CROSS CULTURAL

Cross Cultural

Cross Cultural

Introduction

Cultural differences can affect an association in many ways; it can strengthen as well as weaken the workforce. With the recent globalization of organizations, it is necessary organizations today recognize the significance of cultural diversity in order to succeed. A business should recognize how cultural diversity impacts the association and how management and human resources address these concerns from a corporate level. Any concerns that are not addressed can affect the association negatively (Minehan 2002 pp 230), which leads to bad publicity. In our own business human resources recognize the significance of cultural diversity. They are dedicated staff in place to make certain all employees are treated equally and fairly as well as the association is keen to recognize the values of sustaining a diversified workforce.

Defining the key words culture, globalization and international marketing are brought and discussed in this paper. Different cross-cultural factors that need to be considered when marketing internationally will be introduced in this discussion, such as; barriers to exporting, the consumers behavior and reluctance to accept foreign products, the market entry timing a company has to take into consideration and the company's involvement level, new product introduction, cross-cultural negotiation behavior, managing cross-cultural business partners and strategic alliances, the effect that the international products have on the consumers and their reluctance to globalization. The impact of innovation is influenced by the different culture aspects, and understanding these barriers is crucial for a company's success in the new markets it chooses to enter.

Definition of Culture

The definition of culture brought by Hofstede (1980, p.19) is "...the interactive aggregate of common characteristics that influence a group's response to its environment." According to, Tse. D, Lee K.. Vertinsky I. & Wehrung D. (1998, p. 82) " Culture may be reflected in general tendencies of persistent preference for particular states of affairs over others, persistent preferences for specific social processes over other, and general rules for selective attention, interpretation of environmental cues, and responses. It is generally known that culture may provide detailed prescriptions (norms) for specific classes of situations while leaving other domains relatively unregulated. National and ethnic cultures are thus distinguished in their degree of regulation of behavior, attitudes, and values, the domain of regulation, and the consistency and clarity of regulation and tolerance of other cultures.

Culture influences values, attributions and emotions, which in turn influence the perception of product and service attributes (Malhotra et al., 1994: 41). It is well known that values influence the importance attached to product attributes and culture-specific elements have been identified in the content and structure of values (Schwartz and Sagiv, 1995; Kahle, 1986: 245). Culture has been shown to influence attributions in explaining real-life events (Lee et al., 1996: 81).

Globalization

Tian R. and Emery C. (2002) state that if the globalization is an inevitable process, then the cross-culturalization will also be inevitable. On the one hand, the world is becoming more homogeneous, and distinctions between national markets are not only fading but, for some products, will disappear ...