuasiveness of messages
2) theories relating to differences in communication styles between cultures and how these may be related
to differences in value orientations across cultures.
Values have been found to have an important influence on individuals’ decision processes and on consumer
behavior. Although values have been found to be universal, cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that
cultures differ in the relative importance attached to particular values over others.
value orientations have also been linked to cross-cultural differences in preferred communication
styles. A culture’s value orientation determines what is regarded as acceptable (verbal) behavior in the
culture and, consequently, has an important influence on how members of a culture communicate
mulac, bradac, gibbons —> investigated differences in language use between men and women for the style
dimensions put forward by Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey —> By linking specific linguistic characteristics to
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, particular communication styles, they provided a useful tool for operationalizing communicative styles
linguistically
cross-cultura differeneces between the gb and the nl: differences between the Netherlands and Great Britain
on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of power distance and individualism-collectivism are relatively minor, but
more substantial differences between the
two countries can be found on the dimensions of masculinity-femininity and uncertainty-avoidance
dutch: feminine, high-uncertainty avoidance, horizontal
english: masculine, low, uncertainty avoidance, vertical
both: individualistic
hypotheses emerging from the literature:
- style congruency is more persuasive than style incongruency
- assumption: in masculine cultures the preference will be for an instrumental communication style, and in
feminine it will be affective
H1a. In the Netherlands, a business newsletter with an affective style is more persuasive than in Great
Britain.
H1b. In Great Britain a business newsletter with an instrumental style is more persuasive than in the
Netherlands.
- assumption: gb (low-uncertainty) will prefer a more elaborate communication style, and the nl (high-
uncertainty) a more succinct one
H2a. In the Netherlands, a business newsletter with a succinct style is more persuasive than in Great Britain.
H2b. In Great Britain, a business newsletter with an elaborate style is more persuasive than in the
Netherlands.
H3a. A business newsletter with an affective style is more persuasive for individuals with a feminine value
orientation than for individuals with a masculine value orientation.
H3b. A business newsletter with an instrumental style is more persuasive for individuals with a masculine
value orientation than for individuals with a feminine value orientation.
H4a. A business newsletter with a succinct style is more persuasive for individuals with a high-uncertainty
avoidance value orientation than for individuals with a low-uncertainty avoidance orientation.
H4b. A business newsletter with an elaborate style is more persuasive for individuals with a low-uncertainty
avoidance value orientation than for individuals with a high-uncertainty avoidance value orientation.
results:
study 1 (instrumental-affective)
- no support was found for Hypothesis 1a
- limited support for Hypothesis 1b (ws more persuasive but not for all the variables)
- no support for Hypothesis 3a
- partial support for Hypothesis 3b (an instrumental newsletter was more persuasive for individuals with a
more masculine value orientation)
study 2 (succint-elaborate):
- The persuasiveness of the newsletters was measured by means of three variables: intention to order goods,
attractiveness of the newsletter, and comprehensibility of the newsletter
- partially supported H2a
- not support H2b
- no support for H4a,
- not support H4b,
Contrary to our overarching hypothesis, which predicted that style congruency would be more persuasive
than style incongruency, the style differences in the newsletters only marginally affected the persuasiveness
of the documents. In both studies, style congruency had no or only a limited effect on readers’ motivation to
order goods. In both studies, style congruency had no or a limited effect on evaluations of attractiveness and
comprehensibility
conclusion:
Our findings provide mixed and limited evidence for the link between masculinity-femininity/high-low-
uncertainty avoidance and variations on the style dimensions instrumental-affective/succinct-elaborate as
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