Chapter

Cultural Dynamics in Assessing Global Markets

McGraw-Hill/Irwin International Marketing, 13/e

2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Chapter Learning Objectives

The importance of culture to an international marketer The origins and elements of culture The impact of cultural borrowing The strategy of planned change and its consequences

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Global Perspective Equities and eBay Culture Gets in the Way

Culture deals with a groups design for living. The successful marketer clearly must be a student of culture. Markets are the result of the three-way interaction of a marketers:
- Efforts - Economic conditions - All other elements of culture

The use of something new is the beginning of cultural change, and the marketer becomes a change agent.

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Cultures Pervasive Impact

Culture affects every part of our lives, every day, from birth to death, and everything in between.
- Japan the year of the Fire Horse

As countries move from agricultural to industrial to services economies birthrates decline. Consequences of consumption
- Tobacco

Culture not only affects consumption, it also affects production

- Stomach cancer in Japan

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Birthrates (per 1000 women)

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Patterns of Consumption (annual per capita)

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Consequences of Consumption
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Definitions and Origins of Culture

Most traditional definitions of culture around the notion that culture is the sum of the values, rituals, symbols, beliefs, and thought processes that are learned, shared by a group of people, and transmitted from generation to generation. Humans make adaptations to changing environments through innovation. Individuals learn culture from social institutions through:
- Socialization (growing up) - Acculturation (adjusting to a new culture)

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Origins, Elements, and Consequences of Culture

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Definitions and Origins of Culture (contd)

Geography
- The ideas of Jared Diamond and Philip Parker

History
- Tobacco being the original source of the Virginia colonys economic survival in the 1600s.

The political economy

- Three approaches to governance competed for world dominance:
Fascism Communism Democracy/Free Enterprise

Technology
- The birth control pill
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Definitions and Origins of Culture (contd)

Social institutions
- Family
Favoritism of boys in some cultures

- Religion
Misunderstanding of beliefs

- School
No country has been successful economically with less than 50% literacy.

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Definitions and Origins of Culture (contd)

- The media
Media time has replaced family time

- Government
Governments try to influence the thinking and behaviors of adult citizens.

- Corporations
Most innovations are introduced to societies by companies

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Hofstedes Indexes, Language, and Linguistic Distance

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Elements of Culture
Cultural values
Individualism/Collectivism Index Power Distance Index Uncertainty Avoidance Index Cultural Values and Consumer Behavior

Rituals
- Marriage - Funerals

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Elements of Culture (contd)

Symbols
- Language
Linguistic distance

- Aesthetics as Symbols
Insensitivity to aesthetic values can offend, create a negative impression, and, in general, render marketing efforts ineffective or even damaging.

Beliefs
- To make light of superstitions in other cultures when doing business there can be an expensive mistake.

Thought processes
- Difference in perception
Focus vs. Big-Picture
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Metaphorical Journeys through 23 Nations

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Cultural Knowledge
Factual knowledge vs. interpretive knowledge
- Has meaning as a straightforward fact about a culture but assumes additional significance when interpreted within the context of the culture.
Mexico is 98% Catholic Being Catholic within Mexico

Cultural sensitivity and tolerance

- Being attuned to the nuances of culture so that a new culture can be viewed objectively, evaluated and appreciated. - Cultures are not right or wrong, better or worse, they are simply different. - The more exotic the situation, the more sensitive, tolerant, and flexible one needs to be.
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Cultural Change
Cultural borrowing:
- Effort to learn from others cultural ways in the quest for better solutions to a societys particular problems.

Similarities: an illusion
- A common language does not guarantee a similar interpretation of word or phrases. - Just because something sells in one country doesnt mean it will sell in another.

Resistance to change:
- Gradual cultural growth does not occur without some resistance; new methods, ideas, and products are held to be suspect before they are accepted, if ever.
Resistance to genetically modified (GM) foods
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Cultural Change (contd)

Planned and unplanned cultural change:
- Determine which cultural factors conflict with an innovation - Change those factors from obstacles to acceptance into stimulants for change. - Marketers have two options when introducing and innovation to a culture:
They can wait They can cause change

- Cultural Congruence

Consequences of innovation:
- Consequences of diffusion of an innovation may be functional or dysfunctional, depending on whether the effects on the social system are desirable or undesirable.
Introduction of a processed feeding formula into the diet of babies in underdeveloped countries where protein deficiency is a health problem.
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Summary
A complete and thorough appreciation of the origins and elements of culture may well be the single most important gain to a foreign marketer in the preparation of marketing plans and strategies. Marketers can control the product offered to a market its promotion, price, and eventual distribution methods but they have only limited control over the cultural environment within which these plans must be implemented.

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Summary (contd)
When a company is operating internationally each new environment that is influenced by elements unfamiliar and sometimes unrecognizable to the marketer complicates the task. Special effort and study are needed to absorb enough understanding of the foreign culture to cope with the uncontrollable features.

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