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Lecture 4 (Int - MKTG)

Cultural knowledge can be obtained objectively through communication and research, or experientially by being involved in another culture. While brief trips provide little cultural knowledge, travel involving meetings with local professionals contributes more. Managers can expand their cultural knowledge through various sources, including country studies published by governments, companies, and universities. Elements of culture that impact international business include language, religion, values and attitudes, education, social organizations, technology and material culture, law and politics, and aesthetics. These elements must be considered to ensure products, services, and communications are appropriate and avoid offense in other cultures.

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27 views2 pages

Lecture 4 (Int - MKTG)

Cultural knowledge can be obtained objectively through communication and research, or experientially by being involved in another culture. While brief trips provide little cultural knowledge, travel involving meetings with local professionals contributes more. Managers can expand their cultural knowledge through various sources, including country studies published by governments, companies, and universities. Elements of culture that impact international business include language, religion, values and attitudes, education, social organizations, technology and material culture, law and politics, and aesthetics. These elements must be considered to ensure products, services, and communications are appropriate and avoid offense in other cultures.

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ASAD ULLAH
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Cultural Knowledge:

The concept of cultural knowledge is broad and complicated. Cultural knowledge can be
defined by the way it is acquired. Objective or factual information is obtained from others
through communication, research, and education. Experiential knowledge, on the other hand,
can be acquired only by being involved in a culture other than one’s own. Although it is clear
that one-time trip to London or any other city with a stay at a large hotel and scheduled sight-
seeing tours does not contribute to cultural knowledge in a significant way. Travel that
involves meetings with company personnel, intermediaries, facilitating agents, customers,
and government officials, on the other hand, does contribute a lot and help organizations.
Various sources and methods are available to the manager for extending their knowledge of
specific cultures. Most of these sources deal with accurate information that provides a
necessary basis for market studies. Beyond the normal business literature and its unreliable
information, specific country studies are published by governments, private companies, and
universities.

Elements of Culture:
I. Language
Language plays vital rule in information gathering and evaluation efforts. Rather than rely
completely on the opinions of others, the manager is able to see and hear personally what is
going on. It provides access to local society. Although English may be widely spoken, and
may even be the official company language, speaking the local language may make a
dramatic difference. Language capability is increasingly important in company
communications, whether within the corporate family or with channel members. Imagine the
difficulties encountered by a country manager who must communicate with employees
through an interpreter.

II. Religion
The nature and complexity of the different religions an international marketer could
encounter is pretty diverse. The organization needs to make sure that their products and
services are not offensive, unlawful or distasteful to the local nation. This includes marketing
promotion and branding. In China in 2007 (which was the year of the pig) all advertising
which included pictures of pigs was banned. This was to maintain harmony with the country's
Muslim population of around 2%.

III. Values and Attitudes


Values and attitudes vary between nations, and even vary within nations. So if you are
planning to take a product or service overseas make sure that you have a good take hold of
the locality before you enter the market. This could mean altering promotional material or
fine branding messages. There may also be an issue when managing local employees. For
example, in France workers tend to take vacations for the whole of August, whilst in the
United States employees may only take a couple of week's vacation in an entire year.
IV. Education
The level and nature of education in each international market will vary. This may impact the
type of message or even the medium that you employ. For example, in countries with low
literacy levels, advertisers would avoid communications which depended upon written copy,
and would favour radio advertising with an audio message or visual media such as billboards.
The labelling of products may also be an issue.

V. Social Organizations
This aspect of cultural framework relates to how a national society is organized. For example,
what is the role of women in a society? How is the country governed- centralized or
devolved? The level influence of class or casts upon a society needs to be considered. For
example, India has an established caste system - and many Western countries still have a
fixed class system. So social mobility could be restricted where caste and class systems are in
place. Whether or not there are strong trade unions will impact upon management decisions if
you employ local workers.

VI. Technology and Material Culture


Technology is a term that includes many other elements. It includes questions such as, is
there energy to power our products? Is there a transport infrastructure to distribute our goods
to consumers? Does the local port have large enough cranes to offload containers from ships?
How quickly does innovation diffuse? Also of key importance, do consumers actually buy
material goods i.e. are they materialistic? For example China's car market grew 25% in 2006
and it has overtaken Japan to be the second-largest car market in the world with sales of 8
million vehicles. With just six car owners per 100 people (6%), compared with 90% car
ownership in the US and 80% in the UK, the potential for growth in the Chinese market is
immense.

VII. Law and Politics


As with many aspects of cultural framework, the underpinning social culture will drive the
political and legal landscape. The political ideology on which the society is based will impact
upon your decision to market there. For example, the United Kingdom has a largely market-
driven, democratic society with laws based upon standard and legislation, whilst Iran has a
political and legal system based upon the teachings and principles of Islam and a Sharia
tradition.

VIII. Aesthetics
Aesthetics relate to your senses, and the appreciation of the artistic nature of something,
including its smell, taste or ambience. For example, is something beautiful? Does it have a
fashionable design? Was an advert delivered in good taste? Do you find the colour, music or
architecture relating to an experience pleasing? Is everything relating to branding
aesthetically pleasing?

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