Understanding the Role of National Culture on Communication Media Choice Behavior: A Cross-Cultural Comparison within a Multinational Organizational Setting

Motivated by the growing significance of media choice theories, the accelerating development of information technology, the rapid pace of globalization and multinationalism, and the paucity of empirical studies of cross-cultural media choice, this paper investigates the role of culture in media choice behavior within multinational organizational (MNO) contexts. Specifically, it focuses on investigating cultural influence on perceived media richness and media preference in MNO contexts. Data were collected from an Americanbased Asian-Pacific area headquarters in Australia and its three subsidiaries in Asia of Thailand, Malaysia, and Korea. Significant differences were found in perceptions of media richness across all media, as well as media preference for telephone and written document between headquarters and subsidiaries. However, no significant differences were found in face-to-face and email preferences between these two different groups. Further analysis showed that within this particular MNO, face-to-face communication or email communication was always employees’ first preference for communication, regardless of communication task type and irrespective of employee’s national culture. Universal organizational culture implemented within MNO was argued to be the possible factor to drive such similarity between headquarters and the subsidiaries. Implications of findings are discussed and future research considered.

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