Abstract:

Recent research indicates the importance of cultural context in website design for effective message transmittal and clarity of message. Better than localization strategies which focus on specific countries and languages, the culturally competent web site aims to be easily reachable and comprehensible to international audiences. This paper builds on recent work which aims to evaluate the level of cultural competency displayed in typical American university international business program websites. The paper employs cultural context criteria to compare international business program websites of American elite academic institutions to those of typical universities.