Journal of Public Relations Research, 20:207–230, 2008 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1062-726X print/1532-754X online DOI: 10.1080/10627260801894330
Cultural Consequences on Excellence in Public Diplomacy Seong-Hun Yun A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Kansas State University
The purpose of this study is to advance the contextual study of public diplomacy—the inquiry into the influences of a government’s contextual variables on its practice and management of public diplomacy. To meet this aim, this study investigated the empirical associations between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Excellence in public diplomacy, a conception of excellence in public diplomacy developed from the Excellence study, based on survey data from 52 embassies in Washington, DC. The findings suggest that the uncertainty avoidance dimension has substantial and significant empirical associations with Excellence in public diplomacy. Additionally, not only low uncertainty avoidance cultures but also individualist and low power distance cultures are more conducive to the Excellence than are their counterparts. Nonetheless, the findings have an implication that, in terms of associational magnitude, the overall contextual effects of societal culture on the Excellence may not be strong.
As public diplomacy’s1 importance has grown, public relations scholarship has built a respectable body of knowledge on the subject. However, much research has treated public diplomacy practices as an independent variable whose effects must be demonstrated. Within this communication effects paradigm, researchers have tapped into mass communication theories like cultivation, agenda setting, and rhetorical theories of image restoration to investigate which media relations and message strategies can maximize the practices’ effects and in what ways
Correspondence should be sent to Seong-Hun Yun, Ph.D., The A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Kansas State University, 221 Kedzie Hall, Manhattan, KS 66503. E-mail:
[email protected] 1The term public diplomacy in this article is defined as “a government process of communicating with foreign publics” (Tuch, 1990, p. 3). Thus, the term refers to not only communication behavior but also communication management.
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(Manheim, 1994; Manheim & Albritton, 1984; Wang & Chang, 2004; Zhang & Benoit, 2004; Zhang & Cameroon, 2003). In a plethora of the effects studies, however, only a few scholars treated public diplomacy as a dependent variable to be explained studying what contextual variables of governments affect the ways governments manage and practice their public diplomacy and why. For example, Lobsenz (1984) suggested that the more dependent one country is on another for tourism, trade, and investment, the more likely it will hire local public relations and lobbying firms. Similarly, Kunczik (1997) hypothesized that “the more important (economically and/or politically) an entity (whether country or union, e.g., the European Community), the more likely it is that foreign countries will undertake campaigns there [using the services of local firms]” (p. 25). In short, both Lobsenz and Kunczik theorized about the impact of intercountry dependence on the outsourcing practice of public diplomacy. On the other hand, using the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), Zhang (2005) focused on the association between the status of countries in the world hierarchy—whether core, semiperiphery, or periphery—and their outsourcing of public diplomacy aimed at U.S. publics. Despite such pioneering exploration into intercountry dependence and the world system, other contextual factors (e.g., societal culture) remain unstudied in the context of public diplomacy. In addition, extant research has not only focused narrowly on the impact of contextual factors on outsourcing practice but has relied on secondary data (e.g., the FARA Report) from public diplomacy agents. Thus, contextual study now needs to move beyond outsourcing to the broader practices and inner management of public diplomacy by the real actors—governments— based on primary data. To meet this aim and expand the theoretical and research scope of contextual scholarship, this study inquires how governments’ ethnocentric societal cultures affect their public diplomacy. Specifically, building on Yun’s (2006) earlier application of the Excellence theory (J. E. Grunig, 1992) to define and measure Excellence in public diplomacy among 113 embassies in Washington, DC, it investigates the empirical associations between Hofstede’s (2001) indexes of cultural dimensions and Excellence in public diplomacy at 52 embassies for which the cultural dimension measures were available. The article begins by defining Excellence in public diplomacy, the dependent variable for this cross-embassy study, and proceeds to theorize on the interface between culture and foreign affairs (by extension, public diplomacy), drawing upon the international relations literature. Following a discussion on Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimensions, this article specifies the theoretical linkages between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Excellence in public diplomacy and proposes hypotheses to test.
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CONCEPTUALIZATION Defining Excellence in Public Diplomacy Herman (1978) posited that “to attempt to understand, explain, or forecast something, one must first be clear about what that something is” (p. 25). From this perspective, any dependent variable to be used as a basis for comparison must first be clearly defined. For constructs of public diplomacy, excellence in public diplomacy is of primary concern because of its theoretical, as well as practical, significance. That is, theories of excellence in such practices as management, in general, and specialized organizational communications like public relations, in particular, address normative ways or principles by which such functions should be both practiced and managed. Specifically, excellence theory addresses the normative question of how the public relations function must be managed and practiced to make the greatest contribution to organizational effectiveness. Thus, excellence in public diplomacy can be defined as a set of normative principles for the practice and management of public diplomacy that help the function make the highest contribution to a government’s conduct of general foreign affairs. In this article, the dependent variable, Excellence in public diplomacy, is developed from the Excellence theory (L. A. Grunig, J. E. Grunig, & Dozier, 2002), a theory of excellence in public relations, which puts forward 10 principles on organizational, departmental, and program levels that are indispensable for excellent public relations: (a) involvement of public relations in strategic management, (b) empowerment of public relations in the dominant coalition, (c) integration of specialized public relations functions, (d) independence of the public relations function as a management one, (e) heading of the public relations unit by a manager rather than a technician, (f) a symmetric model of public relations, (g) symmetric internal communication, (h) departmental knowledge potential for the managerial role and symmetric public relations, (i) diversity embodied in all roles, and (j) ethical public relations. In theorizing on excellence in public diplomacy, Yun (2006) identified a theoretical convergence between theories of excellence in public diplomacy in the literature and the Excellence theory and empirically tested and showed the applicability of the Excellence theory for defining excellence in public diplomacy. The dependent variable, Excellence in public diplomacy, is promising as a variable of comparison for the contextual study of public diplomacy because the Excellence theory has been successfully used in crossnational research on the relationships between contextual variables (societal culture) and excellence in public relations (J. E. Grunig, 1994; Rhee, 1999; Sriramesh & White, 1992). Also, the variable of Excellence in public diplomacy can better capture the underlying influences of a government’s contextual factors on its inner and daily practice and man-
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agement of public diplomacy than other variables of a government’s official, rhetorical, and policy stances on public diplomacy. The latter variables are more influenced by a government’s general strategy on public diplomacy and foreign affairs, which may swing on a continuum from an administration to another of the same government (regime change). Of the 10 principles of Excellence in public diplomacy, this study investigates seven with respect to their empirical associations with societal culture: involvement, empowerment, integration, knowledge, symmetric communication, symmetric internal communication, and diversity. The principles of independence and manager head subsume the integration principle because investigating the integration principle suffices examining the former two principles. In addition, the ethics principle was excluded, based on its problematic levels of construct validity and reliability (Yun, 2006). Culture and Foreign Affairs The international relations literature provides insights into the interface between culture and the conducting of foreign affairs. Discussing this interface, Hudson (1997) pointed out that “what culture provides its members is a repertoire or palette of adaptive responses from which members build off-the-shelf strategies of action” (p. 9). She further asserted that individuals will play the game that their culture has conditioned them to play, and they will play it well. Far earlier, Linton (1945) had pointed out that “individuals tend to imitate the culture patterns of their own society when confronted by a new situation” (p. 104). The notion of culture as templates for human strategy offers a strong theoretical logic of the interface between a national culture and its approach to foreign affairs. Echoing this point, Hofstede (2001) defined culture as “the interactive aggregate of common characteristics that influence a human group’s response to environment” (p. 10). His definition underscores that templates for action to which the members of a national culture are conditioned must be available guidelines for interaction with outgroups in the world system. The first scientific attempt to capture the interface between national culture and foreign affairs was based on the so-called national character studies popular between the 1930s and 1950s, which defined national character as “relatively enduring personality characteristics and patterns that are modal among the adult members of a society” (Inkeles, 1961, p. 173). Subsequently, Hennessy (1962) and Terhune (1970) investigated the relationship between national character and foreign policy, but because of conceptual confusion over, and the methodological limitations of, the national character construct, their thrust remained embryonic. This new research direction was also suffocated by the then-mainstream field theory in international relations, which argued that it is not domestic conditions, but rather systemic conditions like balance of power in the international system,
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that determine foreign policy orientation and state behavior. Despite the prevalence of field theory during the Cold War, the subsequent proliferation of ethnic and nationalistic conflicts rekindled interest in the interface between culture (ethnicity) and foreign affairs. This resurrection of culture in the study of international relations has yielded a growing body of knowledge on cultures’ consequences for foreign affairs. From the redemption of culture arose the foreign policy contexts approach (Holsti, 1970; Sampson & Walker, 1987; Shih, 1993, 1988), the central notion of which is that background factors of a country, such as societal culture and political system, contextualize the psycho-cultural milieu of decision-makers in foreign policy and frame their outlook on the international system and their scripts for action. In his role theory, Holsti, the primary researcher in the contexts approach, theorized on a process in which social and cultural characteristics affect a national role conception of the elites and, in turn, determines foreign policy behavior. The national role concept “bridges between the general beliefs held in a society and the beliefs of the foreign policy decision makers” on the world system (Hudson & Vore, 1995, p. 226). Following Hoslti’s lead, Shih (1988) studied cultural influence on role conception and argued that Chinese cultural traditions such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are the sources of the country’s national role conceptions, and later he (1993) found that the negotiation styles of governments reflect their country’s societal culture. Along with foreign policy behavior, culture’s effects on foreign policy decision-making processes inside the foreign ministry were studied by Sampson (1987) and Zurovchak’s (1997). Through a comparative study of Japanese and French foreign ministries, Sampson found that cultural consequences for corporate management hold true for foreign policy management or decision-making processes. His study suggested that differences in organizational decision-making processes between these two foreign ministries were congruent with differences in their corporate management and societal culture. Moreover, Zurovchak (1997) investigated differences in decision-making processes between the Czech Republic and Slovakian foreign ministries. Applying Hofstede’s (1980) four dimensions of culture, he hypothesized that differences in societal culture would produce differences in foreign policy decision-making processes. He found evidence for this hypothesis along two of Hofstede’s dimensions—individualism/collectivism and power distance. In discussing the similar profiles of both countries along Hofstede’s dimensions, Zurovchak (1997) stressed that “even a small difference in culture is influential enough to make a big difference in the foreign policy decision-making process” (p. 126). Nor are the insights from Sampson (1987) and Zurovchak (1997) limited to foreign ministries; the same cultural consequences should exist in any governmental organization, regardless of whether it is the foreign ministry, cultural ministry, specialized governmental agencies for public diplomacy, or overseas embassies. For
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instance, embassies are known as miniature governments consisting of diplomats dispatched from a variety of cabinet ministries ranging from the foreign ministry to trade, education, defense, information, and other ministries. A Minister of Public Affairs at the South Korean embassy in Washington, DC described an embassy as “a microcosm of government” in which the macrolevel bureaucratic processes in the homeland government exactly manifest themselves (Yun & Yang, 2001, p. 14). His depiction of an embassy further suggested that homeland societal culture influences the organizational processes inside an embassy, such as management of the public diplomacy function. More important is the fact that the findings of Sampson, Yun and Yang, and Zurovchak run counter to an intuition that diplomats, being elites with high education and social status, constitute a different (atypical) subgroup from the majority of their cultural groups. Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture Investigating the interface between culture and public diplomacy requires further conceptualization of culture. The two primary approaches towards such conceptualization are the emic approach, which studies the “unique and specific wholes” of cultures (Hofstede, 2001, p. 25), and the etic approach, which understands culture by applying “general, poly-cultural classification schemes” (p. 25) that are in fact the researcher’s theoretical constructs imposed across cultures. Scholars who use this latter approach generally conceptualize common properties through dimensional continua upon which national cultures are placed for comparison (Crozier & Thoening, 1976; Hofstede, 1980; Tayeb, 1988). This dimensional approach allows for comparison of a large number of different cultures in a quantifiable manner, addressing not only the extent to which cultures are different but also the respects in which they differ. Among the more popular dimensional models is Hofstede’s (1980) conception of national culture using four universal dimensions: individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity/femininity. Individualism/collectivism refers to the degree to which members of a group feel independent from or dependent upon each other. Power distance involves the amount of inequality that society members will accept: the smaller the acceptable inequality, the smaller the power distance and vice versa. Uncertainty avoidance refers to the degree to which members of a society avoid uncertainty-producing anxiety, and masculinity/femininity measures the extent to which people of both sexes in a culture endorse masculine or feminine traits. Hofstede (1980) originally measured the four dimensions between 1967 and 1973 by administering 116,000 questionnaires to matching employee samples of IBM subsidiaries in 72 countries. In a later 1982 study, after an initial analysis of 40 countries met a conservative sample size criterion, 24 countries were added to the country dataset, which then met a conservative, but still acceptable, criterion. In the late 1990s, Hofstede (2001) extended the
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dataset to include 16 new countries (i.e., not included in the original 72) and incorporated the results of his own observations, descriptive data, and small-scale extension studies. As a result, Hofstede’s dataset has come to cover as many as 80 national cultures, providing the most representative dataset in crossnational study. Admittedly, his conception of national culture, like other conceptions of national culture (e.g., Crozier & Thoening, 1976), has the weakness of ignoring within-nation differences and the consequences of globalization. However, proponents for crossnational study argue that nations still possess clearly defined territorial borders and their own characteristic historical, political, economic, and legal structures that bound the people’s collective experiences and social reality (Hantrais, 1999)—the attributes of a nation that make nations units of comparison in comparative study. Since publication of his Culture’s Consequences (1980), Hofstede’s national culture model and his country scores have been widely used for crossnational study in disciplines ranging from public relations, management, organizational study, international relations, and comparative politics to business ethics and information decision science. Nonetheless, Hofstede’s (1980) cultural scores have faced two persistent criticisms. First, his culture scores, from the beginning, did not capture real national culture because they were not based on representative samples of national populations. That is, the scores were not about national culture but more of IBM’s corporate organizational culture. In response, Hofstede (2001) argued that “although the IBM subsidiaries’ matching samples are atypical for their countries, it does not matter as long as they are atypical in the same way from one country to another country” (p. 16). He added that “the use of IBM subsidiaries’ matching samples had an effect of controlling for organizational culture and that, thus the remaining variability after the controlling is a conservative estimate of the true variability among countries” (p. 16). The second critique is that, 3 decades after the early measurements, Hofstede’s (1980) indexes may have become obsolete as culture has shifted. Indeed, some proponents of cultural convergence even argue that globalization has forced cultures to become more homogeneous, consuming the same products and sharing the same lifestyles and practices (Ohmae, 1985; O’Reilly, 1991). Such increasing uniformity casts doubt on the explanatory power of Hofstede’s (1980) four dimensions and his measured scores for later periods (Alder, Doktor, & Redding, 1986). In response, Hofstede (2001) counterargued that culture is stable across time, and even if cultures shift, countries shift together so that relative scores remain valid. That is, culture has an internal stability mechanism by which long-standing social institutions like family, religion, and political system, once molded, reinforce the culture, resist change from the outside, and maintain identities. In addition, “culture change basic enough to invalidate the country dimension index scores will need either a much longer period—say, 50 to 100 years—or extremely dramatic outside events” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 34). To test the viability of his scores across
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time, Hofstede (2001) successfully validated them against approximately 200 external comparative studies, more than half of which were conducted between 1990 and 2001. For example, for life satisfaction data from 10 European countries collected in each year between 1982 and 1998, his scores on uncertainty avoidance yielded a range of strong correlation coefficients between –.70 and –.87. Hofstedes’ Cultural Dimensions and Excellence in Public Diplomacy This study investigates three of Hofstede’s (1980) four dimensions—individualism/collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance—with respect to their empirical linkages with Excellence in public diplomacy. These three dimensions were chosen not only because they are more theoretically associated with general organizational behavior and decision-making processes than the masculinity/femininity2 dimension, but because prior research has suggested their theoretical utility and empirical associations with foreign policy decision-making processes in particular (Sampson III, 1987; Sampson III & Walker, 1987; Zurovchak, 1997). The theoretical specifications of the relationships between each of the three dimensions and the Excellence principles, together with the corresponding hypotheses, are outlined in the following.
Individualism/collectivism. Whereas individualist cultures show a high degree of independence and appreciate personal goals, achievement, and competition; collectivist cultures express a high degree of dependence and emphasize group goals and harmony, collaboration, and consensus. Moreover, collectivists are more concerned about the impact of their actions upon the other members of a group (Hui & Triandis, 1986) and in dealing with conflicts prefer harmony-enhancing procedures like negotiation and compliance (Leung, Fernandez-Dols, & Iwawaki, 1992). In contrast, individualist cultures prefer procedures involving threat, accusation, and ignoring, all of which are confrontational (Leung et al., 1992). Within the logic of this dimension, governments from collectivist cultures may tend to practice more symmetrical public diplomacy than their counterparts from individualist cultures. However, it would be naive to assume that collectivist norms within a society or nation will be replicated intact in the international system. Rather, the individualism/collectivism dimension, which essentially refers to the relationship between an individual and his or her in-group, corresponds to the distinction between a self-centric orientation and. a collective or group-centric orientation. As regards foreign policy behavior, the norms that govern relationships with 2Although the masculinity/femininity dimension was not included in this study, its empirical associations with the Excellence principles were examined and presented in table 3, along with the other three dimensions’ associations.
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out-groups (other nations) are more relevant than the norms for in-group relationships within the country. Hofstede (2001) suggested that another dimension, particularism/universalism, represents intergroup relationships, arguing that collectivist and individualist culture corresponds to particularism and universalism, respectively. In collectivist cultures, “attitudes toward others depend on their group membership, and relationships with colleagues are cooperative for in-group members but hostile for out-group [members]” (p. 236). In contrast, in an individualist culture, “attitudes toward others are independent of group membership, and relationships with colleagues do not depend on group identity” (p. 236). An earlier distinction by Parsons and Shils (1951) suggested that individualist cultures believe that “value standards should apply to all,” whereas collective cultures see that “value standards differ for in-group and out-groups” (as cited in Hofstede, 2001, p. 227). The consequence of particularism for public diplomacy is that governments from collectivist cultures do not necessarily apply their domestic value standards—like collaboration, negotiation, and harmony—to public diplomacy toward foreign publics. In fact, Bond and Wang (1982) illustrated this ramification of collective particularism in conflict resolution by citing Confucians who, perceiving social exchange (equity) relationships with strangers to be unfair, quarrel overtly with other parties, especially when the quarrel is justified as a defense of in-group interests. Thus, Confucians tend to discourage and inhibit aggressive outbursts so as to maintain interpersonal harmony within their group, but their collective acts of aggression toward a stigmatized out-group may be drastic and even exaggerated for the sake of serving in-group purposes. Similarly, governments from collectivist cultures tend to view foreign publics beyond their national borders as out-group members, a distinction that makes it difficult for their public diplomacy to solve a conflict with them. Therefore, governments from collectivist cultures are less likely to practice symmetric public diplomacy than their counterparts from individualist cultures. Hypothesis 1: The individualism/collectivism dimension will have a positive association with the principle of symmetric public diplomacy such that individualist governments will practice more symmetrical public diplomacy than collectivist governments.
Like public diplomacy practice, the individualism/collectivism dimension should affect how government internally manages the public diplomacy function. If collectivist cultures appreciate and value interdependence, yet individualist cultures applaud independence, then organizational decision-making procedures in collectivist cultures should reflect consensus more than majority rule. Consensus cannot exist without information sharing and consultation during every stage of the organizational decision-making processes. For instance, in the Japanese orga-
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nizational practice of ringesi, which exemplifies a collectivist consensus-making procedure, the documents necessary for a decision are circulated among all relevant people within an organization, eliciting ideas from each person prior to document finalization (Sampson, 1987). Such information sharing is viewed as key to success in collectivist cultures but as detrimental in individualist cultures, which favor information withholding (Hofstede, 2001). This consensus-seeking and information-sharing feature of a collectivist culture should have a direct bearing on two principles of Excellence in public diplomacy: integrated public diplomacy functions and the symmetric system of internal communication. Hypothesis 2: The individualism/collectivism dimension will have a negative association with the principles of integration and symmetric internal communication such that individualist governments will exhibit less integration of their specialized public diplomacy functions or agencies and a less symmetric system of internal communication than collectivist governments.
Power distance. The power distance dimension involves how different cultures deal with inequality of power, prestige, and wealth. In societies characterized by low power distance, egalitarianism is the norm; whereas in societies with high power distance, hierarchical stratification is the de facto organizing principle. Hofstede (2001) also pointed out that in a low power distance culture, people believe that “inequality should be minimized” (p. 98), “government is frequently led by parties stressing equality, usually social democrats” (p. 116) and “political parties exist and tend to be in the center with relatively weak left and right wings” (p. 116). Thus, cultures with low power distance are likely to instill in the minds of foreign policy decision-makers symmetric egalitarian scripts for action that contrast with the asymmetric hierarchical scripts of action probable for high power distance cultures. These latter would prohibit the practice of symmetric public diplomacy. Hypothesis 3: The power distance dimension will have a negative association with the principle of symmetric communication such that governments from high power distance cultures will tend to practice less symmetric public diplomacy than their counterparts from low power distance cultures.
In addition, because power distance concerns the relationships and the nature of vertical communication between superiors and subordinates, it should affect the other principles of Excellence in public diplomacy. Even in cultures with small power distance, there is organizational hierarchy; however, it is less rigid and steep than in cultures with high power distance. Thus, from the perspective of organizational processes, power distance should have a wide range of consequences for all three principles of Excellence in public diplomacy under study:
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involvement, empowerment of public diplomacy, and symmetric system of internal communication. More specifically, in cultures with high power distance, power and authority are centralized, which leads to centralized decision-making by only a handful of members of the dominant coalition and the exclusion of most organizational members. Moreover, in high power distance organizations, “senior management would seem less likely to treat public relations managers as equals—thus relegating public relations to a technical support function and excluding it from strategic management” (J. E. Grunig, 1994, p. 47). Similarly, in high power distance cultures, the foreign affairs leaders tend not to make the most of the public diplomacy function in formulating strategic foreign policies. Rather, the public diplomacy function may be called into service for traditional diplomacy only at the stage of executing, not planning, foreign policy. Thus, in the case of high power distance, the head of a public diplomacy agency or department probably has little chance of joining the leadership, receiving budgetary or personnel support, or achieving recognition through high-level promotions. In contrast, as organizational decision-making processes become open to subordinates in cultures with small power distance, these subordinates are offered autonomy and encouraged to express their own ideas and even disagree with the dominant coalition. Indeed, the dominant coalition in such cultures becomes democratic, relying on support from subordinates and seeking consultative leadership as an open decision-making process develops (Hofstede, 2001). Moreover, subordinates feel strong self-efficacy, and actively and responsibly participate in organizational decision-making processes (Zurovchak, 1997). Thus, the emergence of democratic leadership should be conducive to the principle of symmetric internal communication. Hypothesis 4: The power distance dimension will have a negative association with the principles of involvement, empowerment, and symmetric internal communication such that governments from high power distance cultures will tend to enact these principles less well than their counterparts from low power distance cultures.
Uncertainty avoidance. Cultures also differ in the degree to which they tolerate uncertainty. For example, cultures with high uncertainty avoidance find risky untested ideas to be anathema and prefer tradition and the status quo to innovation and change (Vercic, L. A. Grunig, & J. E. Grunig, 1996). Conversely, cultures with low uncertainty avoidance more easily tolerate ambiguity and diversity and downplay bipolar language such as “black or white” and “right or wrong” (Vercic et al., 1996, p. 49). As a result, these latter are less ideological, dogmatic, and selfrighteous and more likely to support mutual respect, negotiation, and adaptation. Moreover, low uncertainty avoidance cultures hold a widely shared belief that an individual’s “own truth should not be imposed on others, and compromising with
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opponents is safe” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 181). In contrast, people in high uncertainty avoidance cultures believe that “there is only one truth, and we have it,” and that “compromising with opponents is dangerous” (p. 181). Extending these ideas logically, national cultures with low uncertainty avoidance are likely to have a worldview that includes a set of action scripts such as win–win, diplomatism, open system, and moving equilibrium. National cultures with high avoidance, on the other hand, are likely to have action scripts like win–lose, dogmaticism, closed system, conservatism, and status quo. Thus, when the worldview is colored by a low avoidance culture, the government is likely to have a strong affinity for symmetric public diplomacy. Hypothesis 5: The uncertainty avoidance dimension will have a negative association with the principle of symmetric public diplomacy such that governments from low uncertainty avoidance cultures will tend to practice more symmetrical public diplomacy than their counterparts from high uncertainty avoidance cultures.
In addition, participation in the strategic conduct of foreign affairs, an essential part of Excellence in public diplomacy, should be less likely in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance. First, such a culture would hinder the development of strategic management because organizations encountering high uncertainty avoidance tend not to see the benefits of the management whose primary objective is to embrace, rather than avoid, environmental uncertainty. Second, strategic management presupposes an open system and a moving equilibrium that requires information exchange with other systems in the environment. Cultures with low uncertainty avoidance—being unafraid to exchange information, explore new ideas, engage change, and seek innovation—should have an affinity for an open system. In contrast, organizations in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance are more likely to be closed systems that favor tradition, the status quo, and conservatism. In cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, top managers are involved in organizational strategy, whereas in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance, these managers are involved in operations, enforcing rules and regulations, and perpetuating traditional management (Hofstede, 2001). Thus, the dimension of uncertainty avoidance should have the same effect in the context of public diplomacy. That is, leaders of foreign affairs in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance will tend not to value the strategic conduct of foreign affairs and will thus remain blind to the potential value of public diplomacy that, as a boundary spanner, introduces uncertainty and variety from the international system. Consequently, the leadership will have little motivation to foster the principle of knowledge potential indispensable for the functions of boundary spanner and environmental scanner. In this regard, cultures with high uncertainty avoidance are unlikely to support the three relevant principles of Excellence in public diplomacy—involvement, empowerment, and knowledge potential.
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Hypothesis 6: The uncertainty avoidance dimension will have a negative association with the principles of involvement, empowerment, and knowledge potential such that governments from low uncertainty avoidance cultures will tend to excel more than their counterparts from high uncertainty cultures in enacting these principles.
METHOD Embassies as Sources of Data This study had embassies in Washington, DC as data sources. Embassies, as loci of government diplomacy abroad, execute both traditional diplomacy and the two main functions of public diplomacy—political advocacy and cultural communication. Even if embassies lean relatively toward political advocacy, they still engage in cultural communication either on their own terms or in tandem with specialized cultural communication agencies like the British Council, the Alliance Française, the Goethe Institute of Germany, and the Japan Foundation. Because only a handful of affluent Western countries can afford specialized public diplomacy agencies, choosing embassies as subjects is more appropriate for studying comparative public diplomacy on a large scale. In addition, embassies provide the “matching samples of individuals, situations, and organizations” that, “depending on the nature of characteristics being compared across nations” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 23), constitute a desirable sampling strategy for crossnational study. That is, embassies carry out the same basic functions (e.g., political and consular affairs) within identical organizational structures and arrangements, which controls for the differences in types of organization and organizational structure that would confound the findings of a crossnational study. Instrumentation and Data Collection The instrument for measuring Excellence in public diplomacy at the embassies was constructed by minimally modifying existing questionnaires in the literature (L. A. Grunig et al., 2002; Huang, 1997; Rhee, 1999) to incorporate the unique organizational structures and processes inside embassies. Thus, titles like chief executive officer were replaced by functionally corresponding embassy titles like ambassador. All items were measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging through 1 (not at all), 2 (very little), 3 (little), 4 (some), 5 (much), 6 (very much), and 7 (exactly). No other-language versions were needed because U.S.-based diplomats are fluent in English. Of the seven constructs under study, symmetric communication captures embassies’ external communication behavior with U.S. publics. However, in this instance, the instrument referred to a singular referent group, U.S. journalists. Journalists were chosen over congressmen because, although many Washington, DC embassies conduct policy communication with U.S. congress-
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men in the name of lobbying or congressional affairs, almost all embassies practice media relations by default. Therefore, focusing on the more common practice of media relations ensured greater comparability across embassies. The seven constructs were measured by a single respondent organizational survey (SROS) that asked a key organizational informant to provide information on the global and configural constructs that constitute the primary objective properties of organizational processes and structures (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). The SROS was deemed appropriate because it can be safely used when organizations under study are neither complex nor heterogeneous (embassies are small and homogenous in both size and structure) and the key informant has accurate knowledge on the subjects under study (Huselid & Becker, 2000). Between August 2004 and January 2005, the survey packages, which included the survey questionnaire and a consent form, were sent to diplomats in charge of public diplomacy at 169 embassies in Washington, DC. Of the 113 embassies that participated in the survey, 52 exhibited measures of Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimensions. As regards rank, various diplomats other than ambassadors participated in the survey, including attaches; first, second and third secretaries; counselors; ministers; and deputy chiefs of mission. Despite their diverse ranks, the participating diplomats were matched because they were held responsible alike for public diplomacy at the embassy. Construct Quality, Data Analysis, and Statistical Techniques/Criteria The reliability and validity of the seven constructs were evaluated through confirmatory factor analyses conducted using the AMOS 4 statistical program. Construct reliability was assessed using Hancock and Mueller’s (2001) H coefficient, which has a minimal cutoff point of .70. Construct validity was evaluated by the amount of variance extracted from the measured variables with a minimal cutoff value of 50%. All seven constructs had H coefficients higher than the minimal cutoff: diversity (.95), empowerment (.89), involvement (.88), integration (.86), knowledge (.88), symmetric internal communication (.82), and symmetric communication (.79). For construct validity, five constructs exceeded or closely reached the minimal cutoff value: empowerment (56%), diversity (55%), knowledge (50%). integration (49%), and involvement (46%). However, the two remaining constructs yielded variance below the cutoff: symmetric communication (41%) and symmetric internal communication (37%). Table 1 shows the items for the seven constructs and their descriptive statistics. Initial data analysis consisted of principal component analyses (PCA) to produce composites of the public diplomacy constructs (see Table 2). Each largest single principal component from each construct explained more than 50% of total variance: empowerment (66%), diversity (62%), integration (61%), knowledge (60%), involvement (54%), symmetric communication (54%), and symmetric in-
TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics and Confirmatory Factor Analysis Factor Loadings (FL) Items Involvement 1. Getting involved in the formulation of our government’s U.S. policies. 2. Launching proactive strategic communication campaigns. 3. Conducting issues management. 4. Conducting regular formative and evaluative research. 5. Conducting special research for specific communication challenges. Empowerment 1. Public diplomacy has a priority in allocation of budget and personnel. 2. Our government invests on research and training for public diplomacy 3. Public diplomacy enjoys recognition and an advantage in promotion. 4. The ambassador substantially supports public diplomacy Integration 1. Seldom carry out joint projects, programs, or campaigns. (R) 2. Share resources such as budget and personnel. 3. Develop common databases on contact information on publics. 4. Hold regular meetings to coordinate activities. 5. Seldom do joint planning for strategic programs or campaigns. (R) Symmetrical Internal Communication 1. Subordinates are seldom informed in advance of policy change that affects their job. (R) 2. Existence of a formal communication channel for subordinates to bring out complaints related to job assignment, performance appraisal, and promotion 3. Superiors mostly speak, and subordinates mostly listen. (R) 4. The purpose of internal communication is to get subordinates to behave in the way superiors want. (R) Knowledge 1. Conducting little evaluative research. (R) 2. Developing goals for communication programs. 3. Identifying and tracking issues. 4. Developing strategies for solving communication programs. 5. Conducting little research to segment publics. (R) Diversity 1. Developing guidelines for handling sexual harassment. 2. Establishing policies to deal with sexual discrimination. 3. Setting up a system of maternity and paternity leave. 4. Fostering women’s leadership abilities. 5. Providing the same opportunities for women as those for men to take risk in performing jobs. Symmetrical Communication 1. Press relations should help resolving misunderstanding. 2. The purpose of press relations is to develop mutual understanding. 3. We try not only to make journalists favorable to our government, but also to change our government’s policies. 4. We make unconditional commitment to quality relationships with journalists.
FL
M
SD
.28 .66 .55 .90 .81
5.35 4.55 5.33 3.66 3.79
1.40 1.68 1.43 1.67 1.70
.91 .82 .70 .50
4.13 3.74 4.26 6.08
1.70 1.69 1.57 1.12
.63 .69 .84 .80 .60
4.93 4.62 4.81 4.97 4.89
1.68 1.81 1.68 1.62 1.78
.51
4.89
1.79
.24
4.97
1.59
.89 .61
5.02 5.20
1.71 1.73
.54 .90 .72 .81 .47
3.81 4.44 4.98 4.79 3.57
1.42 1.64 1.65 1.61 1.47
.90 .97 .52 .67 .55
4.16 4.38 5.81 5.05 5.30
2.04 2.08 1.55 1.64 1.70
.76 .81 .49
5.65 5.55 5.33
1.18 1.35 1.54
.39
4.98
1.32
Note. (R) indicates item was reverse-scored.
221
222 TABLE 2 Principal Component Analysis for Composites of Public Diplomacy Constructs
Eigenvalue Variances Accounted for (%)
Involvement
Empowerment
Integration
Knowledge
Symmetrical
Diversity
Internal Symmetrical
2.70 53.9
2.63 65.8
3.06 61.3
3.00 60.0
2.15 53.7
3.11 62.1
1.97 49.1
Note. Eigenvalue is the one of the largest principal component extracted.
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ternal communication (50%). Finally, simple and partial correlational analyses investigated the empirical associations between Hofstede’s (2001) measures of cultural dimensions and the composites of the measures of excellence in public diplomacy. Both the PCAs and correlational analyses were performed using SPSS 11. Interpretation of the meaningful effect sizes of the Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients followed Cohen’s (1988) recommendations: r < .10 = small, r around .30 = medium, and r > .50 = large. Thus, correlation coefficients with values less than the minimal cutoff point of .10 were interpreted to mean little association.
RESULTS Empirical Associations Between Culture and Public Diplomacy The results of the correlational analyses on the empirical associations between Hofstede’s (2001) cultural indexes and Excellence in public diplomacy are outlined in Table 3. The results for the six hypotheses are reported below for each of the three dimensions.
Individualism/collectivism. Hypothesis 1 theorized that this dimension would have a positive association with the principle of symmetric communication such that embassies from individualist cultures would tend to practice more symmetrical public diplomacy than their counterparts from collectivist cultures. The correlational analyses showed that this dimension had a very small and insignificant association with symmetric public diplomacy (r = .04, p = .80), which warrants no meaningful interpretation. Thus, the dimension of individualism/collectivism does not appear to be systematically associated with symmetric public diplomacy. Hypothesis 2 predicted that this dimension would have negative associations with the principles of integration and symmetric internal communication such that embassies from individualist cultures would tend to exhibit less integration of specialized public diplomacy functions and more symmetrical internal communication than their collectivist counterparts. The analyses found that the dimension had a positive and moderate association with the integration principle (r = .22, p = .12) and a positive but rather small association with the principle of symmetric internal communication (r = .13, p = .37). As neither of these associations was significant, these results suggest that, contrary to Hypothesis 2, the more individualist the country, the more integration and symmetric internal communication its embassy exhibits. Additionally, although not hypothesized, this dimension was shown to have a positive, medium, significant association with diversity (r = .30, p = .03) but
224 TABLE 3 Pearson’s Product–Moment Correlation Coefficients Between Hofstede’s Dimensions and Public Diplomacy (n = 52) Involvement Individualism/ collectivism
H
Power distance
H
Masculinity/ femininity Uncertainty avoidance Uncertainty avoidance (partial)
H
Empowerment
Integration
Knowledge
— .18 – –.19 .11
.11 – –.12 –.06
—
—
–.33* –.32*
–.40* –.40*
Symmetrical +
.22
.16
–.20 .01
–.11 .02
.04 – .28 .11
—
—
–.33* –.30*
–.03 –.02
–.16 –.11
Diversity
Internal Symmetrical —
.30*
.13
–.27* –.19
–.07 .00
–.18 –.13
–.18 –.16
Note. H = hypothesis; – = negative association; + = positive association; partial correlations are computed with the other three dimensions controlled. *p < .05.
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positive, small, insignificant associations with the principles of involvement (r = .18, p = .21), empowerment (r = .11, p = .45), and knowledge (r = .16, p = .25). Thus, overall, individualism seemingly has more affinity with excellence in public diplomacy than collectivism.
Power distance. Hypothesis 3 theorized that this dimension would have a negative association with the principle of symmetric communication such that embassies from high power distance cultures would tend to practice less symmetric public diplomacy than embassies from low power distance cultures. Contrary to Hypothesis 3, the findings show the dimension to have a positive medium association with symmetric communication (r = .28, p = .84). Although insignificant, the medium-size coefficient suggests that embassies from high power distance cultures may practice more symmetrical public diplomacy than their counterparts from low power distance cultures. Hypothesis 4 predicted that this dimension would have negative associations with the principles of involvement, empowerment, and symmetric internal communication such that embassies from high power distance cultures would tend to enact these principles less well than their counterparts. The results support Hypothesis 4 except for its prediction of symmetric internal communication. Rather, the power distance dimension yielded negative, relatively small, insignificant associations with the principles of involvement (r = –.19, p = .18) and empowerment (r = –.12, p = .17). In addition, the dimension registered a negative, very small, insignificant association with the principle of symmetric internal communication (r = –.07, p = .62), which indicates that the power distance dimension may not be systematically associated with symmetric internal communication. Although not hypothesized, the power distance dimension was shown to have a negative, medium, but significant association with the principle of diversity (r = –.27, p = .04), a negative, moderate, insignificant association with the principle of integration (r = –20, p = .17), and a negative, small, insignificant association with the knowledge principle (r = –11, p = .45). Overall, these findings suggest that low power distance cultures are more conducive to excellence in public diplomacy than high power distance cultures. Uncertainty avoidance. Hypothesis 5 anticipated that this dimension would have a negative association with the principle of symmetric communication such that embassies from high uncertainty avoidance cultures would tend to practice less symmetric public diplomacy than embassies from low avoidance cultures. However, as the size of the correlation coefficient was too small for meaningful interpretation (r = –.03, p = .86), the results indicate that uncertainty avoidance may not be systematically associated with symmetric public diplomacy. Hypothesis 6 predicted that this dimension would have negative associations with the principles of involvement, empowerment, and knowledge such that em-
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bassies from high uncertainty avoidance cultures would tend to enact these principles less well than their counterparts from low avoidance cultures. In support of Hypothesis 6, the findings showed that the dimension of uncertainty avoidance registered negative, medium, significant associations with the following principles: involvement (r = –33, p = .02); support (r = –.40, p = .001); and knowledge (r = –.33, p = .02). Although not predicted, the dimension of uncertainty avoidance had negative, relatively medium, but insignificant associations with the principles of integration (r = –.16, p = .23), symmetric internal communication (r = –.18, p = .20), and diversity (r = –.18, p =.19). Overall, these findings suggest that low uncertainty avoidance cultures are more conducive to Excellence in public diplomacy than high uncertainty avoidance cultures.
CONCLUSION This study investigated the empirical associations between Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimensions and Excellence in public diplomacy to advance the contextual study of public diplomacy—that is, inquiry into the influences of a government’s contextual variables on its daily public diplomacy practice and management. This study found the salience of uncertainty avoidance over the other cultural dimensions in associations with the Excellence and also suggested that together with low uncertainty avoidance, individualism and low power distance are conducive to the Excellence. The uncertainty avoidance was so salient that the dimension registered three moderate and statistically significant coefficients with the three principles of involvement, empowerment, and knowledge. In contrast, individualism/collectivism and power distance registered only one medium and significant coefficient with the diversity principle. Moreover, additional analysis of the masculinity/femininity dimension showed that, although not hypothesized in this study, this dimension had very small, insignificant associations with all the Excellence principles (see Table 3), suggesting that it may not be systematically related to public diplomacy. Additionally, analyses of partial correlations for uncertainty avoidance with the other three cultural dimensions controlled for revealed that uncertainty avoidance maintained almost the same strengths and directions of its empirical associations with the three principles as in the simple correlational analyses (see Table 3). This result provides further evidence that uncertainty avoidance has substantial associations with Excellence in public diplomacy. The salience of uncertainty avoidance does make sense, given that the role of public diplomacy is, itself, an environmental scanner whose main task is to deal with uncertainty in the world system. Assumedly, the uncertain nature of the system must produce an environment in which governments from low uncertainty avoidance cultures embrace uncertainty better than governments from high avoid-
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ance cultures. That is, governments from low avoidance cultures are, by default, more open to understanding the challenges and opportunities stemming from uncertainty in the international system and more actively dealing with them. This study’s findings also showed, on a descriptive level, how public diplomacy diplomats at embassies from low avoidance cultures get involved in their governments’ strategic management of foreign affairs toward the United States. In other words, the diplomats, from the beginning, participate in formulation of foreign affairs by bringing uncertainty and variety from the environment to the decision-making process. On the execution side, they also conduct proactive strategic communication campaigns and issues management. In addition, the diplomats are empowered by their governments in allocation of budget and personnel, investment on research/training for public diplomacy, and promotion. Through this support, their embassies obtain the knowledge potential necessary for conducting strategic public diplomacy. In contrast, governments from high avoidance cultures tend to relegate the public diplomacy function to the execution side of foreign affairs without getting it involved in the formulation side and empowering their public diplomacy diplomats, and nurturing the diplomats’ knowledge potential. Furthermore, the findings necessitate future, in-depth inquiries into why the dimension’s salience was observed only with the management side of public diplomacy (involvement, empowerment, and knowledge) not with the construct of external communication behavior (symmetrical communication). On the other hand, with the same degree of importance, the findings suggest that, in terms of overall associational magnitude, the contextual effects of societal culture (as measured by Hofstede, 2001) on Excellence in public diplomacy are not strong: Even uncertainty avoidance had moderate correlation coefficients, and the other dimensions had less than moderate associations with the Excellence constructs. In addition, the findings on coefficient direction have implications for the effects of power distance on public diplomacy behavior and the effects of individualism/collectivism on organizational decision-making processes. For example, contrary to what was theorized, embassies from high power distance cultures practiced more symmetrical communication than embassies from low power distance cultures. This finding implies that the presumed effects of power distance on symmetric out-group public diplomacy are not necessarily equivalent to their effects within the domestic sphere. Moreover, the findings on the positive effects of individualism on the management-related principles of Excellence—including involvement, empowerment, integration, knowledge, symmetric internal communication, and diversity—call into question the mainstream assumption that individualism negatively affects organizational decision-making processes. Admittedly, this study suffers from the limitation that the construct validity of two excellence constructs fell below the cutoff value of .50: symmetric communication (41%) and symmetric internal communication (37%). Additionally, generalizability of the study’s findings to the population of governments is limited.
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First, the research setting, Washington, DC, was conveniently selected because the city is the capital of world politics and, thus, a place where almost all countries in the world make their greatest effort for public diplomacy. Thus, this study is, in essence, a case (Washington, DC) study of the cultural consequences of societal culture for Excellence in public diplomacy. Moreover, the 52 embassies were also conveniently chosen out of the 169 embassies in the city, based on availability of Hofstede’s (2001) measures: Europe (17), the Americas (13), Asia (10), Africa (8), and the Middle East (4). Overall, the findings of this study provide two more important directions for future study. First, to validate the findings presented here and develop a more accurate picture, future investigation might address the consequences of societal culture for public diplomacy in different cases, most especially in major world capitals hosting large clusters of embassies, like Paris (France, 185), Cairo (Egypt, 185), London (the United Kingdom, 182), and Berlin (Germany, 181). Such research might also compare the size and direction of associations. A second line of future research would move beyond societal culture, an ethnocentric contextual variable, to other types of contextual variables of governments, including between-country dependence, cultural distance, and history (relational); a nation’s power status in the world system (systemic); and local societal culture and political, legal, and media systems (polycentric). Studying the consequences of contextual variables on ethnocentric, relational, systemic, and polycentric levels should ultimately contribute to an understanding of the macrolevel contexts for Excellence in public diplomacy.
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