International Marketing in Germany – From a cultural perspective

2.3.4
 
Hall’s High and Low Context 
The (social) anthropologist Hall has presented a model of culture that compares cultures on a 
scale from high to low context.
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Context means the surrounding information of an event. 
Together the event and the context create meaning, where the relation between the event and 
context depends on culture. Hall presents the following definition: 
“A high context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the 
information is already in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, 
transmitted part of the message. A low context (LC) communication is just the 
opposite; i.e., the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code.”
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This means that in high context countries non-verbal message is much more important than 
verbal. The message can be found in the behavior, tone of voice, facial expressions and 
gestures. Examples of high context countries are Asian countries. In low context cultures, the 
intentions lie in the spoken verbal message.
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Examples of low context countries are United 
States, Germany and Scandinavian countries.
The difference of high and low context countries and their needs of information affect every 
relationship between the countries. This creates problems for example when low context 
countries trade with high context countries. People in high context countries tend to get 
irritated if getting information they don’t need. At the same time low context countries get 
irritated when getting to little information.
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2.4
 
Discussion: Frame of Reference 
In this section, we summarize and discuss the above presented theories starting with the 
marketing mix and finishing with the cultural models. Based on gained knowledge, we define 
culture and choose appropriate factors according to the subject of the thesis to include in the 
research model.
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Trompenaars, A. & Hampden-Turner, C.,
 Riding the Waves of Culture,
(1998), p. 10 
112
Ibid, p.10 
113
Hall, E. & Hall, M., 
Understanding Cultural Differences, 
(1990), p. 6 
114
Ibid, p. 6 
115
Homburg, C. & Krohmer, H
., Marketingmanagement,
(2006), p. 1095 
116
Hall, E. & Hall, M., 
Understanding Cultural Differences, 
(1990), p. 9 

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