The total reconciliation approach we offer requires the inclusion of stakeholders, customers, suppliers, employees, investors, and the community at large with a well-defined mission that is expressed through clear values and purpose. Thus tomorrow's organization is a business-led "charity" that promotes the reconciliation approach through research and continually refined enabling mechanisms. The role of employees must change from being only a human "resource" to being professionals who can find ways of applying their capacities to inspire these new sustainable organizations.
In the widest view, global marketing has to become the "acceptable face of capitalism," reconciling values associated with more materialistic cultures with those of "the simple life" ideology.
Chapter 2:
Cultural Differences in a Marketing Context: Value Dimensions
In this chapter we will establish our basic framework for explaining and categorizing cultural differences as a precursor for marketing across cultures. Later in the book we'll extend our discussion to include our new logic to reconcile marketing dilemmas.
MARKETING DILEMMAS DERIVING FROM CULTURAL DIFFERENCES: IDEOGRAPHIC AND NOMOTHETIC APPROACHES
All sciences, including psychology, tend to neglect this paramount fact of individuality. In daily life, on the other hand, we are in no danger of forgetting that individuality is the supreme mark of human nature. All during our waking life, and even in our dreams, we recognize and deal with people as separate, distinct, and unique individuals. (Allport, 1961)
Whatever the perspective undertaken by researchers into culture, many are unclear in indicating whether they are starting from an ideographic or nomothetic perspective-or even recognising that these two extremes exist. This is an important distinction, so let's explain further.
Allport describes how nomothetic is derived from the Greek word "nomothetikos," meaning the giving or enacting of laws. Ideographic, on the other hand, has its roots in the Greek "idio" meaning "one's own." The terms were established by Windelbrand (1904) who used them to differentiate between the approaches and aims of investigative disciplines. Kelly (1991) stated that "the (nomothetic approach) appears to be the study of mankind, while the (ideographic approach) is the study of a man." They can also be considered as the equivalents of the organization and the individual.
We'll consider both of these perspectives-both separately and together (or reconciled). The ideographic view is concerned with how consumers attribute meaning to the world around them and thus serves to help us understand buyers' cultural differences across national boundaries. In contrast we can use the nomothetic approach as a means of exploring cultural differences from the perspective of the marketing function, and thus examine what issues will be faced by leaders and managers as they seek to extend their markets to embrace new cultures and subcultures.
But even these are not separate, opposite perspectives. We must see how we can reconcile our approaches by developing a robust methodology, transcending individual customers, organizations, gender, age, and other variables.
Culture is about meaning. Advertisers bombard consumers with sensory stimuli-colors, music, smells, textures, and movements. These stimuli are intended to capture our attention and we then process them. This processing, and the interpretation we give to the stimuli, are dependent on our frames of reference or schema, and these frames of reference are different in different cultures. Putting it another way, a culture can be defined as a collective sharing the same frame of reference. Various marketing programs use techniques such as market research, consumer panels, focus groups, and taste panels in order to uncover these underlying frames of reference in order that a product or service can be offered to appeal to the wants and needs of the consumer. However the reverse is also true. Increasingly marketers seek to change the frames of reference and belief systems of potential customers through their promotion and advertisements. For example, greetings cards, male cosmetics, new jewelry (earrings for men and items for body piercing, perhaps) are all industries that have been created (or where societal changes are accelerated) by marketers. Marketers have sought to create or change the schema of consumers so they give a different meaning to these goods. If you don't send a greeting card to your father on Fathers' Day then you are somehow lacking. Men are still macho if they wear jewelry...
While we instantly recognise explicit cultural differences, as either consumer or corporation, we may not recognise the implicit ones, as we noted in the previous chapter. This explains, for example, inconsistencies between what consumers say and what they do. They may complain that the range of colors for the car model of their choice is limited, but actually tend to purchase only cars from a narrow range of colors-which are those that the manufacturer has already identified as those that sell. Even if other colors were available, the evidence suggests that consumers would be unlikely to choose them.
THT's research, evidence, and feedback from client groups has led us to develop and validate models and diagnostic instruments to reveal and measure these basic assumptions. They are based on the seven dimensions model of cultural differences that we have developed over the last fifteen years and are at the core of our frameworks for explaining and measuring cultural differences. The reconciliation framework has evolved from this.
Thus we can summarize that culture is about meaning, about what meaning is given to things, actions, and behaviors. Although an automobile is a means of transport, it has different meanings in different cultures. For some it is simply a means of getting to work, getting from A to B. In other cultures it is a sign of status and independence and in others it is a means of showing you belong to a group who have also chosen to purchase the same model. Hence the motive is different in different cultures even though the car might look similar from the outside-a box with wheels that you drive along the road.
We can begin to explore both the ideographic and nomothetic perspectives of the origins of meaning by using our seven dimensional model. This enables marketers to learn to recognise these cultural differences, to be prepared for them, and to check where and how they might exist and manifest themselves.
A TYPOLOGY FOR DILEMMAS OF MARKETING
In Business Across Cultures we presented the seven dimensions model of culture in some detail. As well as simply demonstrating cultural differences, this model enables us to characterize commonly occurring dilemmas from the tensions between the values from which they originate.
We can consider the dilemmas that arise across each of the following dimensions:
Universalism-particularism. Do people tend to follow standardized rules or do they prefer a flexible approach to unique situations?
Individualism-communitarianism. Does the culture foster individual performance and creativity or is the focus on the larger group, leading to cohesion and consensus?
Specific-diffuse. What is the degree of involvement in personal relationships (high = diffuse, low = specific)? Does a specific business project come easily, out of which a more diffuse relationship may develop, or do people have to get to know their business partners before they can do any business with them?
Neutral-affective. Are emotions controlled or do people display their emotions overtly?
Achievement-ascription. Is status and power based on performance or is it more determined by the school people went to or their age, gender, and family background?