Beyond Hofstede by Cheryl Nakata

Author:Cheryl Nakata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Examining contextual effects on culture and consumption

Culture’s context

While culture is often a key variable impacting consumer attitudes and behavior, it is important to recognize that culture’s influence does not occur in a vacuum. Numerous other variables (both macro- and micro-environmental) coexist with and impact culture and hence may affect consumer behavior, both directly and indirectly. Culture may be viewed as the causal factor, but underlying contextual variables such as the affluence of a society or cultural grouping, level of education, degree of urbanization, the topographical or climatic context, or even the political system may be at least partially responsible for the observed differences or confound the impact of cultural influences. The context is particularly crucial when cross-cultural comparisons are being made, as not only do the cultures potentially differ but the contexts invariably do. Failure to take such contextual factors into consideration in cross-cultural research can result in mistaken inferences. Even if contextual effects are subtle, they still may alter observations and relationships.

A wide variety of different contextual factors may be identified that potentially influence values and consumption behavior. These include macro-environmental variables such as income, economic growth, population, education, health, religion, and climate, and micro-environmental variables such as family, local educational or government institutions, social organizations, population density, and other geographic characteristics. Equally, media and distribution infrastructure may help to form consumer attitudes and purchase behavior habits. All of these provide a backdrop or context in which cultural influences play out and may directly or indirectly influence consumer values and behavior.

Berry’s eco-cultural or eco-social model (Berry, 1975, 1976, 2001; Georgas and Berry, 1995) provides a framework for examining the role of contextual factors in influencing behavior. Human diversity, both cultural and psychological, is viewed as a set of collective and individual adaptations to contextual factors and, more specifically, to the ecological and sociopolitical system. Ecological and sociopolitical influences are not seen as deterministic, but rather as following a pattern of mutual adaptation in which changes in one part follow changes in other parts through a dual process of acculturation and adaptation. On the one hand, human organisms interact with and adapt to their physical environment in order to satisfy their needs. On the other hand, cultural change occurs through sociopolitical institutions, such as education and employment, which alter extant cultural patterns.

A recent study (Georgas et al., 2004) applying the ecological framework (Berry, 1976, 1995, 2001) to account for differences in psychological characteristics and, in particular, psychological values across countries and geographic zones identifies six principal contextual dimensions: ecology, economy, education, mass media, population, and religion. These are considered critical in understanding the variation in psychological variables. Following this view, such contextual factors may also be expected to impact consumer values, attitudes, and behavior patterns. In particular, three distinct categories of contextual variables relevant to behavior as consumers can be identified: the ecological context, the level of societal affluence (i.e., wealth of a society), and the religious context.

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