Kevin D. Lo

Exploring the Impact of Culture in the Social Media Sphere: A Content Analysis of Nonprofit Organizations’ Use of Facebook

Through a content analysis of 225 nonprofit organizations’ Facebook profiles, the current study examines the impact of cultural orientation when it comes to American, Chinese, and Turkish nonprofit organizations’ behavior and communication patterns in the social media sphere. Specifically, the research explored how organizations disclose information about themselves and those managing their Facebook presence, promoting organizational news and accomplishments, and stakeholder engagement in relation to their context, performance, and collectivist/individualist natures, respectively. The study found mixed support for the impact of traditional cultural expectations indicating that the global connectivity of social media may be contributing to blurred cultural boundaries in favor of a virtual culture that promotes the global community.

Assessing the Applicability of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions for Global 500 Corporations' Facebook Profiles and Content

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions are reflected on the official corporate Facebook pages from 259 organizations on Fortune magazine’s Global 500 list. This is the first attempt to create a conceptualization of Hofstede’s dimensions for organizational social media use. Design/methodology/approach To determine how Facebook is used by the Global 500 corporations, a content analysis was carried out based on the 2013 listing of the highest revenue corporations throughout the world. As a research method, content analysis allows researchers to examine the actual practices of communication by focusing on the information provided through textual and visual messages. Findings The results paint a mixed picture indicating that the global nature of these corporations is echoed in a somewhat similar overall presence on Facebook; but when the individual elements (About Us, updates, and media) are examined, statistical differences emerge in relation to the reflection of the cultural dimensions. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work to match Facebook behaviors with Hofstede’s dimensions. This work needs to be replicated with other organizations to determine its staying power. In addition, future research might tap into agency and any consciousness on the part of social media managers in a specific direction. Depending on those findings, they might make important statements on the emergence of a global social media culture.

Guanxi in Organizations: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on an Enduring Construct

Haier is now a global brand in major borne appliances, bur it was not always so. In 1984, Zhang Ruimin was appointed as the director of Qingdao General Refrigera Lor Factory, Haier’s predecessor. The factory was running at a loss and the banks of the Lime were not allowed to lend money to non-state-owned enterprises. Zhang had to borrow the funds from locals so that employees could have a decent Spring Festival,

How Will We Work Together? Synthesizing a Cross-Cultural Collaboration Grid from the Dual Concern Model and Acculturation Framework

Cross-cultural collaboration through multicultural groups and teams is the current reality of international business. However, management research does not specifically address the process by which individuals from different national cultures come together to collaborate in an organizational work setting. This work takes a step towards understanding this process. We first discuss the dual concerns model and the acculturation framework to identify areas of congruence that have explanatory value for cross-cultural collaboration. From this point, we derive a cross-cultural collaboration grid that can help understand how people from different national cultures might work together based on the relative prioritization of concern for self vs. concern for the other. After introducing the cross-cultural collaboration grid, we discuss potential moderating variables at both the individual (contact, superordinate goals, and power) and cultural levels (individualism-collectivism, tightness-looseness, and power distance) that will impact the cross-cultural collaboration process. We conclude with contributions and limitations that can be addressed by future research.