5. Cultural implications for the crisis communication
Though General Motors company has the similar crisis situation with Toyota company, which is caused by faulty vehicles, resulting in criticism of the general public and negative influences on companies, results turn out differently. The Toyota company suffered more damages than the General Motors company on sales, reputation, brand image, customers’ trust and loyalty. Tracing reasons lay behind, cultural factors play an important role in differentiating approaches and attitudes.
5.1 Hall’s high-context and low-context cultures
According to Hall(Hall, 1976, 2000), communication styles can be divided into indirect and direct categories, corresponding to high-context culture and low-context culture respectively. In a high-context culture, many things are left unsaid, leaving the space for the culture to explain. While in a low-context culture, the communicator needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important.
In terms of classification, United State belongs to the low-context culture and Japan categorizes into …show more content…
There are five dimensions, including masculinity-femininity, individualism-collectivism, long-term orientation, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance(Hofstede, 1983). To some extent, uncertainties equal to risks, which are always related to security and and connected to responsibility(Giddens, 1999). This essay will discuss influences of power distance and uncertainty avoidance on attitudes about crisis communication. Since those dimensions are according to scores that countries have obtained, America is quite equal with regard to power distance and people are more likely to choose risky options. While Japanese have a hierarchical structure in corporations and are risk-averse and cautious when there are unknown
Though General Motors company has the similar crisis situation with Toyota company, which is caused by faulty vehicles, resulting in criticism of the general public and negative influences on companies, results turn out differently. The Toyota company suffered more damages than the General Motors company on sales, reputation, brand image, customers’ trust and loyalty. Tracing reasons lay behind, cultural factors play an important role in differentiating approaches and attitudes.
5.1 Hall’s high-context and low-context cultures
According to Hall(Hall, 1976, 2000), communication styles can be divided into indirect and direct categories, corresponding to high-context culture and low-context culture respectively. In a high-context culture, many things are left unsaid, leaving the space for the culture to explain. While in a low-context culture, the communicator needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important.
In terms of classification, United State belongs to the low-context culture and Japan categorizes into …show more content…
There are five dimensions, including masculinity-femininity, individualism-collectivism, long-term orientation, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance(Hofstede, 1983). To some extent, uncertainties equal to risks, which are always related to security and and connected to responsibility(Giddens, 1999). This essay will discuss influences of power distance and uncertainty avoidance on attitudes about crisis communication. Since those dimensions are according to scores that countries have obtained, America is quite equal with regard to power distance and people are more likely to choose risky options. While Japanese have a hierarchical structure in corporations and are risk-averse and cautious when there are unknown