A content analysis of multinationals Web communication strategies crosscultural research framework and pretesting

Despite the growing trend toward the interactive medium, there would appear to be a lack of comprehensive research methodology for evaluating the degree of standardisation in multinational corporations MNCs online communication strategies across differing cultures. The objective of this exploratory...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Internet research 2002-12, Vol.12 (5), p.380-390
Main Authors: Okazaki, Shintaro, Alonso Rivas, Javier
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Information
Internet
Marketing communications
Multinationals
National cultures
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Despite the growing trend toward the interactive medium, there would appear to be a lack of comprehensive research methodology for evaluating the degree of standardisation in multinational corporations MNCs online communication strategies across differing cultures. The objective of this exploratory study is to construct a research framework for crosscultural comparison of corporate Web pages, applying traditional advertising content study techniques. A series of pretests were conducted to examine three explanatory variables, i.e. information content, cultural values and creative strategies on Japanese MNCs productbased home pages in Japan, Spain and the USA. The results revealed that Japanese firms tended to localise their online communication strategies in their target markets. In closing, future research directions are discussed and content analysis research designs are summarised.
ISSN:1066-2243
DOI:10.1108/10662240210447137