Lecture Global marketing management (7th edition): Chapter 4 - Masaaki Kotabe, Kristiaan Helsen

GLOBAL
MARKETING
MANAGEMENT

Chapter 4 PowerPoint

Seventh Edition

Global Cultural
Environment and Buying
Behavior

MASAAKI KOTABKE | KRISTIAAN HELSEN


Chapter Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Meaning of Culture
Elements of Culture
Cross-Cultural Comparisons
Adapting to Cultures
Culture and the Marketing Mix

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Introduction
• Buyer behavior and consumer needs are largely
driven by cultural norms.
• Global business means dealing with consumers,
strategic partners, distributors, and competitors with
different cultural mindsets.
• Within a given culture, consumption processes can
include four stages: access, buying behavior,
consumption characteristics, and disposal.
• Each of these stages is heavily influenced by the
culture in which the consumer thrives.

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Exhibit 4-1: Cultural Variations in Emoticons

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1. Definition of Culture
• There are numerous definitions of culture. In this
text, culture (in a business setting) is defined as
being learned, shared, and composed of
interrelated parts whose meanings provide a set of
orientations for members of society.
• Cultures may be defined by national borders,
especially when countries are isolated by natural
barriers.
• Cultures contain subcultures that have little in
common with one another.
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2. Elements of Culture
• Culture consists of many interrelated components.
Knowledge of a culture requires a deep
understanding of its different parts. Following are the
elements of culture:
– Material life (technologies that are used to produce,

distribute, and consume goods and services)
– Language (language has two parts: the spoken and
the silent language)
• Blunders of translation are common either direction
(Exhibit 4-2)
• Back translation can help avoid problems
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Exhibit 4-2: How Not To Sell Abroad

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2. Elements of Culture
– Social Interactions (social interactions among
people; nuclear family, extended family; reference
groups).
– Aesthetics (ideas and perceptions that a culture
upholds in terms of beauty and good taste).

– Religion (belief in supernatural agents).
– Education (major vehicle for channeling culture from
one generation to the next).
– Value System (shape people’s norms and
standards).

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Exhibit 4-3: Rules for Cracking
the Guanxi Code in China

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Exhibit 4-4: 2011 Car Color Preferences

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Exhibit 4-5: Cross-Country Performance
Mathematics, Reading, and Science Skills
among High-School Students (PISA 2012)

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3. Cross-Cultural Comparisons
• Cultures differ from one another, but usually share
certain aspects. Recent social psychology research
reveal key cultural differences between East (high)
and West (low) context cultures in how people
perceive reality and reasoning (see below).
• High-context cultures: Interpretation of messages
rests on contextual cues; e.g., China, Korea, Japan,
Latin America.
• Low-context cultures: Put the most emphasis on
written or spoken words; e.g., USA, Scandinavia,
Germany.
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3. Cross-Cultural Comparisons
High context

Japanese

IMPLICIT

Arabian
Latin American

Spanish
Italian
English (UK)
French
English (US)
Scandinavian
Low context

German
Swiss

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EXPLICIT
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3. Cross-Cultural Comparisons
• Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Classification Scheme:
– Power distance: The degree of inequality among
people that is viewed as being acceptable.
– Uncertainty avoidance: The way that a culture deals
with the fact that the future can never be known.
– Individualism: The degree to which people’s image
is defined in terms of “me” versus “we.”

Continued

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3. Cross-Cultural Comparisons
Continued

–Masculinity: The importance of “male” values

(assertiveness, status, success, competitive drive within
society, achievement) versus “female” values (being
people-oriented, solidarity, quality of life).
–Long-termism: Oriented primarily on the present and
the future.
–Indulgence: The extent to which people try to control
their desires and impulses, based on the way they were
raised.
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3. Cross-Cultural Comparisons
• GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational
Behavior Effectiveness) Research Program
– Project GLOBE is a large-scale ongoing research
program that explores cultural values and their impact
on organizational leadership in 62 countries (Exhibit
4-7).
– Three dimensions (collectivism I, uncertainty
avoidance, and power distance) are the same as
Hofstede’s constructs.

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3. Cross-Cultural Comparisons
• The remaining six dimensions include: collectivism II,
gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, performance
orientation, humane orientation, and future orientation.

• World Value Survey (WVS):
(WVS)
• The WVS is conducted by a network of social
scientists at leading universities worldwide.
• The WVS has been done multiple times and the
population covered is much broader than in other
similar studies.
• The WVS encompasses two broad categories:
traditional versus secular values, and survival versus
self-expression values (Exhibit 4-8).
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Exhibit 4-7: Project GLOBE

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Exhibit 4-8: World Value Survey (WVS)

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4. Adapting to Cultures
• Global marketers need to become sensitive to
cultural biases that influence their thinking, behavior,
and decision-making.
• Self-reference criterion (SRC): Refers to people’s
unconscious tendency to resort to their own cultural
experience and value systems to interpret a given
business situation.
• Out-group homogeneity bias: Refers to people’s
tendency to believe out-group members (e.g.,
members of host culture) are more alike and less
diverse than members of one’s own group.

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5. Culture and the Marketing Mix
• Culture is a key pillar of the marketplace.
• Product Policy: Many products and services must
be tailored to local values and preferences to make
them more appealing in the host market, while some
can also be banned or restricted due to cultural
reasons.
• Pricing: Customers’ willingness to pay for products
will vary across cultures; what may be perceived as
good value in one culture may have little to no value
in other cultures.
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5. Culture and the Marketing Mix
•
•

Distribution: Cultural variables may also
dictate distribution strategies.
Promotion: Promotion is the most visible
element of the marketing mix. Culture will
typically have a major influence on a firm’s
communication strategy. Local cultural taboos
and norms also influence advertising styles.
(See Exhibit 4-10.)

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Discussion Questions 3 (left), 5 (right)

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