Globalization in international tensions: the impact of military conflicts on the cultural orientations of multinational corporations’ advertising in modern China (1932–1937)

Abstract

How do international conflicts influence the communication between multinational corporations (MNCs) and local markets? Using advertisements published in two historical newspapers in modern China from 1932 to 1937, this study examined how MNCs adjust their cultural orientations in advertisements amid international tensions. While a significant decline in globalized values was found, no significant changes in localized values were found in the advertisements for imported commodities during military conflicts. The more familiar a corporation is with the local market, the less globalized its advertisements will be. Given the current wave of nationalism and international conflicts across the globe, this study sheds lights on MNCs’ conflict management through intercultural communication.

Keywords:

• Military conflicts
• Cultural orientations
• Localization
• Globalization
• Multinational corporations

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interests were reported by the authors.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of independent variable and covariates.

Notes

1 The dataset and code employed in this study are available on OSF: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6S7AQ

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (011014370119); National Social Science Fund of China (22BXW032); Social Science Fund (Young Scholar Scheme) of Jiangsu Province (23TQC002); Distinguished Postgraduate Talent Cultivation Program (2023GYB08); Postgraduate Science Popularization Capability Promotion Program for 2022 sponsored by China Association for Science and Technology (KXYJS2022063).

Notes on contributors

Yixiao Sun

Yixiao Sun is a master’s student in the School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University. Her research interests are computational communication in general and computational narrative, social impacts, and digital humanities in particular.

Xue-Fei Yan

Xue-Fei Yan is a PhD student in the School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University. Her research interests are computational communication in general and time use and computational narrative in particular.

Yaotian Zhang

Yaotian Zhang is a PhD student in the School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University. Her research interests are computational communication in general and computational narrative and social impacts in particular.

Jing Chen

Jing Chen is an associate professor in the School of Arts, Nanjing University. Her research focuses on digital humanities, cultural research, and media studies.

Zhicong Chen

Zhicong Chen is a research assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University. His research focuses on computational social science and digital humanities.

Cheng-Jun Wang

Cheng-Jun Wang is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University. His research focuses on employing big data, computational methods, and social theories to study human communication behaviors, including but not limited to information diffusion, attention flow, and computational narrative.