【正文】 . hamburgers and sushi as fast food” (Akaka and Alden, 2020, p. 38). As a driving force of the transitioning global culture as well as an important domain of research in cultural changes, international advertising reflects the global diffusion of cultural signs and symbols as well as cultural values (Akaka and Alden, 2020). Under the traditional globalization framework, cultural values are expected to converge。 Okazaki and Mueller, 2020, p. 773). As GCCT further states, 山東建筑大學(xué)畢業(yè)論文外文文獻(xiàn)及譯文 13 brands and consumers are facing deterritorialization and instead are connected to global, national, or other geographic boundaries in an intertwined fashion (Cayla and Arnould, 2020。 they concluded that as firms perceived the convergence of the external markets, they would adopt corresponding strategies for the sake of gaining the benefits of standardization. Then, “[T]he use of these strategies will, in turn, be related to the level to which advertising is standardized” (p. 390). On the other hand, past studies have shown that Asian MNCs such as Japanese panies were inclined to do less standardization in their advertising strategy (Samiee et al., 2020). From the GMS perspective, it makes sense because they operate in an environment of less convergence of the external market as pared to the counterparts in EU. These Asian business anizations have chosen to adapt their advertising campaigns to specific foreign markets (Graham et al., 1993) for the sake of being sensitive to differences among external markets (Samiee et al., 2020). Finally, the USbased MNCs were also found to demonstrate different level of advertising standardization than their Asian and EUbased counterparts (Samiee et al., 2020). However, such findings should not be viewed as inconsistent with the GMS perspective because the convergence of an external market is not applicable to the USbased business anizations. In short, based on informed GMS theory and the review of past studies, it is anticipated that the MNCs of North America, the EU, and Asia will differ on the level of standardization when advertising in the USA vs China. The external environment in terms of level of convergence will likely account for the difference. Accordingly, three hypotheses are proposed to test the influence of the external market environment of MNCs on the standardization of international advertising targeting different foreign markets: H1. As an integral part of an MNC’s GMS, its international advertising campaigns will vary 山東建筑大學(xué)畢業(yè)論文外文文獻(xiàn)及譯文 11 in the level of standardization across countries (USA vs China) given different environmental conditions among North America, the EU, and Asia. H1a. EUbased MNCs will demonstrate a higher level of standardization of both creative strategy and execution in their advertising in the USA and China than their counterparts based in North America and Asia. H1b. Asiabased MNCs will demonstrate a higher level of localization of both creative strategy and execution in their advertising in the USA and China than their counterparts based in North America and the EU. GCC and advertising standardization Furthermore, existing research has identified a set of contingent or antecedent factors hat influence advertising standardization, among which the most prominent is culture proximity. Culture is considered as a society’s personality (Fam and Grohs, 2020). Hofstede (1980) defined culture as “the interactive aggregate of mon characteristics that influences a group’s response to its environment” (p. 19). Critics of standardization argued, the dangers of global strategies are due to “different local market conditions and cultural uniqueness” (Nelson and Paek, 2020, p. 66). Thus, scholars pointed out that understanding the local culture and tailoring advertisements to fit the culture are considered as “the prerequisite for successful international advertising” (Fam and Grohs, 2020, p. 520). In line with the aforementioned arguments, scholars further proposed that advertising is a cultural artifact reflecting social currents (Rotzoll et al., 1996). Advertising is also viewed as a carrier of cultural values (Cheng, 1997), which “tends to reflect the prevalent values of a culture in which it exists, insofar as those values can be used to shape consumption ethics” (Mueller, 1987, p. 52). Cultural values, norms, and characteristics, which are embedded in advertising appeals, have been used to study “differing degrees in the advertising messages of various cultures” (Mueller, 1992, p. 17). Accordingly, this study focusses on cultural values as manifested in advertisements to explore culture’s influence on advertising standardization. Differing from personal values, cultural values are defined as “the governing ideas and guiding principles for thoughts and action” (Srikandath, 1991, p. 166), which tend to permeate a culture (Chan and Cheng, 2020). Cultural values have long been debated as the core issue of 山東建筑大學(xué)畢業(yè)論文外文文獻(xiàn)及譯文 12 international advertising practices (Okazaki and Mueller, 2020), especially the issue of standardization. As Mueller (1996) argued, cultural differences could pose formidable hurdles to standardization if international advertisers fail to understand the culture of local markets. Numerous crosscultural studies have focussed on advertising content, explaining the differences in relation to the culture values of the society in which the advertising appeared, by investigating paired countries such as the USA vs Japan (Mueller, 1992), the USA vs China (Cheng and Schweitzer, 1996), or the USA vs the UK (Katz and Lee, 1992). To measure cultural values as manifested in advertising systematically, past studies of several scholars have generated some insights, the most prominent of which are those from Pollay (1983) and Pollay and Galla