中国企业海外网站跨文化适应性调整的比较研究

A Comparative Study on the Cultural Adaptation of Chinese Companies’Overseas Websites

不同国家的企业网站受国家文化差异影响,显示的文化价值内容有较大差别。企业在海外传播中需考虑依据目标国文化特点对海外网站进行跨文化适应性调整。现有考察中国企业海外网站跨文化传播问题的研究仍较缺乏。研究在Hofstede和Schwartz的文化理论基础上,通过定量对比分析中企美国、中企本土和美企本土三类网站显示的文化价值内容的异同,探讨了中国企业海外网站的跨文化适应问题。研究发现:其一,中国企业对其美国海外网站只进行了部分跨文化适应性调整,完整的跨文化适应只体现在不确定性规避维度,在等级主义维度进行了部分调整,在个人主义及和谐主义维度未进行调整;其二,30家样本中国企业中,有海尔、华为、阿里巴巴、联想、青岛啤酒、中国南方航空、恒力集团、美的、海信、顺丰速运、猎豹移动、智明星通科技、海南航空共13家中国企业对其美国网站成功进行了跨文化适应性调整。研究结果对扩展现有跨文化企业传播研究的理论视野以及提升中国企业海外网络传播水平都具有一定启示。

Chinese companies need to deal with the cross-cultural differences manifested on their overseas websites when communicating with overseas audiences.The current studies investigate whether and how Chinese companies have culturally adapted their overseas websites to local cultures by testing their local US websites.The cultural values depicted on Chinese companies’US websites have been compared against those reflected on both Chinese and US companies’local websites based on a complementary cultural typology drawn from Hofstede’s and Schwartz’s theories.The results have shown that overall Chinese brands have not satisfactorily adapted their US websites to US cultures as adequate adaption has only been detected on Uncertainty Avoidance,with partial adaption on hierarchy and no adaption on individualism and harmony.Meanwhile,the study also confirmed that thirteen Chinese companies—Haier,Huawei,Alibaba,Lenovo,Tsingtao Beer,China Southern Airlines,Hengli,Midea,Hisense,SF Express,Cheetah,Elex,and Hainan Airlines—have satisfactorily customized their US websites to US cultures.The findings draw important implications for cross-cultural web communications and for Chinese companies’cross-cultural communication practices.