HIGH-CONTEXT VERSUS LOW-CONTEXT CULTURE - A COMPARISON OF CHINESE, KOREAN, AND AMERICAN CULTURES

The potential usefulness of Hall's concept of high- versus low-context cultures to international marketing has been discussed widely. Howeve r, implications of this concept in marketing have largely been discuss ed descriptively and little attempt has been made to empirically compa re various cultures in a real setting. In this article the authors rep ort the findings from a cross-cultural study that attempts to show whe ther Hall's description of the characteristics of high- and low-contex t cultures can indeed be empirically confirmed. With the use of a surv ey consisting of 16 items, subjects from three different countries - C hina, Korea, and the U.S. - representing both high- and low-context cu ltures, are studied. Overall, the results show that the three cultures differ in a way that is consistent with Hall's conceptualization. Spe cifically, the Chinese and Korean subjects are shown to exhibit tenden cies that are consistent with Hall's description of high-context cultu res, and the American subjects are shown to exhibit tendencies that ar e consistent with low-context cultures. For example, the subjects from China and Korea are found to be more socially oriented, to be more co nfrontation- avoiding, and to have more trouble dealing with new situa tions. The article concludes by pointing to a further need for efforts in developing measurement scales for the concept. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.