cultural influences on consumption
TRANSCRIPT
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Cultural influences on consumption
By: Sunil Kumar Gunti (122096)
Sushil Ramteke (122098)
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Table of Contents
Cultural influences on consumption ............................................................................................................. 3
Defining culture ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Sources of Culture ......................................................................................................................................... 4
Cultural Dynamics ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Dimensions of time orientation .................................................................................................................... 5
Model of Cultural dynamics .......................................................................................................................... 6
Interaction Models .................................................................................................................................... 7
Culture based attitudes towards action ....................................................................................................... 7
How to relate thinking to action ................................................................................................................... 7
Hofstedes cultural dimension depends on Self-reliance/dependence ........................................................ 8
Cross cultural consumer behavior ................................................................................................................ 8
Culture and consumer behavior ............................................................................................................... 8
Impacts of cultural differences on consumer behavior ................................................................................ 9
Investigating the cross-cultural applicability of consumer behavior .......................................................... 10
1. Consumer dissatisfaction ................................................................................................................ 10
2. Questioning consumer behavior ..................................................................................................... 10
3. Radical Questioning ........................................................................................................................ 11
Ethnic Consumption .................................................................................................................................... 11
Examples of cultural influence on consumer behavior .............................................................................. 12
References .................................................................................................................................................. 15
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Cultural influences on consumption
Defining culture
Culture is the outcome of learning which we get from our parents, friends and society. People
share this learning and transmit to other members of the society which itself forms behavioral set
that we call as culture. Culture comprises of many internal and external elements,
1. Language2. Institutions3. Material Production4. Symbolic Production
Culture mostly forms by interworking of above mentioned elements which provides knowledge
that shows direction to members of our society to lead normal life. Language is one of the most
important aspects of culture and is formed of emotions, words etc. It helps in achieving timely
behavior and establishes communication between two individuals. Language can establish
positive and negative impact in the society. It depends how an individual uses it in his or her life.
Institutions include family, relatives, political family or any kind of social organization which
teaches individual to behave properly in the society and abide by rules and regulations.
Institutions act as a spine of culture, many of the rules are not same and they change when
something else changes for the welfare of the society. (emerald)
Use of symbols is very often in societies, communities and religion. It was a major source of
communication in traditional days but not anymore. Symbolic representation varies across
countries and has a huge impact if not used properly. Some countries use symbolic
representation in religious activities and hence they are perceived as sacred. Societal outcomeshelp in improving through past learning. This would eventually help the society to evolve in a
positive direction.
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Sources of Culture
Source of culture can be relevant to different segments that exist in our society. If we take the
example of different states in India, we come to a conclusion that every state is having similar
features, ethnical parity in terms of rituals, mode of communication etc. Language is the
differentiating factor and becomes a backbone of their identity. Similarly, we can relate things in
other countries and continents. There are different streams of education like agriculture, biology,
physics, engineering and management studies. People who are in a particular stream have
functional equality within that group and differ with other groups. Area of interest, job variation,
nature and mindset will be totally different from one group to the other.
There are various religions that exist all over the world and peoplesway of preaching towards
god also varies with respect to the religion. People following similar religion form ethnical parity
Corporate Culture
Social Class
Sex
Family Religion
Group (ethnicity)
Profession
Education
Nationality
Languages
Sources of culture
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and they have same philosophy and perform similar rituals. Sex and corporate culture are certain
parameters people think differently when assigning highly stressful or highly confidential work
to women. Companies generally do not prefer women in manufacturing, civil, electrical fields,
because they think that they are not capable enough to do it. Therefore, people who have similar
ideology related to women form one group which becomes culture in the future.
Cultural Dynamics
Basic assumptions of culture are in three major areas,
1. Time2. Space3. Concept of self and others
Time has a very strong influence on the functioning of any individual in the society. It helps in
synchronizing individual human behavior which would be beneficial for everyone. Relationship
between people often change with respect to time across technological advancement, social
rhythms etc.
Dimensions of time orientation
Economicity of time: Should we consider time as scare resource and a tangiblecommodity?
Scheduling of tasks: When people undertake only one task at a time based on pre-decidedschedule, it is treated as Monochronism. This concept is followed by an Agenda society.
When people undertake multiple tasks and are flexible in their meetings, it is treated as
Polychronism. In this case, time is given very less importance relative to context of the
situation.
Temporal orientation:o Towards past: History teaching, preaching, traditions etc. play an important role
in this context. Basic assumption is that seeds are sowed in the past and no plant
can emerge without seeds.
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o Towards present: True reality is taken into consideration and present is acceptedas it is, but it should be beneficial to society.
o Towards future: People mostly envisage and plan for the future. This approach ishaving a pre-defined scope, long term plan for appreciation of achievements in
the society. (lavoiser)
People are mainly nature territorial. They define who is owner of different parts and space. Space
related assumptions that correspond to different cultural orientation are,
Personalization and depersonalization In group orientation Concrete and abstract territoriality Group and individualistic cultures
Model of Cultural dynamics
Within persons Between persons From persons to world
1. Time
3. Concept of
self and others
2. Space
4. Interaction
Models
5. Attitude towards
action
Basic assumptions on the nature of reality
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Interaction Models
The concept Individualism and Collectivism evolves from concept of self and others. There are
countries which are very high on individualism which mostly follow self-sufficiency concept and
are less dependent on family members and society. They will try to use private gardens for
gathering instead of public spaces and do not socialize easily with others. They will portray
hobbies like painting, carpentry, home dcor etc. There are various cultural orientation that exist
in this model like power distance, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, dependence
on others and communication styles.
Culture based attitudes towards action
An action is more about bringing a change in the society. Many times action doesnt help in
problem solving and it is repetitive task and programmed routine. Whether culture tends to
classify speeches, words or not? Life is very complicated in the real world and communication
is a category of act which is having influence on others that makes it action related activity and it
differs across various cultures.
How to relate thinking to action
Effective communication would be difficult if the partners do not share same mental trauma. If
they are not having same mental schemes, then it is very difficult to solve problems. There are
two different aspects relates action,
1. IdeologistsIt uses whole body of ideas which provide them formal description of the globe. In this
framework, every event has to convey some meaning. In this scenario, mostly ideologists
draw out many decisions and make only one final decision out of them. (usunier)
2. PragmatistsIt considers differences in the real world problems. It helps to derive principles
inductively and tries to solve real world problems through it. Pragmatists are not only
involved in making decisions but also implementing them. Most of the decisions are not
just selected but enacted as well.
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Hofstedes cultural dimension depends on Self-reliance/dependence
Hofstedes dimension Influence on self-reliance/dependence
Individualism Increases self-reliance
Power distance Promotes dependence
Masculinity Increases self-reliance
Uncertainty avoidance Promotes dependenceLong term orientation Promotes dependence
Cross cultural consumer behavior
Culture and consumer behavior
Consumer behavior is having very strong components in which cultural variations play an
important role. Consumer behavior is influenced by cultural variations such as,
1. Consumer needs are arranged in a hierarchy. This shows different demand across variousproduct categories.
2. Cultural values like individualists or collectivists have influence on consumer mindsetduring buying decisions and their purchasing behavior.
3. Consumption mostly arises from social roots and is highly influenced by variousinstitutions. (Schiffman)
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Impacts of cultural differences on consumer behavior
Aspects of consumer behavior Impact of cultural differences
Perception Perception changes according to different colors, shapes used
in different cultural rituals.
Age Respect is having different strata according to different age
groups in society
Motivation How consumers are motivated to share, own, show etc.
Learning and Memory Education plays an important role in society which judges
memory of consumer and literacy level matters in the
society.
Sex Role There is sexual division of labor exists in the society and
fixed work set for male and female exist in the society.
Group influence Attitudes, buying behavior, self-actualization and individual
identity play a major impact on consumer behavior.
Purchase Legal issues, influence factors and loyalty of salesman
impacts purchasing decision of consumers.
Decision making Involvement of family happens and compulsory type of
regulation exists in this scenario.
Post purchase How customer thinks about products, whether they complain
and are they satisfied or not?
Attitudes changes Resistance to change, uncertainty avoidance, fatalism and
past orientation etc. comes into picture if customers attitudes
is going to check
Social Class What kind of Social status minded consumers have before
buying any product?
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Investigating the cross-cultural applicability of consumer behavior
Cross cultural lenses are used to filter various elements of consumer behavior. Word of mouth
prevalently helps in transferring knowledge and exchanging information on consumption pattern.
But there are many factors which are related to others, but some are acquainted. One of the
solutions to find out cross culture applicability is to understand the common problem. There are
three ways which help in investigating cross cultural consumer behavior,
1. Consumer dissatisfactionWe can easily investigate consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction through comparison
of antecedent factors, behavioral output and process of dissatisfaction formation.
Constructs tell us about the concept of various dimensions which can be measured. It
identifies five different domain of attitude for complaining,
a) Beliefsb) Perception about the inconvenience or cost involved during registering a complaintc) Perception of retailers attitude towards solving customer problemsd) Effect of consumer complaint on overall benefit of societye) Social appropriateness towards registering consumer complaints
2. Questioning consumer behaviorThere are four different ways through which we will encounter consumer behavior
towards products,
a) Global perspective:It covers whole consumer and theories of universe but misses specific insights of
customers from the market.
b) Imported perspective:This perspective helps in discovery of parity and resistance to change arguments and
it also helps to discover social status of families or groups.
c) Ethnic consumption:It takes universal consumers into consideration but researchers used to target only
small ethnic groups like North American or Europeans etc. (stable)
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d) Cultural meaningIt mostly uses specific theories to different set of consumers. It helps to reveal
symbolic arguments which are used in different aspect of tasks.
3. Radical QuestioningDifferent aspects are required for questioning. Motivation can be used to question
consumer behavior cross nationally. There are various actions used for motivation as,
a) Motivation to ownb) Motivation to consumec) Motivation to buyd) Motivation to savee) Motivation to spendf) Motivation to displayg) Motivation to give
Ethnic Consumption
Ethnic consumption is one of the influential models of adaptation and adjustment process of
migration. This is based on two dimension viz, maintenance of home culture and relationship
with host culture. But these dimension led to four different strategies are as follows,
1. Assimilation: Acquire host culture but not adhering to their home culture.2. Integration: Acquire host culture but maintain home culture3. Separation: Reject host culture but maintain home culture4. Marginalization: Reject both host and home culture
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Examples of cultural influence on consumer behavior
I. Majority of population in India are Hindu and they consider eating beef as a sin. Peoplewould avoid eating at restaurants or food courts where beef is being served. This has
forced large food giants like Mc Donalds to remove products made out of beef from
their offerings in India, which otherwise are very popular in America. This has also led to
introduction of customized products such as Mc Aloo Tikki due to large number of
vegetarian population.
II. Many people coming from conservative families, especially in India think that taking abank loan is a bad thing. Traditional families are afraid of taking loans either for their
personal use or doing some business due to the fear that they might not be able to repay
back the loan. It has been a tradition followed lately where people sell their land or
property to fulfill their monetary requirements. Particularly well off families in rural parts
of India perceive taking loan as a damage to their pride. These are the people who have
traditional mindset and try to source their spending only through savings that they have
done in the past. People also think that they are shedding out huge amount of money by
paying high interests on the loan. Though, the situation has drastically changed in the last
couple of decades, there are still few people with such mindset.
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III. Pension funds and medical insurance are very popular in America compared to India.This is because people in America like to live an independent life in their old age without
depending much on their children. Also, because of very high cost of living and medical
expenses in America, which middle or lower level income people cannot afford.
Therefore, most of them end up enrolling for medical insurance and pension funds inAmerica compared to very minimal percentage in India.
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References
emerald.(n.d.). Retrieved from emerald:
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=856381&show=abstract
lavoiser. (n.d.). Retrieved from lavoiser: http://www.lavoisier.fr/livre/notice.asp?ouvrage=1046064
Schiffman, L. G. (n.d.). Consumer Behaviour. In L. L. Kanuk, Consumer Behaviour(p. 490). Pearson.
stable. (n.d.). Retrieved from stable: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209528
usunier, J. C. (n.d.). Marketing across culture. In J. A. Lee. Pearson.