Culture: The cultural knowledge and values

The Cultural framework on global markets

Tópicos de mercadotecnia global

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CTE | COORDINACIÓN DE TECNOLOGÍA EDUCATIVA

Culture: cultural knowledge and values

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.

Culture: cultural knowledge and values

Resides in the mind of an individual. We adapt to culture through innovation. People make decisions about consumption and production through the application of their culture-based knowledge. Also, it intervenes in the management style, that is, the way of reacting, making decisions, leading and communicating with the regional managers of that country-market.

Elements of Culture

International marketers must design products, distribution systems, and promotional programs with due consideration of each of the five.

Rituals

Values

Symbols

Beliefs

Thought processes

Culture Values

Defined as, 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

Studying more than 90,000 people in 66 countries Geert Hofstede found that the cultures of the nations studied differed along four primary dimensions

Geert Hofstede and hundreds of other researchers, have determined that a wide variety of business and consumer, behavior patterns are associated with these dimensions

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Rituals

Life is filled with rituals, that is, 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. Life is also filled with little rituals, such as dinner at a restaurant or a visit to a department store or even grooming before heading off to work or class in the morning. Rituals are important. They coordinate everyday interactions and special occasions. They let people know what to expect.

Symbols, language and aesthetics

Symbols

Language

Aesthetics

Culture is communication. Learning to interpret correctly the symbols that surround us is a key part of socialization.

The successful international marketer must achieve expert communication, which requires a thorough understanding of the language as well as the ability to speak it.

As we acquire our culture, we learn the meaning of this wonderful symbolic system represented in its aesthetics, that is, its arts, folklore, music, drama, dance, dress, and cosmetics.

Culture is communication. Learning to interpret correctly the symbols that surround us is a key part of socialization.

Beliefs

A belief, is an organized pattern of knowledge that an individual holds to be true about the world. Much of what we learn to believe comes from religious training. Moreover, the relationship between superstition and religion is not at all clear. To discount the importance of myths, beliefs, superstitions, or other cultural beliefs, however strange they may appear, is a mistake, because they are an important part of the cultural fabric of a society and influence all manner of behavior.

Thought processes

Ways of seeing and reacting to a perception. We are now learning in much more detail the degree to which ways of thinking vary across cultures. For example, new studies are demonstrating cultural differences in consumer impatience and in how consumers make decisions about products—culture seems to matter more in snap judgments than in longer deliberations.

Bibliography

Cateora, P. R. (2011). International Marketing. [Book] McGraw-Hill Companies. 15a. Edition.

The physical component or physical culture includes physical objects and human-made artifacts such as clothing and tools.

A culture manifests its ways of life in the context of social institutions, such as family, educational, religious, governmental and commercial institutions. In turn, these institutions function to reinforce cultural norms.

Aesthetics

Images

The style of the products

Insensitivity to aesthetic values

Non-material culture also known as subjective, includes intangible elements, as religion, perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and values.

A specific “category of people” may constitute a country, an ethnic group, a gender group, an organization, a family or some other unit.

Rituals

Life is filled with rituals, that is, 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. Life is also filled with little rituals, such as dinner at a restaurant or a visit to a department store or even grooming before heading off to work or class in the morning. Rituals are important. They coordinate everyday interactions and special occasions. They let people know what to expect.

Language

Advertising copywriters should be concerned less with obvious differences between languages and more with the idiomatic and symbolic meanings expressed. The concept linguistic distance, is proving useful to 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.

Symbols

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.