[Air-l] Technology as social status symbols

Charles Ess cmess at lib.drury.edu
Fri Apr 19 03:56:24 PDT 2002


Sorry to be a tad late in responding to this...

The classic reference here is Hofstede's work -as he introduces "power
distance" as an axis for comparing cultures.  High power distance cultures -
i.e., those in which large gaps between the elite and non-elite are
tolerated - appear to diffuse technology more rapidly than low power
distance cultures.  A partial explanation: when the boss comes in with a new
technological toy _qua_ status symbol - then everyone else has to have one
too (never happens in the States of course - smile!).
While there are quite a few studies now that document the role of power
distance - including the specific phenomenon of new technology as status
symbol - I'd have to do some checking to see if they specifically include
discussion of mobile phones.  My apologies for not doing this just now - but
perhaps a search on "power distance + mobile phones" would be of use to you?

For that:
Carleen Maitland and Josef Bauer's chapter in my _Culture, Technology,
Communication: Towards an Intercultural Global Village_ (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 2001) details a global quantitative study that includes discussion of
power distance.  Their findings suggest that another of Hofstede's axes,
uncertainty avoidance, is the only such variable that is unambiguous with
regards to network/CMC diffusion - i.e., countries with low uncertainty
avoidance (=greater willingness to take risks) diffuse new technologies more
rapidly.
(The other strongly predictive cultural variable was national use of English
language.)
Other non-cultural variables - i.e., teledensity, density of PCs, and
International Call cost - played even more important roles in diffusion.

They also note:
 In addition to using generic national cultural variables, research by
DeKimpe, Parker, and Sarvary (1997) suggests the variables used in a
diffusion study should match the innovation being studied. In their study of
the global diffusion of cellular telecommunications, they include a social
system variable and social heterogeneity, measured as the number of ethnic
groups in a country. Heterogeneity of ethnic groups relates to society-wide
communication and hence the use of mobile telephones. This variable was
shown to have a significant impact on a country¹s adoption timing.
[Dekimpe, M. G., P. M. Parker, and M. Savary. 1997. "Globalization":
Modeling technology adoption timing across countries. Fontainbleu: France,
INSEAD.]

Hope that helps,

Charles Ess
Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/

Education is what is left over after you've forgotten everything that you've
learned.  (source unknown)


> From: "Patrick B. O'Sullivan" <posull at ilstu.edu>
> Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
> Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 14:25:55 -0800
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] Technology as social status symbols
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have a grad student conducting a literature search for studies of
> technology as a status symbol to explain adoption/overadoption/reinvention
> as well as to better explain the social elements of technologies. Can
> anyone suggest studies that might be of help?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Air-l mailing list
> Air-l at aoir.org
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