Cultural differences in organizational communication: A semantic network analysis 1

ha Yong Jang, George A. Barnett

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

53 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of national culture on organizational culture by analyzing messages directed to external audiences. The structural équivalence of Japanese and American corporations with stock offerings in the United States was examined through semantic network analysis. 35 Fortune 500 companies were matched by their businesses. The full texts of the chief operating officers’ letters from the annual reports for 1992 were analyzed by flrst determining the most frequently used words in all 35 letters. Then, the frequency of each word for each company was determined. A companies by word matrix was created, which was pre-multiplled by its transpose creating a 35 X 35 companies sociomatrix based on the coocurrence of the words. The analysis revealed two distinct groups, one composed of the Japanese companies and another made up of the American. The Japanese clustered very tightly, while the American was fairly loose. The American companies discussed financial information and the structure of organization, while the Japanese describe organizational operations. A discriminant analysis revealed that the two groups could be perfectly differentiated by the texts. The companies’ business were not reflected in the messages, only their national culture. National Culture Organizational Culture Japan U.S.A. Semantic Network Analysis Coocurrence of Words.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-59
Number of pages29
JournalBMS Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/ Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique
Volume44
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1994

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