国际商务英语Unit 8

Ethnocentrism （种族中心主义）
the notion that one’s own culture or company
knows best how to do things
Avoiding the Self-Reference Criterion
1. Define the business problem in homecountry cultural traits, habits, or norms 2. Define the business problem in foreigncountry cultural traits, habits, or norms. Make no value judgments 3. Isolate the SRC Influence in the problem and examine it carefully to see how it complicates the problem 4. Redefine the problem without the SRC influence and solve for the foreign market situation
Information Gaps: Listen to Your Customer(s)
Self-Reference: Home Builders construct what they think
customers will need (Presumptuous)
RESULT: Cookie Cutter （千篇一律）designs, mass
Perception: to see what is so rather than assume
or project on foreign market
The SRC is a powerful negative force. High
perceptual skills need to be developed to avoid misperception of a situation Consumer products are likely to be more culturally sensitive than business products, primarily because technology can be universally learned The danger of over generalization. Drink can be very universal and yet culture bound
Business Environments
Definition of culture
The integrated total What is sum of culture? learned behavioral traits that are manifest and shared by members of society
Unit 8 Cultural Environment
In International Business
Objectives of the Unit
Understand the basic
aspects of culture Identify various approaches to culture study
Sell well in Europe
Squash is not welcomed In Zimbabwe.
High and low context cultures
Hall (1977) : the concept as a way of understanding different cultural orientations.



Relative advantage (convenience, performance, style, safety, status symbol, augmentation etc.) Compatibility (consistent with current values, taste, economic power, experiences, knowledge, customs etc.) Complexity ( user-friendliness to adopters) Divisibility (ability to try and pay, living habit, income) Communicability (bi/tri/lingual instructions, label)
of a group and their characteristic products
Cultural Influence on Marketing
How does culture influence color customer behavior?
Taste style
preference
Approaches to Study of Culture
Self-Reference Criterion (SRC) and Ethnocentrism:Major Obstacles
Self-Reference Criterion (SRC)
an unconscious reference to one’s own
cultural values, experiences, and knowledge as a basis for decisions
The adoption process
Awareness
Interest
Adoption
The speed depends on the characteristics of the new product
Evaluation
Trial
Characteristics of Innovations
Read the text and find out the significance of need hierarchy to international marketers
The universality of need hierarchy means
the more highly developed a market, the greater the portion of goods purchased to fill social and esteem needs The level of consumption is related to physiological and psychological drives
production for economies of scale and sales pressure
SURPRISE!!!
A home builder
(Finally) Surveyed buyers (1996) and found that :
Information Gaps: Listen to Your Customer(s)
In low context cultures In high context cultures - less information is
-
Messages have to be explicit, A person's word is not to be relied on, Paperwork is important
SURVEY FINDINGS Many Customers prefer doing without . . . Fireplaces Covered Porches Coffee Bar Loffice (A combination loft + office space for a computer)
boundaries between different groups. e.g. Ways of organizing society, from kinship groups to states and multinational corporations; the distinctive techniques
Diffusion Theory
Everett Rogers’s book, "Diffusion of Innovations" (1962)
suggested that adoption was a social phenomenon, characterized by a normal distribution of adopters.
Bubble of private space: keeping distance
from others as psychological protection Monochromic 单一时间模式: time is viewed in terms of money and is formed in line in people’s mind, one thing at one time means planning is important Polychromic多元时间模式: everything in life has connections and should be dealt with in the context of the time, time can be viewed more than money, thus flexible about time or tolerant with punctuality
Essential Features of Culture
It is learned, not innate