Page 446 - Cultures and Organizations

Intercultural Encounters 411

From the cultural indexes, UAI and MAS resist convergence most:
UAI is mostly, and MAS entirely, independent of wealth and therefore
unaffected by it. Uncertainty avoidance stands for differences in the
need for purity and for expert knowledge; masculinity versus feminin-
ity “explains differences in the need for success as a component of status,
resulting in a varying appeal of status products across countries. It also
explains the roles of males and females in buying and in family decision
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making.” Such differences are often overlooked by globally oriented mar-
keteers who assume their own cultural choices on these dimensions to be
universal.
The literature on advertising in the 1990s has increasingly stressed
the need for cultural differentiation. On the basis of more than 3,400 TV
commercials from eleven countries, de Mooij identifi ed specifi c advertising
styles for countries, linked to cultural themes. For example, single-person
pictures are rare in collectivist cultures (if nobody wants to join this per-
son, the product must be bad!). Discussions between mothers and daugh-
ters are a theme in TV spots in both large- and small-power-distance
cultures, but where PDI is high, mothers advise daughters, and where it is
low, daughters advise mothers. 30
The same global brand may appeal to different cultural themes in
different countries. Advertising, and television advertising in particular,
is directed at the inner motivation of prospective buyers. TV commercials
can be seen as modern equivalents of the myths and fairy tales of previous
generations, told and retold because they harmonize with the software in
people’s minds—and in spite of Professor Levitt’s prediction, these minds
have not been and will not be globalized. 31
Migrant communities have created their own markets across the
world, notably in the food industry. Food has strong symbolic links with

traditions and with group identity, and migrants—especially those from
collectivistic, uncertainty- avoiding cultures—like to retain these links.

Further cultural differentiation, even in firms with globalized market-
ing approaches, is provided by the intermediate role of local sales forces
who translate (sometimes literally) the marketing message to the local
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customers. For example, the degree of directness a salesperson can use
is highly culturally dependent. Ways of management and compensation of
sales forces should be based on cultural values (theirs and the customers’)
and on characteristics of the industry. Conceptions of business ethics for
salespersons vary strongly from one culture to another; they are a direct
operationalization of some of the values involved in the culture indexes.