Hall’s theory of low- and high-context cultures is particularly applicable to marketing since it emphasizes communication style. Several researchers have proposed incomplete measurements of his theories, basing their scales mostly on student samples, omitting international comparisons, failing to translate the surveys into the original language, or framing the questions from a Western perspective. This article discusses the construction of a more reliable and accurate scale that measures two of Hall’s fundamental dimensions: contextual reasoning and social relations. In four studies (n = 1285), we gained empirical support for Hall’s theoretical framework. The scale was reliable and valid, as it predicted group membership to Chinese, Israeli, and American nationalities, confirming Hall’s cultural continuum. People who scored higher on the scale preferred the product featured in the commercial emphasizing social utility more than those who scored lower on the scale, further demonstrating the scale’s usefulness in predicting consumer choice for socially relevant message content. Future studies can use the new “low - high-context” (LC-HC) scale as a cultural segmentation tool for designing efficient marketing strategies.

Empirical measurement of Hall's communication styles theory: a new marketing segmentation scale

Enav Friedmann;Tiziano Vescovi;Merav Weiss-Sidi
2023-01-01

Abstract

Hall’s theory of low- and high-context cultures is particularly applicable to marketing since it emphasizes communication style. Several researchers have proposed incomplete measurements of his theories, basing their scales mostly on student samples, omitting international comparisons, failing to translate the surveys into the original language, or framing the questions from a Western perspective. This article discusses the construction of a more reliable and accurate scale that measures two of Hall’s fundamental dimensions: contextual reasoning and social relations. In four studies (n = 1285), we gained empirical support for Hall’s theoretical framework. The scale was reliable and valid, as it predicted group membership to Chinese, Israeli, and American nationalities, confirming Hall’s cultural continuum. People who scored higher on the scale preferred the product featured in the commercial emphasizing social utility more than those who scored lower on the scale, further demonstrating the scale’s usefulness in predicting consumer choice for socially relevant message content. Future studies can use the new “low - high-context” (LC-HC) scale as a cultural segmentation tool for designing efficient marketing strategies.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/5015401
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