Western Culture
Western companies often impose western culture on the country in which the business is launched. What is your analysis of the situation? How could this have been prevented?
In the current business environment, wherein being affected by many macro- and micro-environmental factors, due to the influence of globalization, it is important to focus on the different strategies that will help in order to obtain competitive advantage. One of which is the issue about culture. Culture is an important aspect of marketing and management. This is because Culture affects the perceptions, behaviors and opinions of an individual towards a given issue or problem. With this, it is important to consider this aspect upon the establishment of a given business in a given country, particularly those that are very different from the culture of the parent company.
This is very important in terms of the MNCs. Because, it is important to take note that the past principle of “one size fits all” is no longer applicable to the current changes in social, political, economic and technological aspect of the organization. Consumers and employees are becoming more and more sensitive and more vulnerable to different social issues.
Western companies, from the past, and even in the present commonly impose western culture on the country in which the business is launch. This can be seen on many American and European brands which can be seen in Asian countries, with entirely different culture and different taste. However, due to the influence of the Americans and the Europeans, people look to those products positively.
Currently, travel is considered as a regular activity, and whether an individual is suffering from cravings and cringe for Big Mac and thought of missing the episodes of MTV shows and other American shows, an individual’s tastes of western products and services can be satisfied everywhere. It is important to take note that the proliferation of American products in the entire world is more than mere accident. As a result of globalization, it is considered as a larger trend in the conscious dissemination of attitudes and values of the Western people, which is known as cultural imperialism (Kiely and Marfleet, 1998). Cultural imperialism is a process by which western countries exercise cultural power over less developed countries, rather than exercising the military legal and trading power which empire involved. According to this argument, the export of cut-price television program, products and services promotes the commercial interest of western corporations, particularly those Americans, therefore supports and political and military interests of the West. By means of the affluent western lifestyles that are commonly portrayed in television programs, advertisements, music, arts, etc., the culture of the consumer is spread across regions and populations which increasingly aspire to the western products and expectations which their meager resources make it difficult for them to achieve (Bignell, 2004, 69).
For example, McDonalds, bought the culture of burger, French fries and softdrinks in those nations or countries, wherein rice is the main meal, not bread. European country, like Italy spread the culture of eating pasta. Another is the effect of Wal-Mart in other countries, such as China, and the influence of Starbucks on those countries that primarily prefer teas.
The said cultural imperialism is expected to continue. According to Galeota, cultural imperialism match the justification for U.S. imperialism in the entire history of the world, which mainly focus on the desire to access the foreign markets and global business world, and the belief and thinking that the American culture is superior in the world.
The influence of America can be seen in the world. It can be observed in China, Korea and Japan, that their music and the entire entertainment industry are following those trends in America, this can also be observed in other countries, particularly those poor countries in Asia. In addition, people from Asian and non-speaker of English country, considered those English-speaker as intelligent people.
The said event will be hard to combat. Simply because the superiority of the American and European culture is already in the culture of each and every individual and each and every country. However, it will be helpful if the government and the non-government organizations in each country, particularly those organizations related to the local culture, will focus on disseminating information about the importance of the local culture upon the national culture and the stand of that culture in the world.
Resources
Bignell, J. (2004). An introduction to television studies. Routledge.
Kiely, R. and Marfleet, P. (1998). Globalization and the third world. Routledge.
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