How does cultural sensitivity lead to successful foreign marketing?
Successful foreign marketing begins with cultural sensitivity—being attuned to the nuances of culture so that a new culture can be viewed objectively, evaluated, and appreciated. Cultural sensitivity, or cultural empathy, must be carefully cultivated.
That is, for every amusing, annoying, peculiar, or repulsive cultural trait we find in a country, others see a similarly amusing, annoying, or repulsive trait in our culture. For example, we bathe, perfume, and deodorize our bodies in a daily ritual that is seen in many cultures as compulsive, while we often become annoyed with those cultures less concerned with natural body odor. Just because a culture is different does not make it wrong.
Marketers must understand how their own cultures influence their assumptions about another culture. The more exotic the situation, the more sensitive, tolerant, and flexible one needs to be. Being culturally sensitive will reduce conflict and improve communications and thereby increase success in collaborative relationships.
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- List the government agencies that are involved in promoting foreign investment and international business.
- Whoville (made up country), as a country, would like to increase its control and ownership of foreign investments in its country. However, Whoville does not want to cut off or discourage foreign investment. Cite and describe a political risk strategy that Whoville could follow that would meet the aforementioned objective.
- What are the conditions under which relations between governments and MNCs are generally positive?
- Discuss the threats posed by cyberterrorism or cyberattacks with an example.
- Briefly discuss the role of PSAs and NGOs.
- List and briefly discuss the various economic risks that international companies must face when they seek to market abroad.
- Discuss and compare the terms confiscation, expropriation, and domestication.
- Describe the concept of nationalism and list some of the ways it manifests.
- Discuss stability of governments and list the main political causes of instability in international markets.
- Describe the characteristics of a sovereign state.
- In the context of business ethics, distinguish between bribery and extortion with examples.
- Why do U.S. multinational companies hesitate to offer women international assignments? Is this prejudice justified?
- Describe the popularity of a marketing orientation as compared to a product orientation.
- Distinguish between the two time systems in the world, as defined by Edward T. Hall - M-time and P-time.
- What is the fundamental notion of Western management practices? Is it universally acceptable?
- Suggest some cautions that an individual from a high context culture should take when dealing with someone from a low-context culture. Do the same for low- to high-context situations.
- Discuss the American manager's attitude toward objectivity in decision-making.
- Briefly describe the different types of business customs.
- How important is adaptation in international marketing? What are the basic criteria to deal with foreign firms?
- In the context of planned and unplanned cultural change, discuss the methods used by marketers to overcome resistance to change in an international marketing scenario.
- In the context of the elements of culture, illustrate the differences in "Asian and Western" thought as discussed by Richard Nisbett.
- In the context of the elements of culture, briefly discuss the concept of linguistic distance.
- Describe the relationship between Uncertainty Avoidance Index scores and stress.
- List the four dimensions of cultural values as given by Hofstede in the book and the 2 other dimensions introduced on the Hofstede website.