Suchergebnisse

Children's media products reflect the cultural values of their producers as well as the social, political and economic conditions under which they were produced. Watching an animated feature, therefore, cannot be regarded as an innocent and simple act of consumption. It rather involves a complex process of coding/decoding and appropriating cultural meanings. The relation between structured patterns of global communication on the one hand, and the local conditions under which Disney cartoon products are marketed and consumed in the Arab world, on the other, can be perceived as the main axis of globalized diffusion and local appropriation of American cultural values and lifestyle. The consequences of which are difficult to foretell.

AbstractIn a globalized world where trans‐ and supranational networks, communication and the exchange of information gain in importance, national political decision making processes do not occur independently from each other. Policy diffusion is assumed to become more and more relevant also for welfare state development. This paper explicitly focuses on the policy diffusion among 21 OECD countries in the period between 1980 and 2007 looking at social spending dynamics. The empirical findings of the spatial regressions clearly indicate that spatial patterns in social spending dynamics are driven by policy diffusion processes. In fact, economic interdependencies define the pathways of diffusion. Trading partners move in the same direction regarding social policy behavior. Surprisingly, cultural and geographical proximity are less relevant for the diffusion processes, at least in terms of social spending dynamics.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of national culture on the diffusion process of business‐to‐consumer (B2C) e‐commerce using Hall's cultural classifications and Hofstede's multicultural framework.Design/methodology/approachTime‐series secondary data across 58 countries were utilized and independent samplest‐test and nonparametric correlation analyses were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsResults of the study suggest that high‐context and polychronic cultures are more conducive to the adoption and diffusion of internet retailing. An unexpected finding is evidence of the significant positive impact of uncertainty avoidance on B2C e‐commerce adoption.Practical implicationsBased on the empirical findings of the study, managerial implications are derived. These insights may help global internet marketers predict B2C e‐commerce adoption and diffusion across countries and formulate more effective online marketing and communication strategies by accommodating for cultural influences during the diffusion process. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.Originality/valueThis study is among the few large‐scale empirical studies attempting to establish the importance of understanding cultural influences on consumers' online purchasing behavior across countries.