CH 4 with doc notes

 Definitions and Origins of Culture:

• professor Geert Hofstede refers to culture as the “software of the mind”and argues that it provides a guide for humans
on how to think and behave; it is a problem-solving tool.
• Origins, elements and consequences of cultural
• Way of organizing life & thinking.
• Most traditional definitions of culture center around the notion that culture is the sum of the values, rituals, symbols,
beliefs, and thought processes that are learned and shared by a group of people, then transmitted from generation to
generation.
• The expression “a culture” recognizes that large collectives of people can, to a great degree, be like-minded.
• The best international marketers will not only appreciate the cultural differences pertinent to their businesses, but they
will also understand the origins of these differences.
• Humans make adaptations to changing environments through innovation .
• Individuals learn culture from social institutions through socialization (growing up) and acculturation (adjusting to a
new culture).
• Individuals also absorb culture through role modeling, or imitation of their peers.
• people make decisions about consumption and production through application of their cultural-based knowledge.
 Geography:
• geography (broadly defined here to include climate, topography, flora, fauna, and microbiology) has influenced history,
technology, economics, our social institutions, perhaps even the boy-to-girl birth ratio and our ways of thinking.
• It has an immediate effect on consumption.
• The ideas of two researchers are particularly pertinent to any discussion of geography’s influence on everything from
history to present-day cultural values. First, Jared Diamond, a professor of physiology, tells us that historically,
innovations spread faster east to west than north to south. (for reading)
• Second, Philip Parker, 16 a marketing professor, argues for geography’s deep influence on history, economics, and
consumer behavior (for reading)

 History:
• The impact of specific events in history can be seen reflected in technology, social institutions, cultural values, and even
consumer behavior.

 The Political Economy:

• For most of the 20th century, four approaches to governance competed for world dominance: colonialism, fascism,
communism, and democracy/free enterprise.
 Technology:
• technological innovation has had the greatest impact on institutions and cultural values in the past 50 years in the
United States.
• Such as aircraft, phones, laptops, internet influenced our consumption behavior.

 Social Institutions:
• Social institutions including family, religion, school, the media, government , and corporations all affect the ways in
which people relate to one another.
• organize their activities to live in harmony with one another.
• teach acceptable behavior to succeeding generations, and govern themselves.
• The positions of men and women in society, the family, social classes, group behavior, age groups, and how societies
define decency and civility are interpreted differently within every culture.
• The roles and status positions found within a society are influenced by the dictates of social institutions.
 Elements of Culture:
• Previously culture was defined by listing its five elements: values, rituals, symbols, beliefs, and thought processes.
• International marketers must design products, distribution systems, and promotional programs with due consideration of
each of the five.

 Cultural Values:
• Underlying the cultural diversity that exists among countries are fundamental differences in cultural values , that is, the
importance of things and ideas.
• The most useful information on how cultural values influence various types of business and market behavior comes from
seminal work by Geert Hofstede.
• a wide variety of business and consumer behavior patterns are associated with three of those four dimensions.
• The four dimensions are as follows: “Hofstede model”
• 1- The Individualism/Collective Index (IDV), which focuses on self-orientation. “has proven the most useful of the four
dimensions”
• 2- The Power Distance Index (PDI) which focuses on authority orientation.
• 3- The Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), which focuses on risk orientation.
• 4- The Masculinity/Femininity Index (MAS), which focuses on assertiveness and achievement. “MAS has proven least
useful”
1) The Individualism/Collective Index (IDV):
• refers to the preference for behavior that promotes one’s self-interest.
• Cultures that score high in IDV reflect an “I” mentality and tend to reward and accept individual initiative.
• whereas those low in individualism reflect a “we” mentality and generally subjugate the individual to the group.
• This distinction does not mean that individuals fail to identify with groups.
• Individualism pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose; everyone is expected to look
after him- or herself and his or her immediate family.
• Collectivism, as its opposite, pertains to societies in which people from birth onward are integrated into strong,
cohesive groups, which throughout people’s lifetimes continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning
loyalty.

2) Power Distance Index (PDI):

• measures the tolerance of social inequality, that is, power inequality between superiors and subordinates within
a social system.
• Cultures with high PDI scores tend to be hierarchical, with members citing social roles, manipulation, and
inheritance as sources of power and social status.
• Those with low scores, in contrast, tend to value equality and cite knowledge and respect as sources of power.
• Thus, people from cultures with high PDI scores are more likely to have a general distrust of others (not those in
their groups) because power is seen to rest with individuals and is coercive rather than legitimate.
• High PDI scores tend to indicate a perception of differences between superior and subordinate and a belief that
those who hold power are entitled to privileges.
• A low PDI score reflects more egalitarian ( ‫)مساواه‬views.
3) Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI):
• measures the tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity among members of a society.
• Cultures with high UAI scores are highly intolerant of ambiguity and as a result tend to be distrustful of new ideas
or behaviors.
• They tend to have a high level of anxiety and stress and a concern with security.
• those high in UAI seek absolute truth.
• Cultures with high UAI dogmatically stick to historically tested patterns of behavior, which in the extreme become
inviolable rules.
• Those with very high UAI scores thus accord a high level of authority to rules as a means of avoiding risk.
• Cultures scoring low in uncertainty avoidance are associated with a low level of anxiety and stress, a tolerance of
deviance and dissent, and a willingness to take risks.
• Cultures low in UAI take a more empirical approach to understanding and knowledge.

 Cultural Values and Consumer Behavior:

• A variety of studies have shown cultural values can predict such consumer behaviors as word-of-mouth
communications, impulsive buying, responses of both surprise and disgust , the propensity to complain,
responses to service failures, and even movie preferences.
 Rituals:
• patterns of behavior and interaction that are learned and repeated.
• The most obvious ones are associated with major events in life.
• Marriage ceremonies and funerals are good examples.
• They coordinate everyday interactions and special occasions.
• They let people know what to expect.

 Symbols:
• Symbols is divided into languages & aesthetics.
• Anthropologist Edward T. Hall tells us that culture is communication.
• In his seminal article about cultural differences in business settings, he talks about the “languages” of time, space,
things, friendships, and agreements.
• Indeed, learning to interpret correctly the symbols that surround us is a key part of socialization.
• And this learning begins immediately after birth, as we begin to hear the language spoken and see the facial expressions
and feel the touch and taste the milk of our mothers.
1)Language:
• language is itself thought of as a social institution.
• Certainly the French go to extreme lengths and expense to preserve the purity of their français . In Canada, language has
been the focus of political disputes including secession, though things seem to have calmed down there most recently.
Unfortunately, as the number of spoken languages continues to decline worldwide, so does the interesting cultural diversity
of the planet. “for reading”
• The importance of understanding the language of a country cannot be overestimated, particularly if you’re selling your
products in France!
• The successful international marketer must achieve expert communication, which requires a thorough understanding of the
language as well as the ability to speak it.
• Advertising copywriters should be concerned less with obvious differences between languages and more with the idiomatic
and symbolic meanings expressed.
• The relationship between language and international marketing is important in another way.
• Recent studies indicate that a new concept, linguistic distance , is proving useful to marketing researchers in market
segmentation and strategic entry decisions.
• Linguistic distance has been shown to be an important factor in determining differences in values across countries and the
amount of trade between countries.
• The idea is that crossing “wider” language differences increases transaction costs.
• linguistics researchers have determined that languages around the world conform to family trees based on the similarity of
their forms and development
• For example, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese are all classified as Romance languages because of their common roots in Latin.
• Distances can be measured on these linguistic trees.
• If we assume English to be the starting point, German is one branch away, Danish two, Spanish three, Japanese four,
Hebrew five, Chinese six, and Thai seven “for reading”
• as linguistic distance from English increases, individualism decreases.
• the notion of linguistic distance appears to hold promise for better understanding and predicting cultural differences in
both consumer and management values, expectations, and behaviors.
• relationship between language spoken and cultural values holds deeper implications.
• as English spreads around the world via school systems and the Internet, cultural values of individualism and
egalitarianism will spread with it.
2) Aesthetics as Symbols:
• “A picture is worth a thousand words
• aesthetics can be arts, folklore, music, drama, dance, dress, and cosmetics.
• Customers everywhere respond to images, myths, and metaphors that help them define their personal and national
identities and relationships within a context of culture and product benefits.
• The uniqueness of a culture can be spotted quickly in symbols having distinct meanings.
• Product styling must be aesthetically pleasing to be successful, as must advertisements and package designs.
 Beliefs:
• Much of what we learn to believe comes from religious training.
• But to consider matters of true faith and spirituality adequately here is certainly impossible.
• the relationship between superstition and religion is not at all clear
• many of our beliefs are secular in nature.
• What Westerners often call superstition may play quite a large role in a society’s belief system in another part of the
world.
• Myths, beliefs, superstitions and other cultural beliefs are an important symbols.
• For example, in parts of Asia, ghosts, fortune telling, palmistry, blood types, head-bump reading, phases of the moon, faith
healers, demons, and soothsayers can all be integral elements of society.
 Thought Processes:
• We are now learning in much more detail the degree to which ways of thinking vary across cultures.
• Each of the five cultural elements must be evaluated in light of how they might affect a proposed marketing program.
• Newer products and services and more extensive programs involving the entire cycle, from product development through
promotion to final selling, require greater consideration of cultural factors.

 Cultural Sensitivity and Tolerance:

• being attuned to the nuances of culture so that a new culture can be viewed objectively, evaluated, and appreciated.
• Being culturally sensitive will reduce conflict and improve communications and thereby increase success in collaborative
relationships.
• how cultures change and the manner in which resistance to change occurs should be thoroughly understood.

 Cultural Change:
• Culture is dynamic in nature; it is a living process.
• Change of culture is paradox.
• another important attribute of culture is that it is conservative and resists change.
• The dynamic character of culture is significant in assessing new markets even though changes face resistance.
• Societies change in a variety of ways. Some have change thrust upon them by war (for example, the changes in Japan after World War II) or
by natural disaster.
• More frequently, change is a result of a society seeking ways to solve the problems created by changes in its environment.
• culture is the means used in adjusting to the environmental and historical components of human existence.
 Cultural Borrowing:
• Cultural borrowing is a responsible effort to learn from others’ cultural ways in the quest for better solutions to a society’s
particular problems
• Thus cultures unique in their own right are the result, in part, of imitating a diversity of others.
• Some cultures grow closer together and some further apart with contact.

 Resistance to Change:
• A characteristic of human culture is that change occurs.
• people’s habits, tastes, styles, behavior, and values are not constant but are continually changing.
• Gradual cultural growth does not occur without some resistance; new methods, ideas, and products are held to be suspect
before they are accepted.
• Consumers in different cultures display differing resistance.
• The degree of resistance to new patterns varies.
• In some situations, new elements are accepted completely and rapidly; in others, resistance is so strong that acceptance is
never forthcoming.
• the most important factors in determining what kind and how much of an innovation will be accepted is the degree of
interest in the particular subject, as well as how drastically the new will change the old—that is, how disruptive the
innovation will be to presently acceptable values and behavior patterns.
 Planned and Unplanned Cultural Change:
• The first step in bringing about planned change in a society is to determine which cultural factors conflict with an
innovation, thus creating resistance to its acceptance.
• The next step is an effort to change those factors from obstacles to acceptance.
• Marketers have two options when introducing an innovation to a culture: They can wait for changes to occur, or they can
spur change.
• Much successful and highly competitive marketing is accomplished by a strategy of cultural congruence
• Cultural congruence strategy involves marketing products similar to ones already on the market in a manner as congruent
as possible with existing cultural norms, thereby minimizing resistance.
• Unplanned change—that is, introduce a product and hope for the best, then you will react to the unplanned actions to
survive in the market.
• Planned change —that is, deliberately set out to change those aspects of the culture offering resistance to predetermined
marketing goals.
• Make a plan before entering a new culture and try to adapt to it.
• Marketing strategy is judged culturally in terms of acceptance, resistance, or rejection.
• How marketing efforts interact with a culture determines the degree of success or failure.
• All too often marketers are not aware of the scope of their impact on a host culture.
• If a strategy of planned change is implemented, the marketer has some responsibility to determine the consequences of
such action.