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Another study, from Jianqiang Shen (2013) compared emotional user content on Facebook and Gmail. They found out that people express more and show more emotions on Facebook than on Gmail; they use more positive and negative words as well as exclamation marks. Users are more likely to share supportive response and/or bad experience on a Social Network Site (SNS) than on emails. Furthermore, people are more expressive and emotional when they comment, with more positive and negative words as well as exclamations.
A last research conducted by Coombs and Holladay (2013) analyzed stakeholders’
reactions to corporate messages during a crisis on different social media: the Livestrong blog and the Huffington Post online news site. They monitored and categorized stakeholders’
online comments (positive, negative or neutral comments). Findings showed that
“monitoring reactions of stakeholders can reveal how individuals can act as crisis communications in social media messages can serve as barometers the effectiveness of an organization’s crisis response.” It is also demonstrated that analyzing multiple social media is needed because of supportive stakeholder influence. Hence, the importance of the emotions of Samsung customers can clearly determine the efficiency of Samsung’s strategies in France and in the United States.
This leads us to the RQ1.1: “How did Samsung customers react in France?” and RQ1.2: “How did Samsung customers react in USA?” We expect that different stage of the crisis would lead to different emotion and reactions from Samsung customers.
2.7 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory
Global brands can’t deal with a crisis the same way everywhere in the world: some adaptations need to be made according to the country targeted for crisis healing (Hofstede, 1993).
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Hofstede developed the main theory in the intercultural communication field in the 1990’s. This theory is constantly revised and updated according to different evolution and empirical research. Hofstede considers that culture is the mental software of humans;
meaning culture plays an important role in the way we feel, think and act. Culture is embedded in families, school, workplace and ourselves. This theory also claims that cultures can be different from nations and regions
Values are the deepest level of culture manifestations: these are the core of cultures and may change from a country to another. Then, rituals, heroes and symbols are part of the practices that are easier to understand and to observe as individuals.
Hofstede elaborated dimensions to help individuals and corporations understand the differences that may exist between nations. Indeed, cultural differences can lead to conflicts and misunderstanding; so this theory gives insights to help us overcome and better understand each other. This theory can be used for intercultural communication and cooperation, but is also designed for corporations. Corporations need to communicate with their stakeholders, who are mainly their customers. When it happens to be a global brand such as Samsung, it is very important to adapt the message to the target. According to the theory, people from different cultures would feel, think and act differently. Consequently, the message should be adapted to the nations in question.
This theory is divided into six dimensions:
The first dimension is Power Distance Index (PDI), which is to what extent people can accept inequalities. Some people in a society would strive to get a fair distribution of power while other people from a different society would accept their place without further explanations. For instance, the French society, compared to the US society, better accepts
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inequalities and gives more importance to hierarchy. They depend more on their parents, teachers and superiors than American people.
The second dimension is Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV) refers to the social network. People who tend to only take care of themselves and their families are on the individualism side. However, people who can rely on their relatives or a certain in-group to take care of them with a very high loyalty are on the collectivistic side. The French people tend to take care of oneself and one’s family. The French need a strong leadership during a crisis but also to give a voice to the weaker communities. They strictly separate their professional and private life. In the American society, the individualism index is even higher, meaning that their customer service is very important, as customer is the only priority.
However, in France, employees expect respect from the customer.
The third dimension is Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS). A society that seeks for rewards for success and is more competitive would be on the masculinity side. Femininity side would encompass modesty, cooperation and solidarity. As there is welfare system and importance given to quality of life, French society is slightly feminine. Managers are less paid than the power distance score would suggest. American society is much more masculine as it tends to give rewards to success and is more competitive.
The fourth dimension is Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), which is how a society reacts to the unpredictable future. In other words, to which extent a society can accept uncertainty and ambiguity. A high UAI stands for a society that has for strong codes of belief and intolerance to different behaviour and ideas from the society standard. A low UAI would mean that a society prefers practices to principles and is more relaxed. French society has a very high score on uncertainty avoidance. Structures and rules are very important and surprises are not welcomed. American people are more relaxed and better to accept changes.
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The fifth dimension is Long Term Orientation versus Short Term Normative Orientation. A low score would represent a society that is suspicious towards changes and very attached to traditions and norms. Those with a high score are more pragmatic with modern education. French society is more pragmatic than the American society as French people believe that truth depends on situation, context and time. They tend to save and invest more as well.
The sixth and last dimension is Indulgence versus Restraint or, a society that would allow free gratification for fun and enjoying life, versus a society that would restrain and regulate free gratification. French society is less open to free gratification than American society. France doesn’t have very high happiness indices either. The next figure 6 shows to what extent the French and American cultures differentiate from each other.
Figure 1 – Comparison France and USA through Cultural Dimensions Theory (Hofstede)
This comparison shows four main differences between French and American cultures.
First, Power Distance is much higher in France, meaning that French people need more leadership and have a strong hierarchy system whereas the USA has a more equal system and themselves. This can explain why Individualism is higher in the USA than in France as Americans rely more on themselves and their relatives: the idea of the “self-made man” is
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fairly strong. Third, Uncertainty Avoidance is also a major difference as explained earlier:
French people don’t like surprises, unstable situations and/or future while American society seems to better accept changes and instability. This can also explain why French people have a higher Long-term Orientation and American a much lower rate: French need stability and so plan as much as they can for their future.
This research aims to find out and explain potential differences in the way Samsung handled the crisis in France and in USA. Indeed, both France and the USA Facebook pages will be analyzed in order to determine whether Samsung applied different strategies in these countries. Moreover, customers’ reactions will also be analyzed to determine if French and American people perceived the crisis differently. The potential differences in the results may be explained through Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory.
Besides Hofstede’s theory, a research conducted by Zhu (2017) examined how McDonald’s and KFC used social media to solver their 2012 crisis in China. This study demonstrated that when marketers chose their crisis response strategies, they also should take cultural differences into account. Moreover, the use of specific response strategies, such as apology, has different impact across cultures. KFC and McDonald’s faced similar crisis concerning their food safety and hygiene. However, they handled the crisis in different ways.
KFC did not apologize right away and tried to minimize the facts and justified their chicken production. KFC got caught into a bigger crisis as netizens were unsatisfied with KFC’s answers. KFC ended up apologizing to their customers few months later. However, McDonald’s, when facing their crisis, reacted within the next thirty minutes and provided an apology within the next hour and a half. Their customers were very satisfied and ended up supporting even more McDonald’s, attacking the original source of the crisis’ creation:
CCTV. Despite the fact that KFC and McDonald’s both used SCCT strategies that have been proven correct, KFC didn’t take the local and cultural environment in China. In collectivistic
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societies, such as China or Japan, public apologies are often avoided as it can make the company “lose face”. McDonald’s decided to surpass Chinese expectations and to use apology strategy. That was a success: analysing and knowing the local market can help a company apply the best strategy during a crisis. Finally, the role of social media should be contextualized according to the targeted culture. As Zhu stated: “The study urges scholars and practitioners to consider the local and cultural contexts in which crises evolve in order to develop effective crisis communication strategies and responses”. This current study aims to find out more about the implications of cross-cultural impacts in the crisis communication field. This study also aims to show the necessity of combining SCCT response strategies with Cultural Dimensions Theory to better understand the local stakeholders during a crisis, and so to more efficiently solve the crisis.
Hypothesis 2: Power Distance, Individualism vs Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance dimensions played a role in the way Samsung handled the crisis in France and in the USA.
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Chapter Three – Research Methodology
This study aims to analyze and understand the strategies of crisis management used by Samsung during the crisis involving the Galaxy Note 7 (GN7). This issue is now famous among the French population and worldwide since Samsung faced this crisis globally.
This study aims to understand the process of Samsung’s crisis solving through different phases. This research selects the case study as the major research methodology. Indeed, as Eisenhardt (1989) defined case studies: “The case study is a research strategy which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings”. He also added: “case studies can employ an embedded design, that is, multiple levels of analysis within a single study”.
This research will analyze the multiple changes of strategies applied by Samsung during the GN7 crisis. Case studies combine qualitative and quantitative data collection in order to get insights and confirm hypothesis or answer to research questions. This study uses this method to analyze Samsung’s strategies and customer’s reactions.