Humanitarian behavior across high-/low-context cultures: a comparative analysis between Switzerland and Colombia
Journal
Journal of International Humanitarian Action
ISSN-Digital
2364-3404
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2021-01-04
Author(s)
Abstract
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) attempts constantly to motivate its audience through social media to adopt humanitarian attitudes and behaviors. Owing to its multicultural audience, the results of this communicative attempt varies from region to region. In this context, in order to optimize the humanitarian communication outcome, it is of high importance to investigate the mediating role of culture. Drawing on Hall’s context theory, this comparative survey-based study tries to analyze the influence of personal context culture on humanitarian behavior intention in a low-context-culture country (Switzerland) and a high-context-culture country (Colombia). The results indicated that once exposed to implicit social media posts of the ICRC, the Colombian showed slightly higher behavior intention compared to the Swiss and participants’ personal context-culture score fully accounted for this difference. This study is also an empirical examination of Hall’s context theory in a humanitarian communication context.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SHSS - Kulturen, Institutionen, Maerkte (KIM)
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
SpringerOpen
Volume
6
Number
1
Start page
1
End page
10
Official URL
Division(s)
Eprints ID
261939