Unplanned Cultural Change example essay topic

Competitive pressures caused by globalization, deregulation, and discontinuous technological changes seem to have forced many organizations into considering radical change as a way of surviving and growing. A big part of this radical change has to do with accepting and handling cultural differences among other nations. Organizations pursue change to enhance their competitive positions and to grow. Cultural Change Culture changes over time, despite the fact that one of the more important attributes of culture is that it is conservative and resistant to change. When marketing a new innovation to a foreign country, the marketer must possess a thorough knowledge of that country's culture in order to be successful there, as new innovations can be fail or even cause offence if not marketed or designed in a manner appropriate to that particular culture.

There are six rules of thumb when doing business across cultures: 1. Be prepared. Whether traveling or selling from home, you should never approach a foreign market with first researching the area. Some of the things to learn would include social and business etiquette, history, current affairs, the culture's values, geography, religion, political structure, and practical matter such as currency and hours of business. 2.

Slow down. In America "Time is money". Americans always seem to be in a rush and can seem unfriendly or arrogant. In other countries, patience is the key. 3. Establish trust.

Having crisp business relationships will get the salesperson nowhere. Product quality, pricing, and clear contracts are not as important as the personal relationship and trust that are developed over time. 4. Understand the language. Languages differ in parts of the world one must have a vocabulary that is sensitive to nuance and connotation.

An interpreter could also be helpful if needed. 5. Respect the culture. Manner are important. The traveling person is a guest and must respect the hosts' rules. 6.

Understand components of culture. There are two types: surface culture (fads, styles, foods, etc.) and deep culture (attitudes, beliefs, values). Importance of cultural understanding One of the reasons a marketer may be unsuccessful internationally is when they mistakenly see some cultures as being similar when they are in fact quite different. There are a number of ways in which this can occur. One of the ways this can occur is when countries' cultures are considered similar on the basis they speak the same language. However, in instances where this occurs, often a lot of words have a very different meaning in one country than another, a good example being the difference here in Ireland with the U.S. Consider the question "Was there any craig?" here, meaning was it fun or a good time, while the same question in the states would be interpreted as was there any drugs as in "crack".

The same question but two very different meanings! Another mistake is where different cultures are lumped together as one. In western society it is commonly thought that most Asian groups such as the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans for example have similar cultures when in fact they are quite different. Failure to recognize the differences could have serious consequences for a marketer. Even within a country, a marketer must be aware of the existence of subcultures. There is no better example than the U.S. with people of all ethnic backgrounds.

Ethnocentricity People who are familiar with only one cultural pattern may believe they have an awareness of cultural differences elsewhere, when in reality they do not. Unless they have had occasion to make comparisons with other cultures, they are probably not even aware of the important features of their own. They are probably also oblivious to the fact that many societies consider their culture superior to all other (ethnocentricity) and that their attempts to introduce the "German way" or the "American way" may be met with resistance. Failure to understand a culture is a huge mistake when marketing internationally, but this is by no means the only obstacle to overcome. Culture tends to be resistant to change, although the level of resistance to a new innovation varies. This can be due in a large part to the fact that most cultures tend to be ethnocentric.

What this means is that the country holds their own culture in a far higher esteem than any foreign culture and usually views other cultures as inferior, strange, or even barbaric. This can often result in innovations being rejected if accepting them would require changing a part of their culture, either cultural values, customs, or beliefs. There are many reasons a culture may be resistant, but that said resistance can be overcome but the marketer needs to understand the process of acceptance. There has been research into this in order to speed up acceptance and bring about change, vital to a marketer who is often working within a time frame and cannot just wait for the change to happen. Cultural change can be brought about in a number of ways; cultural borrowing, unplanned cultural change, and planned cultural change. Cultural Borrowing Culture is learned and passed from generation to generation.

When a country encounters a problem it often looks to other countries to see how they coped with the same problem. They then borrow the solution and adapt it to their own needs. When this new action is judged acceptable by society, it is approved and becomes a part of the culture that will be passed to the next generation. So while cultures are in their own right unique, they are often made up of parts of other cultures. Unplanned Cultural Change As the name explains, unplanned cultural change is where change is brought about in a culture without being planned by uncontrollable factors such as war or revolution. A good example of this would be the role of women in the workplace changing with the industrialization of Europe or the changing of the Japanese diet as a result of World War II.

Planned Cultural Change With planned cultural change, the process of change is hastened by the marketer. This is achieved by removing the cultural factors that are an obstacle to a new innovation. Not all innovations require change; some can be marketed in a manner similar to existing products. However if cultural change is needed for acceptance, marketers will try to bring about that change themselves by converting the cultural factors that are obstacles to acceptance into stimulants for change.

The social system and structure can change within a country upon acceptance of a new innovation. The majority of the time there are no undesirable consequences but they can occur and the marketer must be aware of this, as there can be serious repercussions for them and their company if there are adverse reactions to the new innovation regardless of the fact it may have been accidental. Knowledge about other cultures and how they affect the way people do business may show business-people working in a culture different from their own that their solutions are not always the appropriate ones for a given task. Understanding this is the first step in learning how to use cultural differences to gain a strategic advantage. Mishandling or ignoring cultural differences can cause numerous problems, such as lost sales, the departure of competent employees, and low morale that contributes to low productivity. How can international businesspeople learn to live with other cultures?

The first step is to realize that there are cultures different from their own. Then they must go and learn the characteristics of those cultures so that they can adapt to them. Traveling to this country and staying a while or undergoing an extensive, training program would be helpful to cover the main characteristics of the culture, including the language.