Lecture International marketing (14/e) - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Cultural dynamics in assessing global markets. In this chapter, the following content will be discussed: The importance of culture to an international marketer, definition and origins of culture, the elements of culture, the impact of cultural change and cultural borrowing, strategies of planned and unplanned change.

I n t e r n a t i o n a l M a r k e t i

n g

Cultural Dynamics in

Assessing Global Markets

1 4 t h E d i t i o n

P h i l i p R C a t e o r a

M a r y C G i l l y

J o h n L G r a h a m

Discussed questions

company) affect marketing in a variety of ways Discuss, give examples?

by language in foreign marketing? Discuss

for a potential market, what would you do? Outline the

steps and comment briefly on each

Cultural analysis – guideline

• Material Culture

– Technology – the techniques and “know-how” of producing material goods.

– Economics – the employment of capabilities and the results.

• Social Institutions

– Social organizations – family life, status, age.

– Education – literacy and intelligence and how informed the public is.

– Political structures – control over business

• Man and the Universe

– Belief systems – how do these affect product and promotional acceptance?

What Should You Learn?

• 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

Global Perspective Equities and eBay –

Culture Gets in the Way

• Culture deals with a group’s design for living

• The successful marketer clearly must be a

– All other elements of culture

• The use of something new is the beginning of

Definitions and Origins of Culture

• Traditional definition of culture

– 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

– Socialization (growing up)

– Acculturation (adjusting to a new culture)

– Application (decisions about consumption and production)

Origins, Elements, and Consequences of Culture

Exhibit 4.4

• Exercises a profound control

– Includes climate, topography, flora, fauna, and microbiology

– Influenced history, technology, economics, social institutions and way of thinking

• The ideas of Jared Diamond and Philip Parker

– Jared Diamond

► Historically innovations spread faster east to west than north to south

– Philip Parker

► Reports strong correlations between latitude (climate) and per capita GDP

► Empirical data supports climate’s apparent influence on workers’ wages

► Explain social phenomena using principles of physiology

Social Institutions

– Nepotism

– Role of extended family

– Favoritism of boys in some cultures

– First institution infants are exposed to outside the home

– Impact of values systems

Elements of Culture

• Cultural values

– Individualism/Collectivism Index

– Power Distance Index

– Uncertainty Avoidance Index

– Cultural Values and Consumer Behavior

Hofstede’s Indexes

Language, and Linguistic Distance

Exhibit 4.5

Metaphorical Journeys

through 23 Nations

Exhibit 4.6

Cultural Knowledge

• Factual knowledge

– Has meaning as a straightforward fact about a culture

– Assumes additional significance when interpreted within the

context of the culture

► Needs to be learned

• Interpretive knowledge

– Requires a degree of insight that may best be described as a

feeling

► Most dependent of past experience for interpretation

► Most frequently prone to misinterpretation

► Requires consultation and cooperation with bilingual natives with marketing backgrounds

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

Cultural Change

• Dynamic in nature – it is a living process

• Paradoxical because culture is conservative and

resists change

– Changes caused by war or natural disasters

– Society seeking ways to solve problems created by changes in environment

– Culture is the means used in adjusting to the environmental and

historical components of human existence

Cultural Borrowing

• Effort to learn from others’ cultural ways in the

quest for better solutions to a society’s particular problems

– Imitating diversity of other makes cultures unique

– Contact can make cultures grow closer or further apart

• Habits, foods, and customs are adapted to fit

each society’s needs

Similarities – An Illusion

• A common language does not guarantee a

similar interpretation of word or phrases

– May cause lack of understanding because of apparent and

assumed similarities

• Just because something sells in one country

doesn’t mean it will sell in another

– Cultural differences among member of European Union a

product of centuries of history

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

– Resisted by Europeans

– Consumed by Asians

– Not even labeled in U.S until 2000

Planned and Unplanned

Cultural Change

innovation

stimulants for change

innovation to a culture

– They can wait

– They can cause change

– Marketing products similar to ones already on the market in a

manner as congruent as possible with existing cultural norms

Consequences of Innovation

fabric of a social system

– May be functional or dysfunctional

► Depending on whether the effects on the social system are desirable or undesirable

of babies in underdeveloped countries ended up being

dysfunctional

• 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

Summary

• 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