A Comparison Of Chinese And American Company Websites-From A Cross-Cultural Perspective

The worldwide rapid development and popularization of the Internet has facilitated the communication between people all over the world, promoted the growth of e-commerce and led to a mass of corporations participating in a global online marketplace. The Internet offers global e-marketers with unparalleled access to global customers at unprecedented low costs. Facing vast, multicultural global customers with different languages and cultural backgrounds, the key issue in the quest for global success through the Internet is the ability to design a website that draws and retains targeted customers, builds trust and loyalty with these customers. The achievement of this aim requires good understanding of the target customers' cultural values, thinking patterns and customs. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct cross-cultural research on websites. However, little research has been done in this field in China due to the short history of e-commerce and lack of theoretical background.To address this deficit in literature and to provide global e-marketers and website designers with insights into how to develop websites for culturally distinct target customers, Nitish Singh's model for cross-cultural analysis on websites based on Hofstede's individualism-collectivism and power distance dimensions and Hall's high-context and low-context culture was applied in this study to evaluate the difference of Chinese and American company websites in reflecting cultural values. 40 American companies randomly selected from the "Fortune 500" firms listed on Fortune Magazine's website and 40 Chinese companies selected from Top 500 Chinese companies listed on the website of Chinese famous brands are surveyed adopting the method of content analysis.Content analysis of the 80 Chinese and American company websites reveals that website messages not only reflect the cultural values of China and the U.S., but also differ significantly from each other on Hofstede's individualism-collectivism and power distance dimensions and Hall's high-context & low-context culture. Similarities are found on Chinese and American company websites in cultural categories such as community relations, rank or prestige of company, quality assurance and awards. But on the whole, there are clear differences of the dominant cultural values manifested on Chinese and American company websites. The dominant cultural values manifested on Chinese company websites are collectivism (such as "family theme"), power distance (such as "company hierarchy information") and high-context culture (such as "aesthetics"). The dominant cultural values manifested on American company websites are individualism (such as "independent theme") and low-context culture (such as "hard-sell approach'). The findings of this study support the opinion that the cultural differences reflected on Chinese and American company websites are attributable to country differences in cultural values.The study results of the research provide some meaningful suggestions for global e-marketers and website designers. According to the findings of the research, global e-marketers and website designers could emphasize some Chinese cultural values such as "family theme", "chat room or club", "company hierarchy information" and "aesthetics" when developing websites for Chinese customers. In contrast, global e-marketers and website designers could consider utilizing cultural values such as "independent theme", "use of superlative" and "hard-sell approach" when developing websites for the American customers.