Culture and Context: A Summary of Geert Hofstede’s and Edward
Hall’s Theories of Cross-Cultural Communication for Web Usability.
Filipp Sapienza, Ph.D.
Director, White Mouse Solutions
whitemousesolutions.com
© June 2008. Revised Nov 1, 2008. No
distribution without permission of author.
As the World Wide Web spreads across national borders, it
has become increasingly important for users to respect and
understand cultural differences in how people communicate
and use the Internet. This knowledge is particularly crucial
for people in international business, technology
professions, and other work areas that require people from
different cultures to interact online.
What is culture?
The roots of the word come from the Latin word "colere" (to
inhabit, cultivate). The original meaning was used in the
biological sciences (for example, a bacterial culture). In
the mid-to-late 19th century, the term came to be applied to
the social development of humans.
Today, the most commonly accepted meaning of the word comes
from Ernest Gellner, who calls culture "the socially
transmitted and sometimes transformed bank of acquired
traits (1997 3)." Although culture is a social phenomenon,
biological characteristics are often connected to it. For
example, we see people of a particular gender, age, skin
color, or body type (height, weight, etc) and we assume they
must belong to a particular culture.
Varieties of Culture.
We can speak of varieties of cultures - - such as
subcultures or micro-cultures. For example: religious
cultures - - Catholic, Islamic; social cultures - - hockey
players, snowboarders; occupational or work cultures - -
military, business, actors/actresses and so forth. The
boundaries among these different groups overlap and are
permeable. They are not fixed. Moreover, they are changing
and evolving over time. Cultures are organic entities. The
most historically successful cultures adapt to outside
forces.
Common Features of Cultures.
All cultures have a system of communication - - linguistic,
non-verbal - - comprise the basis of self-identity and
community, and exhibit behaviors and practices that are
visible. Finally, the most successful cultures in history
adapt to their environment and changing circumstances.
Dimensions of Cultures.
In the 1960s and 1970s, two theorists, Geert Hofstede (1980)
and Edward Hall (1976), independently developed paradigms
for the organization and identification of cultures. The
central motives of this research were to see if there exist
universal categories of culture that span social communities
and nations. This researched produced five dimensions that
are applicable to cultures all over the world:
- High/Low Context
- Power - Distance
- Collectivist - Individualistic
- Feminine - Masculine
- Uncertainty Avoidance
High/Low Context.
Context is best defined as the array of stimuli surrounding
a communication event including: body gestures; tone of
voice; physical distance between interlocutors; time of day;
weather; societal norms; geographic place of communication;
and other external factors.
There are two types of contexts: high-context and
low-context. The essential difference between the two is the
importance that each culture places on the context versus
the actual message itself.
High-Context. High-context cultures assign primary
importance to the stimuli surrounding a message and
secondary importance to the message itself. In a high
context culture, you will hear communication norms like what
matters isn't what is said but who said it, no talking in
church, and it's not what you say but how you say it.
High-context cultures need more time to make decisions and
perform transactions than low-context cultures. There are a
lot of "read-between-the-lines" scenarios.
According to Nitish Singh, "high context cultures have close
connections among group members, and everybody knows what
every other person knows. Most information is intrinsically
known (implicit) rather than explicit (2005 55)." A good
example of high-context communication: a husband and wife
see each other across a crowded room at a party and wink
affectionately. Outside observers will never know the
explicit message that is communicated, or observers may
misinterpret the message (they are saying they love each
other - oh, how nice!). In fact, the couple may simply be
indicating that it is time to leave the party, drive home,
let the dog out, and put the kids to bed. According to
Singh, "In general, high-context cultures use more symbols
and non-verbal cues in communication. Meaning is embedded in
a situational context (2005 55)."
High context cultures tend to have legal systems rooted in
testimonial, rank (for example: what is the societal class
or official rank of the person who is charged with theft in
this case?), and assign credibility to informal networks of
family, friends and associates over institutions,
bureaucracies and governments.
Low-Context. Low-Context cultures assign primary
meaning to the objective communication message and secondary
meaning to the context. In a low context culture, you will
hear communication norms like just the facts please, give me
the bottom line and tell it to me in plain English / like it
is. Low-context cultures emphasize speed, accuracy, and
efficiency in communication (a "lean" message is preferred).
According to Singh, "low-context cultures are logical,
linear, action-oriented, and the mass of information is
explicit and formalized. Communication is expected to
proceed in a rational, verbal, and explicit way (2005 55)."
Concrete, not abstract, meaning is expected.
Low-context cultures place great emphasis on the written
word and tend to have legal systems rooted in writing such
as a constitution and other governing documents. In some
situations, legal bureaucracies supplant the role of
informal networks of friends, family, and associates.
Within the frame of context one finds a subset of cultural
categories based on time. All cultures either have a
monochromatic or polychromatic sense of time. In
monochromatic culture, time is perceived in a linear
fashion. Hence the expressions "time marches on" and "time
is like a river flowing to the sea." Linear (time marches
on). Monochromatic (or monochromic) cultures organize
themselves around a calendar and emphasize punctuality.
Low-context cultures tend to be monochromatic. In
polychromatic (or polychromic) cultures, there are many
things going on at once. Events are organized and remembered
circularly. In some polychromic societies, the past is not
something to be forgotten but rather past events continue to
evolve and develop in the present time. Polychromic cultures
tend to be high-context.
Power - Distance. Power-distance is the extent to
which people accept unequal power distribution in a society.
A high power-distance society believes in strict authority
and hierarchy and has low egalitarianism. Less powerful
citizens of such societies tend to accept this unequal power
distribution. A low power-distance society emphasizes
egalitarianism and shared power. The leader in such a
society is a "first-among equals."
Collectivist - Individualist. This dimension refers
to the extent to which people prioritize or weigh their
individuality versus their willingness to submit to the
goals of the group. In individualistic cultures, the needs
of individuals over groups is emphasized. Individual
achievement and success are emphasized as are making one's
mark in the world, standing out, and being unique and
different.
The opposite is the case in collectivist cultures, where
group success is more important than individual achievement.
Willingness to support the group and larger societal goals
and one's allegiance to group goals is more important than
individual pursuits.
Feminine - Masculine. This dimension encompasses the
extent to which a culture exhibits traditionally masculine
attributes (assertiveness, competitiveness, toughness,
ambition, achievement, material possessions, success) or
feminine (family, cooperation, tenderness, nurturing, caring
for others, preserving the environment, quality of life) and
the extent to which gender distinctions are maintained.
Uncertainty Avoidance. This dimension reflects the
extent to which a society willingly embraces or avoids the
unknown. A culture with high uncertainty avoidance values
predictability, structure, and order. A culture with low
uncertainty avoidance values risk taking, ambiguity, and
limited structure. People from high uncertainty avoidance
cultures tend to have low tolerance for conflict and value
security over risk.
Applying Cultural Dimensions to Web Sites.
To determine which specific web features apply to particular
cultural dimensions, refer to the list by Singh and Pereira
(pp.59-60 2005). This list of specific features was analyzed
and categorized by four independent judges, who achieved an
inter-judge reliability of 83 percent.
Analyzing Web Sites from the framework of Cultural
Dimensions
The process of analyzing the usability of websites with the
framework of cultural theory minimally involves the
following steps.
1. Identify the specific website features that
correspond to each cultural dimension. This step should
be done by at least two analysts who then check and
validated the chosen features against each other. For
example, your team may judge the extent of individualism
or collectivism according to the frequency of pictures
and descriptions of groups of people. Ask yourself: when
the site depicts or discusses people, does it usually
treat them as individuals? Do the photos show groups of
people? Do the text descriptions say things like "be
your own person" and "one employee can make all the
difference"? If so, can we together decide that the
prevalence of these elements constitutes a category
linked to individualism or collectivism?
2. Develop a scaled instrument and appropriate
statistics to indicate, track, and analyze the cultural
features. While it may be reasonable to assume that a
web site falls into one category or another
(individualistic or collectivist), it is more likely
that a given website will have a certain measure of each
dimension (for example, most websites are likely to have
both individualistic and collectivist features.) In
these cases, it is better to develop a scaled instrument
that allows someone to rank the level of a particular
dimension on the site rather than choose between
mutually exclusive options. The dimensions are not to be
seen as mutually exclusive descriptions. It is best to
think of each site as possessing a certain degree or
amount of a feature. The way you ultimately categorize a
given site is based on whether it contains more of a
particular feature than another. If the culture is more
feminine than masculine (that is, it has more feminine
than masculine attributes), then it is likely to be
classified as feminine.
3. Using the feature categories, identify which
websites fall into which groups. The best way to
determine where a site belongs is to find independent
"coders" (people who do not know one another and who did
not develop the feature categories). First, your
usability team should train these coders. From there,
the coders should analyze the websites and indicate
their judgment as to the extent or absence of specific
features on the instrument you developed. Once the data
has been collected, statistics capable of analyzing and
comparing continuous (rather than categorical) data can
be applied to produce a dimension score for each
site.
In order to determine whether your coders understand the
task and / or that your categories and survey instruments
are designed to obtain the intended data, inter-coder
reliability methods and statistics should be applied.
Conclusion.
In summary then, these are the following dimensions of
cultures:
High Context - Low Context: determined by
the emphasis that a culture places on the message versus
the stimuli surrounding a communication event
Power-Distance: the extent to which
people accept unequal power distribution in a society
Collectivist - Individualist: the extent
to which people prioritize or weigh their individuality
versus their willingness to submit to the goals of the
group
Feminine - Masculine: the extent to which
a culture exhibits traditionally masculine or feminine
values
Uncertainty Avoidance: the extent to
which a society willingly embraces or avoids the
unknown
A solid knowledge and application of methods as partially
discussed here will aid classification of web site usability
according to the important research in cultural dimensions
by Geert Hofstede and Edward Hall.
Sources.
Gellner, Ernest. (1997). Nationalism.New York: New
York University Press.
Hall, E.T. (1976). Beyond Culture.Garden City, NY:
Doubleday.
Hofstede, G. (1980).Culture's Consequences: International
Differences in Work-Related Values.Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage Publications.
Singh, N. and Pereira, A. (2005). The Culturally
Customized Web Site.Burlington, MA: Elsevier.
