Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy
- The interconnectedness between the cross-cultural research, marketing, and the consumer behavior that presents challenges to its definition stipulates the cross-cultural variations. The rich diversity in the social practices around the world in different cultures represents cultural variation. They change from one culture to another, incorporating the gender roles and systems and the other humanly organized behaviors. (Bristow,2016) The consumers’ level of exposure to foreign goods and lifestyles greatly impacts their buying decisions mostly on their preferences. For particular products made in specific countries, consumers have different attitudes towards them, and the mood might be neutral, negative, or positive. Therefore, consumers’ determination in two or more societies’ similarities and differences is key to the muational marketers to develop proper strategies of reaching consumers in specific foreign markets. Moreover, marketing and servicing success are greatly impacted by individuals’ beliefs, customs, and values.
Cultures have both visible and hidden elements, but the values, assumptions, and beliefs are the hidden elements that stipulate 90% of the cultural identity. For example, achievement-oriented characteristics, such as competitive economic systems, are the cultural emphasis on success, such as capitalism. Since no cultural group is homogeneous, there is danger in stereotyping, and the cultural values do not allow one to predict an individual’s behavior and response. The high humane orientation societies believe that others are important and their assertiveness for the admired strength. For example, aggression is associated with winning. (Ember,2015) Culture plays a key role in shaping a country due to the consumer progress that seems like it automatically happens. For instance, the first world countries are developed compared to third-world countries due to the consumers’ cross-cultural variations.
- In human resources management, leadership is no longer a simple phenomenon. The workplaces’ intercultural settings and diversity provide reasons many leaders are juggling between the traditional organizational roles and the adaptations to be assumed by the employees due to their variety. During decision making, the participative approaches make it difficult for the leader to accommodate the difference; hence keeping up the traditional authoritarian of employee’s morale might fail. Though globalization has led to many people mingling across nationalities and cultures, leaders should have insight into understanding the relationship between leadership and different cultures and the ability to implement the skill in different work scenarios. Moreover, leaders possess the ability to manage the culturally diverse workforce effectively since they are culturally intelligent and properly understand the basic variations in behaviors, communications, and ethics of the workplace. (Abbe et al. 2017) For example, the high context nations employees, i.e., China and Japan, rely on non-verbal gestures.
In a cross-cultural scenario, leadership is a challenge succinctly; therefore, it is very challenging to mention the best leadership style that suits the most. The culture of organizations is somewhat different and composed using other elements compared to the national culture. Therefore, individuals are partly involved in an organizational culture, which leads to a better understanding of the behavior causes in an organization. Moreover, there is a deeper look at the opinion reversals for the suitability of transformational and charismatic leadership in a cross-cultural setting, hence job satisfaction. Irrespective of the employee’s cultural backgrounds, leaders with charismatic characters that automatically renders others perform better is preferred.
Moreover, team-oriented leadership and participative leadership are other leadership styles considered with the growing tax complexities and organizational structures. To sum up, globalization is needed by organizations’ leadership capacities for proper business operations. (Roger,2018)
Reference
Bristow, D.; Amyx, D.; Castleberry, S. B.; Cochran, J. J. (2016). “A cross-generational comparison of motivational factors in a sales career among Gen-X and Gen-Y college students.” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. 31 (1): 77–85.
Ember, R. (2015). Cross-Cultural Research. Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology / Ed. By H. R. Bernard, pp. 647–90. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press
Abbe, Allison; Gulick, Lisa M. V.; Herman, Jeffrey L. (2017). Cross-cultural competence in Army leaders: a conceptual and empirical foundation (PDF). U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-29. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
Roger P. (2018). Understanding cross-cultural management. Rearson Education Limited. pp. 105–