Title

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

Authors

Kevin D. Lo, University of San FranciscoFollow
Richard D. Waters, University of San FranciscoFollow
N. Christensen

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Abstract

This research examines 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 research is grounded in original indices to measure the six dimensions across Facebook’s “About Us” section, the textual updates provided by the companies, as well as the media that they share (photographs and videos). This is the first attempt to create a conceptualization of Hofstede’s dimensions for organizational social media use. 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. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Comments

This is a pre-print version of an article published by Emerald.

Published version: https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-04-2016-0021

DOI

10.1108/JCOM-04-2016-0021

Recommended Citation

Lo, K.D., Waters, R.D., Christensen, N. Assessing the applicability of Hofstede's cultural dimensions for Global 500 corporations' Facebook profiles and content (2017) Journal of Communication Management, 21 (1), pp. 51-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-04-2016-0021.