The differences between companies from collectivistic and individualistic cultures regarding the use of response strategies and response styles to online consumer complaints.
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2019-07-15
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en
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Previous research has shown that there are differences in communication between cultures in face-to-face crisis situations. The cultural dimension individualism-collectivism is of importance in these intercultural situations. Developments in technology have led to the situation in which a lot of company-consumer crisis situations are handled online. This development raises the question whether the differences in face-to-face crisis situations are also visible in online situations. As collectivistic cultures are shown to be more conflict avoidant than individualistic cultures, it was hypothesised that the tendency to be conflict avoidant is reflected in the response style and response strategy of companies during webcare. Therefore, this study analysed 720 consumer complaints and 720 company responses to these complaints on Twitter. The consumers and the companies originated from two highly individualistic countries and two highly collectivistic countries. The tweets were coded with regard to response style (proactive or reactive) and response strategy (deny/diminish/rebuild). Companies from collectivistic cultures used significantly more reactive response styles and less proactive response styles than companies from individualistic cultures. No significant relation was found between culture and response strategy. Companies expanding their business to countries with a culture of the other side of the individualism-collectivism dimension, should take into account that their way of executing webcare might not be the same as in their home country. Future research should focus on the perception of different response styles among consumers from different cultures.
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