International

Marketing

© Daniel W. Baack, Barbara

Czarnecka & Donald Baack

Part One

Essentials of international

marketing

Chapter 2

Culture in international

marketing

Learning objectives

1. What is culture and the various elements of culture and

how they affect consumer behavior and marketing?

2. What are the main models of cross-cultural differences and

how can they help managers when making international

marketing decisions?

3. Why should a marketing team examine cultural

imperatives, cultural electives, and cultural exclusives

when entering a host country?

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5

Learning objective #1

• What is culture and the various elements of culture and

how they affect consumer behavior and marketing?

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Culture: some definitions

• Culture is a concept that has many descriptions: e.g.,

national culture, regional culture, city culture, business

culture.

• Culture is the human-made part of the environment and

includes material culture and subjective (symbolic) culture.

• Both aspects of culture have important implications for

international marketing activities.

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The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual

achievement regarded collectively.

The way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a

particular group of people at a particular time

“Culture provides the overall framework wherein humans learn to

organize their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in relation to their

environment”

“Culture is a context phenomenon, a shared system of meanings.

Once a culture is formed, it is transmitted from generation to

generation through six agents: family, school, religion, media,

leadership, and the law”

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Material culture

• Material culture consists of such elements as clothing,

food, houses, tools and machines, works of art, buildings.

• Physical aspects of a culture help to define its members'

behaviors and perceptions.

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Subjective culture

• Subjective culture consists of ideas about what has worked

in the past and thus is worth transmitting to future

generations.

• Language and economic, educational, political, legal,

philosophical and religious systems are important elements

of subjective culture.

• Most important are unstated assumptions, standard

operating procedures, and habits of sampling information

from the environment.

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Elements of subjective culture

Language Official languages and local dialects

Values Strongly held concepts that are present in a

cultural group

Norms Social rules that affect behaviors and actions

and reflect cultural values

Folkways and Mores Cultural customs that dictate how people act

socially

Roles and Schemas The enacted “parts” and “scripts” that

members of a society play and follow in

everyday interactions

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Origins of culture

• Traditions and customs develop slowly and then become

slow to change.

• Two factors that influence the origins of culture are the

history and the geography of a nation or region.

• Geography: topography, climate, population density,

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Cultural characteristics

Language, Dialects, Slang

Customs and Rituals

Religions

Social Institutions and Practices

Political sphere

Common Attitudes and Beliefs

Aesthetics (concepts about beauty)

Views Toward Education (for both genders, by wealth, income, or social

status)

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Learning objective #2

• What are the main models of cross-cultural differences and

how can they help managers when making international

marketing decisions?

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Models of cross-cultural differences

• Hofstede (5 dimensions)

• GLOBE (9 dimensions of organizational and Societal

Culture)

• Schwartz

• These models group national cultures based on importance

of values

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Values and Dimensions

• Values are strongly held concepts/beliefs that are pervasive

within a culture.

• The five main features of values that constitute the common

background for social science research about values are

concepts or beliefs about desirable end states or behaviors

that transcend specific situations, guide the selection or

evaluation of persons, behavior, and events, and are

ordered by relative importance.

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Dimensions

• Cultural dimensions are ‘clusters’ of values that describe an

individual’s or a nation’s approach to a societal issues

• Dimensions can be used as ‘culture indicators’ but they are

not perfect descriptors of cultures

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Hofstede’s dimensions of culture

Power Distance Distance between leaders and followers;

authoritarian versus collaborative relationships

Individualism-Collectivism Personal needs are more important than groups’

needs

Masculinity-Femininity Importance of competition, achievement versus

values of harmony and quality of life

Uncertainty Avoidance Risk-taking versus risk-avoidance societies

Short- or Long-Term

Orientation

Emphasis on immediate- versus distant; strategic

outcomes

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GLOBE

Power Distance The degree to which members of a collective express

comfort with power and differences in status

Uncertainty Avoidance The extent to which there is an expectation that social

norms, rules, and procedures will alleviate future event

unpredictability

Humane Orientation The degree to which individuals are rewarded for being

fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others

Institutional

Collectivism

The extent to which institutional practices encourage and

reward the collective distribution of resources and

collective action

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GLOBE

In-Group

Collectivism

The extent of pride, loyalty, and in-group cohesiveness

individuals have for their organizations and families

Assertiveness The preference for individual behaviors that are assertive,

dominant, and demanding

Gender

Egalitarianism

The degree to which a group works to limit gender inequality

Future Orientation The extent to which future-oriented behaviors such as delaying

gratification, planning, and investing in the future are

encouraged

Performance

Orientation

The degree to which a collective encourages and rewards

group members for performance and excellence

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Individual-level values (Schwartz)

Power Focusing on attainment of social status, prestige, and dominance

over people and resources

Achievement Seeking personal success and proficiency

Hedonism Seeking personal pleasure, particularly physical pleasure

Stimulation Focusing on excitement, adventure, or challenges

Self-Direction Valuing independence in thought and action

Universalism Being concerned with understanding and protecting all people and

natural resources

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Individual-level values (Schwartz)

Benevolence Focusing on improving or maintaining the welfare of people, but only

those people one is directly in contact with

Tradition Seeking respect and preservation of the core components of one’s

culture

Conformity Focusing on maintaining order and stable social interactions through

observation of social norms

Security Valuing safety, harmony, and stability of society or relationships

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Time orientation

• Time perceptions and attitudes are important factors of

social order.

• People’s relationship with time is reflected in scheduling of

tasks or the value people place on time, or how they

evaluate past, present and future.

• Two time-related orientations are important for consume

behaviour: 1) task scheduling behaviour: monochornic

versus polychronic time orientation, and 2) temporal

orientations: past, present, future

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Monochronic-time orientation

• In monochronic-time orientation cultures individuals

schedule only one task at a time.

• Time is a continuous line which can be divided into separate

‘blocks’

• Most Western countries follow this time orientation.

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Polychronic-time orientation

• In polychronic-time orientation cultures, individuals

undertake multiple tasks at the same time.

• Time is a flexible resource in which multiple tasks can be

scheduled and performed at the same time.

• Schedules are flexible and may change if some tasks take

more time than initially scheduled.

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Present-oriented cultures

• Time is a cyclical process in which future cannot be

controlled or predicted, and past will repeat itself in the

future. Planning for the future is not important and people

focus on the ‘here and now’. It is not important to plan for

retirement in present-oriented societies as the future cannot

be controlled.

• Consumers want to enjoy their purchases immediately (e.g.,

‘buy now and pay later’)

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Future-oriented cultures

• People envisage and plan for their future, they prepare for

long-term.

• In such cultures, people plan for retirement, save money, or

delay gratification.

• US, UK, Germany

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Past-oriented societies

• People appreciate the past.

• Such cultures value tradition, history and respect the elders.

• Older generations help young people to buy homes or pay

for education hence mortgages or loans are not as popular

as in future-oriented societies.

• Many European and Middle eastern cultures

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Three cultures world

• World in which only three cultural groups exist:

– Cultures of honor

– Cultures of joy

– Cultures of achievement

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Three cultures world

Honor Joy Achievement

Drivers The state

(political)

The Family

(social)

The market

(economic)

Priorities Dominance

Tradition

Human relations

Well-being

Wealth

Effeciency,

punctuality

Prevalent Ancient empires

African countries

Middle Eastern

countries

Islamic countries

Catholic and

Buddhist countries

Latin American

countries

Modern empires

Asian countries

Anglo-saxon

countries

Western and

Northern countries

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Consumer culture

• In a consumer culture, people place importance on

consumption as the primary source of meaning in life.

• Material culture is important

• Consumerism and materialism

• Brands are drivers of consumer culture

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Global consumer culture

• Global brands play crucial role in creating consumer culture;

marketing is partly responsible for the spread of global

consumer culture.

• Global brands distort competition, create unrealistic

consumer aspirations, contribute to serious health

problems, encourage irresponsible consumer behaviours

and are not good for the environment

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The top 10 global brands (2017)

Rank Interbrand Forbes FT

1 Apple Apple Google

2 Google Google Apple

3 Coca-cola Microsoft Microsoft

4 Microsoft Facebook Amazon

5 Toyota Coca-cola Facebook

6 IBM Amazon AT&T

7 Samsung Disney Visa

8 Amazon Toyota Tencet

9 Mercedes-Benz McDonald’s IBM

10 General Electric Samsung McDonalds

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Cultural distance

• Cultural distance is the degree to which cultural values,

norms and beliefs in one country are different from

those in another country.

• Cultural distance is usually measured by differences in

economic development, level of education, language,

cultural dimensions and other indicators of culture.

• One way of measuring cultural distance is to compare

countries’ scores on cultural dimensions

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Psychic distance

• Psychic distance is the individual’s subjective perception of

the differences between the home country and the foreign

country.

• The perceptions of cultural distance between home market

and host market affect managers’ decisions in the process

of foreign market selection, or deciding what products and

services would work in a foreign market

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Learning objective #3

• Why should a marketing team examine cultural imperatives,

cultural electives, and cultural exclusives when entering a

host country?

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Cultural imperatives

• The customs and expectations that must be met and

conformed to or avoided if international business

relationships are to be successful.

• For instance, in Asian cultures, correcting someone in public

causes the person to lose “face,” which reflects a sense of

personal integrity, an important part of an individual’s social

identity

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Cultural electives

• Areas of behavior, customs that cultural aliens may wish to,

but are not required to, conform to or participate in.

• The majority of culturally meaningful behaviors fit into this

category.

• Greeting someone with a kiss, eating certain foods, holding

hands or touching another person, engaging in gambling

activities, and drinking alcoholic beverages are cultural

electives that may be graciously declined or avoided.

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Cultural exclusives

• Customs or behavior patterns reserved exclusively for the

locals and from which the foreigner is barred are cultural

exclusives.

• Marketers in a foreign country need to know when they are

dealing with a cultural exclusive.

• These often include religious ceremonies in which members

of any other religion would not be welcome or when

limitations are placed on activities for women.

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Subcultures and Countercultures

• Subcultures are groups whose values and related

behaviors are distinct and set members off from the general

or dominant culture.

• Countercultures are groups whose values set their

members in opposition to the dominant culture.

Countercultures challenge the culture’s core values.

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Cultural change

• Cultural convergence:

– cultures become more similar, standardization,

globalization

• Cultural divergence:

– Cultures maintain differences, adaptation, glocalization

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Aesthetics

• Aesthetics, or concepts about what constitutes beauty,

affect a vast number of purchases.

• Items including cosmetics, clothing, and jewelry,

spokespersons and models for products, and views of

nature are all influenced by cultural views of beauty.

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Religion

• Religion is an important part of culture

• It affects behaviour of consumers

• Main religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism

• Religious practices differ: holidays, relationship between

genders, relationship with environment

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Ethics, social responsibility and culture

• Ethics is a system of moral principles which governs a

person’s behavior.

– Ethical relativists

– Ethical absolutists

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