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BREAKTHROUGHS WITHOUT BORDERS
Generating cross-cultural insights in multinational communities
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CULTURAL DIFFERENCES: DRAW OR BARRIER TO ONLINE ENGAGEMENT?
With the rapid adoption of social networking worldwide, are local cultures being replaced by one homogenized global culture, or is national diversity still expressed in online environments? And if cultural differences are manifested in online communities, what are the implications for how to generate and interpret the insights derived there? These are crucial questions for marketers and market researchers as they develop their online marketing and research strategies.
Our research indicates that:
though cultural differences are also manifested online.
of insights.
differences in how they recruit and engage community members, ask questions, and interpret insights.
UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES Data for this study were collected in February–March 2009. We surveyed members of 12 multinational communities to assess differences on cultural dimensions. We studied how members engaged and how they communicated online to assess qualitative differences in language and participation. All-in-all, over 1,000 global customers and consumers participated, representing 37 different countries.
THREE LENSES 1. PARTICIPATION How is social media being adopted worldwide?
How often and how much do members of non-U.S. private online communities participate?
2. CULTURE Are cultural differences manifested online?
Where are cultural expectations validated or overturned?
3. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS What does it mean for how you recruit members, ask questions, and interpret what you’re hearing?
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0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
INTERNET PENETRATION BY COUNTRY
Top 15 Countries With Greatest Number of Users
0
50
100
150
200
The Netherlands U.K. Canada
U.S. South Korea
Japan France
Spain Germany
Russia Italy
China Brazil
India Mexico
percentage of population millions of users
MEMBER COMMUNITY SITES
Facebook now takes up 4.1 percent of European’s total Internet browsing time.
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PARTICIPATION
to these members because they are young and enjoy hearing the opinions of people from other countries. This was really apparent to me when our client had to completely shift their research agenda, which can really affect participation, but in this community they were okay with it. They kept their own conversations
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goes an extra mile of always putting out the ‘do not disturb’ sign if we are staying multiple nights as some housekeepers do rearrange my toiletries and we generally do not want them to be touched...think toilet-cleaning hands grabbing your
– U.K., FEMALE, 18–29
In non-U.S. and multinational communities, about one-quarter of all members participated each week.
1 4/
Participating members averaged over three contributions per week.
3.1
Almost everyone who logged-in participated; only 22% “lurked.”
22%
PARTICIPATION Single and multinational communities are vibrant. The value of online communities as a tool for generating insights can be assessed through multiple lenses. Member participation—how often international community members log-on, contribute, and start conversations—tells one story. We looked across 2008 and benchmarked participation in 16 multinational and non-U.S. communities.
UNDERSTANDING PARTICIPATION BY COUNTRY
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
The Netherlands
U.K.
Canada
U.S.
Scotland
Unknown
Sweden
France
Spain
Australia
Germany
Russia
Philippines
Italy
Singapore
China
Brazil
India
Norway
Mexico
Range = 1.57
STRAPPING SOCIAL NETWORKERS. Not only are the Dutch loquacious in our communities, but a recent Forrester study indicates that the Dutch have extraordinarily high participation rates in social networking in general.
(JEREMIAH OWYANG,
SMALLER BUT FREQUENT SERVINGS. Italian members average fewer contributions per login, but log-in more often.
and want to change something about that. So I’m eager to get to – GERMANY, FEMALE, 18–29
adorable to cuddle. I think a life has not been lived, if you
– SINGAPORE, FEMALE, 18–29
National diversity is more of a draw than a barrier.
Contributions are rich, reflecting cultural diversity and nuance.
An intimate environment yields specific and personal disclosure.
Participation in English language multi-country communities was lower than in single-country communities, suggesting that there may be fewer barriers to engagement when members share a geographical region or native language.
But members of global communities initiate a greater percentage of activities than do members of U.S.-only communities (the majority of which
consumer-generated content—members’ ability to start their own conversations— is crucial to engagement and valued regardless of community composition.
National diversity is more of a draw than a barrier. This high level of member ownership—that is, the percentage of activities generated by members rather than by us on behalf of our clients— suggests that national diversity in communities is a good thing despite the language challenges. As we’ve seen in communities where members are offering each other tourism tips, comparing pop culture icons, and sharing photos of their hometowns, this diversity is actually a stimulus to member ownership.
And past research indicates that the more member ownership there is, the higher the participation rate in brand-generated research activities.
COMMUNITY COMPOSITION*
MEMBER INITIATED ACTIVITIES IN MULTI-COUNTRY COMMUNITIES
Metric
Weekly Participation
Contributions
Lurker Rate
Ownership
*N = 8,410
U.S. only
33%
3.85
14%
44%
Single country
(non-U.S.)
28%
3.74
15%
59%
Multi- country
24%
3.12
22%
48%
Dialogues
Reviews
Other (surveys, live chats, brainstorms, image galleries,
60%23%
17%
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CULTURE
to create their dream [product]. Members from Europe and the U.S. really got into it, but a lot of the members from Asia and the Pacific Islands didn’t and asked us why we were asking them
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CULTURE What role might culture play in driving participation in online communities? To understand if and how cultural differences are manifested in online communities, we conducted a study with 1,285 members from 37 different countries across 12 of our non-U.S. communities. We administered a survey developed by Geert Hofstede which measures cultural differences across seven dimensions.
Grey’s Anatomy – a program that focuses on the interpersonal relationships among a group of medical interns.
Madame White Snake – a TV version of a classic folk tale about a love affair between a man and the spirit of a snake.
Friday Night Lights – a drama about a Texas high school football team.
The Unforgettable Memory – Taiwan’s longest running program—526 episodes.
Good Morning Singapore – a news program that airs at 7 a.m.
Our qualitative analyses reinforced this concept of a global-local nexus, where the global culture is increasingly one of connection and where local cultures continue to thrive and find expression. For example, looking at some of the most popular television programs in Singapore, we see that both
COMPARING CHINA AND THE U.S.
Closer culturally than you might think:
GEERT HOFSTEDE APPROACH
feminine
short-term
restraint
self-effacing
masculine
long-term
indulgence
monumental
Power Distance: The degree to which less powerful members of society are accepting of power hierarchies.
Individualism: Ties between individuals are loose and obligations
Masculine: Where traditional gender-based roles are embraced; in Feminine societies both men and women are expected to be modest, tender, and non-assertive.
Uncertainty Avoidance: The degree to which people feel threatened by uncertain, ambiguous, or unstructured situations.
Long-Term Orientation: as adaptation, perseverance, and thrift (vs. valuing preserving
The range of differences between countries was greater on some dimensions, such as power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence vs. restraint, than on others. And which countries fell where didn’t necessarily correspond to our expectations.
Indulgence: Allowing relatively free gratification of sensory, spending, and sexual desires (vs. placing tighter limits on
Monumentalism: Rewarding people who are proud and unchangeable. Self-Effacing societies reward those who are humble and flexible.
accept power distance
U.S.
reject power distance
accept power distance reject power distance
U.S.
accept uncertainty avoid uncertainty
accept uncertainty avoid uncertainty
U.S.
collectivism individualism
collectivism individualism
With the dawning of the Internet, many predicted that the local cultures of the world would eventually be replaced by one homogenized global culture. But this theory has given way to what’s known as the Global-Local Nexus, which means that instead of a global culture replacing local cultures, global and local cultures often exist together and people tend to be affected by both.
HOFSTEDE’S CULTURE DIMENSIONSGLOBAL-LOCAL NEXUS
parroting of stereotypes...Through making such differences discussable, we can identify areas of international co-operation where it is possible to respect the feelings and the convictions of the various parties. The cultural dimensions I describe are very much a way of making culture discussable. They are completely neutral and there is no disadvantage in being on one side or the other of any one of the dimensions, e.g. being collectivist is no better or worse than being an individualist. For perfectly good historical reasons, some cultures veer towards one type and others towards the other. Once we determine cultural predispositions, we try to use the information to promote recognition and acceptance
2006, Human Resource Management, International Digest, (14)3 pp. 12–15
vs.
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CULTURE
BRAZIL
RUSSIA
U.K.
INDIA
U.S.
Connectivity tools ranked 1st or 2nd in almost every country.
THREE THINGS I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT?
CHINA INDIA BRAZIL MEXICO RUSSIA FRANCE U.K. U.S.
Family tools
Food/beverage tools
Friends tools tools
Food/ beverage
tools
personal care Food/beverage
tools Family Food/beverage
tools
Music/iPod Music/iPod Music/iPod Books/writing
personal care
personal care
Entertainment/ TV
Food/beverage tools
Entertainment/ TV
Food/beverage Entertainment/
TV Family Family
Food/beverage Books/writing Friends Exercise
personal care
Personal attribute
Family Books/writing Love Work/job Music/iPod Music/iPod Music/iPod
Books/writing Nature Family Books/writing Entertainment/
TV
Exercise
Entertainment/ TV
Nature Pets/animals Food/beverage Pets/animals
Pets/animals Friends Exercise
Love Pets/animals Friends
Work/job
Friends
Books/writing
Personal attribute
Love
Religion
Appliances
Books/writing
Personal attribute
Love
Religion
Appliances
Nature ranked high in countries where nature plays a prominent role in the aesthetic tradition and were, until recently, still very agrarian.
Books and reading figured much more prominently in the responses of Western Europeans than in those from the Americas.
Cars, cameras, and appliances were almost exclusively mentioned by respondents from Western countries—especially the U.S. and U.K.
In a multinational community of athletic women, we asked “What are the three things you can’t live without?”
Internet, Facebook, and so on—were ranked first or second in almost every country. Yet cultural differences are apparent in the lower ranking items on members’ lists.
While cultural differences are real and should be considered, we are increasingly seeing them become less pronounced as more people migrate to the online and wireless worlds.
18
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
about the economy differently. Americans tend to talk about what they are personally doing to overcome their current financial situation. Members in other countries tend to talk more about what their family is doing or what their
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PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS In multinational or multicultural communities where the common language may not be everyone’s native language, be attentive to finding and strengthening the social glue. Recruit people for multinational communities not just to meet company objectives, but based on members’ potential for shared experience, values, and interests.
Provide ample means for members to initiate their own activities and discussions. Let them explore and celebrate their differences and commonalities on their own terms, not just yours.
Enable members to participate through multiple modes (e.g., images,
and forms (e.g., surveys,
them share through pictures as well as words, in anonymous as well as named ways, and in open-ended as well as closed-ended ways.
Keep cultural differences and nuances in mind in terms of spelling, word choices, symbols, and humor. When running multinational communities, we routinely use anglicized spellings, display time in 24-hour clock format, enable localized time zones, and display currency symbols in multiple forms. These are all matters of basic etiquette, but a failure to abide by them can have serious consequences in eroding members’ sense of mutual respect and trust.
1. that the size and composition of households still may vary tremendously from country to country.
2. When seeking to engage members, recognize that messages of empowerment and being heard may not be as compelling as messages of helping others or fulfilling one’s responsibility to help companies improve.
3. If seeking Influentials, recognize that people from more Monumentalist and Masculine cultures are going to feel more comfortable describing themselves as expert and knowledgeable than are people from more Self-Effacing and Feminine cultures.
RECRUITMENT RULES OF THUMB
TAILOR YOUR METHODS TO BE CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE When your mission is to generate insights, cultural differences may also have implications for how you ask questions and design activities.
For example, wide-open, and free-form activities such as discussions or ideation projects may be more appealing to those cultures with a high acceptance of uncertainty, while a more closed-ended set of choices may resonate more with people from cultures who are uncomfortable with uncertainty and more accepting of power differences.
And if you’re trying to understand your customers’ insecurities and anxieties, you may not be best served by asking directly if they are from very Masculine cultures. Instead, projective techniques or asking them to tell stories about their wives’ or their friends’ worries or insecurities may yield better results.
PARTICIPATION IN SURVEYS VS. DISCUSSIONS
5 months of activity, 1 multinational community: Percentage over- or under-represented by country
Surveys Discussions
When screening prospective community members from
we were losing many on the question that asked, “Do you or anyone in your household…” work in specific industries—not because these countries had a disproportionate number of people working in the industries in question, but rather, because their households were larger and more generationally diverse than the typical American nuclear family household.
“Customers in control!” or ”Have a voice and influence major corporations”—is a less resonant invitation in countries with a higher acceptance of power
countries, people tend to speak the language of the greater good, of duties, and obligations.
Respondents from more Self-Effacing and Feminine cultures are much less likely to describe themselves as experts, or influential, or as sought after for their knowledge, even when we know they are. As a result, we had to lower our threshold on some rating scales related to this, as people from these countries were self-disqualifying in unusually high numbers.
LESSONS LEARNED IN RECRUITMENT
* Thai and Japanese members preferred structured surveys over open-ended discussion, whereas United States and Singapore members showed the opposite pattern.
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
U.K.
Australia
China
Canada
Germany
Thailand
Japan
Argentina
Austria
Brazil
United Arab Emirates
Malaysia
France
Singapore
U.S.
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
China
Canada
U.K.
Germany
Australia
U.S.
Argentina
Singapore
Malaysia
United Arab Emirates
Thailand
Brazil
Austria
France
Japan
Countries over-represented Countries over-representedCountries under-represented Countries under-represented
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“ “
RECOGNIZE THAT DIVERSITY IS A DRAW AND A WELLSPRING OF INSIGHTS
Philippines: I love food tripping...
Facilitator (U.S.): I have to ask...what is food tripping?
Germany: Never heard of it...
Philippines: Hi everyone! Sorry for the new term. In the Philippines, we use this term to describe the interest in exploring new food and new restaurant. Example, if I say I want to go food tripping today, it means that I’m going to explore for a new restaurant with good food...it’s like when you like to listen to music, you go ‘sound tripping’...
Philippines (different member): Also, in the Philippines, food tripping is also the term used when we want to eat different foods or foods of different cooking. Like if I say let’s go food tripping, I’ll just buy whatever I see or whatever I want: pizza, then cake, then barbecue, any sweets, all in one day!
India: A lovely word that...as a member of the club of those
you will enjoy all the different types of Indian food that is available out here...in addition to the international varieties...You are also invited to any home made Indian food that you might like to eat at my residence...I assure you that I am not all that bad of a cook.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
METHOD AND RATIONALE Data for this study were collected in January, February, and March of 2009. We administered Hofstede’s cultural
non-U.S. communities. It should be noted that our sample sizes for some countries were not large enough and our members not demographically similar enough to calculate a score according to the VSM 08 manual. In all the Hofstede analyses we have only reported results for those countries that were represented by at least 5 members; even so, we have constrained our analyses to examining the general range of scores (as opposed to staking our findings on precise comparisons
Our goal was to develop some best practices about how to do a better job of recruiting and engaging members from different cultures, generating insights from them, and having a more nuanced context for interpreting those insights. Thus we supplemented the quantitative Hofstede method with qualitative analyses of member behavior across non-U.S. communities.
SAMPLE The cultural difference analyses include data from 12 communities; 1,285 members across 37 countries.
BREAKDOWN BY COUNTRY
Just as important as knowing how to engage and talk to people online across cultures, is knowing how to listen in culturally appropriate ways.
0 100 Japan
Brazil
Mexico
Philippines
Italy
India
China
Singapore
Spain
Canada
France
Germany
Australia
U.K.
U.S.
Russia
200 300 400
As an ice-breaking activity when we launch a community, we
Some tend to focus on personal characteristics (e.g., their love
differences often correlate to differences between countries on the
Focuses on personal characteristics: 1. I love pets especially dogs,
and I speak to every dog I see around;
2. I love tennis and Roger Federer is my favorite;
3. I love reading and my favorite writer is G.G. Marqez;
4. I love Radiohead, U2, Pink Floyd;
5. Sometimes I can be really serious and sometimes I can be quite crazy!
6. When I was younger people told me I looked like John Lennon and I like it very much;
7. I love to spend time with my friends;
8. I spend too much time
Describes self in terms of connections: 1. I was born in Hong Kong.
kindergarten and first 2 years of elementary school. Then return to Hong Kong for 10 years to learn Chinese (daddy said Chinese people must know Chinese). Then return to Vancouver for last year of high school and university…
2. If counting unique cities, I moved 6 places over 3 countries in last 10 years… I know native level of English,
level Japanese.
3. I visit Hong Kong twice a year to pay my tribute to grandparents (cultural thing). I visit Japan twice a year to see how my students are improving with their English...
BE COGNIZANT OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN INTERPRETING WHAT YOU HEAR
Interactions between a diverse group of members (and a trained
traditions of specific cultures. As members get to know each other, they naturally explore these differences and bring unsought but relevant cultural insights to the surface through organic conversation.
company gets exposure to a phenomenon that they had not thought to ask about themselves…
our Fortune 1000 clients deeply engage with, and listen to, customers in ways that deliver extraordinary insights, generating phenomenal business results. We enable companies to operationalize what it really means to be close to the customer throughout their organization by offering full-service community capabilities–from strategic planning and design to member recruitment to expert facilitation, and customer insights and analysis reporting.
