Business management and city management toward foreign cultures

Throughout this article I will compare businesses adaptation to foreign cultures with global cities adaptation to foreigners.

It is after reading the article “Marketer acculturation: The changer and the changed” written by Lisa Peñaloza & Mary C. Gilly, that I decided to compare the subject studied in this article with this blog theme. To introduce the notion of acculturation, the concept of globalization is first mentioned, followed by a small analysis of the article and how it is related to this blog topic: Should global cities adapt to foreigners and how?

The World is facing an increasing phenomenon since the late 19th century, called “globalization”. Globalization implies the opening of every national economy on a market that became worldwide. It suggests that countries are becoming more and more interconnected and interdependent. This phenomenon is being developed by free trade agreements and economic interdependence, delocalization, the evolution of transportation and communication means, etc.

In view of this orientation, the World’s major cities are welcoming more and more foreigners. Given this, adjustments within metropolises seem to be required to facilitate the integration of immigrants and expatriates as well as to attract tourists. Globalization led to multicultural market juxtapositions that cities have to face adapting to other cultures*.

The notion of acculturation is one of the consequences of globalization. Before going further into the subject, defining this term seems necessary. The authors Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits (1936, p.149) explain the concept of acculturation as the following: “acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups”. Acculturation is, of course, accentuated by the market forces of immigration, international trade and tourism.

In the article “Marketer Acculturation: The Changer and the Changed”, the authors studied how retail stores owners, called “marketers” in the text, adapt their products, services and stores to a dominant Latino population in southern states of the United-States. As this blog theme, adaptation to other cultures is the main topic in this paper. Adapt to customers and the changing marketplace is really important in marketing, that is why, in this precise example, marketers “learned and translated language and cultural customs and developed adaptation strategies to work effectively with consumers and other acculturation agents”. “Marketer acculturation is initiated whenever a marketer approaches a culturally distinct group of consumers and consists of the learning and adaptation processes employed in the formulation of appropriate marketing strategies” (Peñaloza, L. & Gilly, M.C., 1999).

In this article are described adaptation strategies for marketers to accommodate their customers. Even though, by going into those stores adapted to their needs, immigrants feel respected and understood, this paper points out that accommodation can have negative effects on immigrants’ integration within the local culture. The term “assimilation”, used in the article, “refers to marketers’ efforts to alter their customers’ behaviors to bring them more into line with the [local] market system.” Which means, in this specific example, that, by providing information on the local market customs, marketers helped Mexican customers adapt to an unknown system.

This is where this article is in accordance with this blog topic. In order to be attractive and to make foreigners feel respected and understood, global cities should adjust their facilities to make the local culture accessible for anybody. As pointed out Raúl Martinez, the manager of a Discount department store interviewed for the purpose of the study, even though some people don’t speak the local language, they want to be treated with respect. He also specified that some foreigners are afraid or feel inferior when they go into malls or stores because nobody speaks their language.

As retailers from this paper, to avoid this feeling, cities can make adjustments in establishments, touristic places, transport, etc. to adapt to foreigners. What is really important to understand is that the purpose of those adjustments is to help foreigners assimilate the local culture but not make them feel like home. In any cases those adjustments should hinder the local culture. Some opponents of globalization often associate this notion with the concept of Americanization which evokes that cultures gradually get closer to the American one causing the extinction of some cultural habits and customs and threating national sovereignty and cultural diversity.

To facilitate foreigners assimilate a new culture, it first needs to be accessible, that is why making information understandable is important. Through this article, the main recurrent element is language. Several retailers interviewed along the study mentioned the fact that they learned their customers’ native language or hire someone who knew it. In order to communicate, receive and share information, the use of a common language is necessary and extremely important.

Let’s take an example quoted in the article, where Lian Ming, a shop owner in the south of the U.S. where customers are mainly Latinos, explains the importance of speaking Spanish to communicate directly with her clients. Language is critical to build cultural rapport as well as strong and closer relationships.

A major city (and what compose it) is a place considered as a cultural agent for locals and foreigners living in it. The purpose of making adjustment to facilitate foreigners’ adaptation is that cities pass their cultural values onto foreigners through making it accessible, helping them assimilate into the local market.

In this blog article, we compare the management of a city with the management of a business. Businesses adapt their products/services to the selected target so it fits customers’ needs. If they want to satisfy their inhabitants and at the same time attract tourists and foreigners, cities have to protect their own local culture but make it accessible and welcoming to foreigners.

This paper explains that in accommodating foreign customers, marketers were changed by them and at the same time customers changed their consumption habits in assimilating the local culture. Thus, marketers and consumers simultaneously were “the changers and the changed”. The similarity with this blog subject is that cities have to change to adjust to foreigners and foreigners have to change to assimilate the local culture. As in the paper, both cities and immigrants are simultaneously “the changer and the changed”. The difference here is that, as explained above, by making those adjustments, cities should not damage the local culture or replace it at some levels.

*Culture: the shared meanings, practices, and symbols that constitute the human world. (Peñaloza, L. & Gilly, M.C., 1999).

References:

Peñaloza, L. & Gilly, M. C. Journal of Marketing, July 1999. Marketer acculturation: The changer and the changed.

Redfield, R., Linton, R., & Herskovits, M. (1936). Memorandum on the study of acculturation. American Anthropologist. 38. p.149-152.

How state policies can influence on the attractiveness of their country abroad?

In the previous article called “About the theme of this blog…”, the concepts of segregation, integration and assimilation have been mentioned. Those three notions are acculturation orientations which individuals are subject to when living in a foreign country and being confronted to a different culture. 
In the following article we will develop more about acculturation orientations analyzing the two different models: Gordon’s unidimensional assimilation model and Berry’s bidimentional model of acculturation.

Once the different acculturation orientations explained we see how they can be the consequences of states policies and have an influence on the country’s attractiveness for foreigners to live in.

This is where this article is in accordance this blog topic: Should global cities adapt to foreigners? And what are the consequences of these adjustments on the attractiveness of the city for tourists and immigrants?

Anthropologists describe acculturation as “the process of bidirectional change that takes place when two ethnocultural groups come into contact with one another” (Bourhis, Moïse, Perrault, Senécal, 1997).

In opposition to Gordon’s unidimensional assimilation model (Gordon, 1964), Berry (Berry, 1980) developed a bidimentional model of acculturation. The distinction between the two theories is that the unidimensional assimilation model suggests a single directional change process in which immigrants assimilate the local culture at the cost of losing their own whereas the bidimentional models consider that heritage and host culture have to be assessed separately and be presented “as independent dimensions rather than as extreme points of a single bipolar continuum” (Bourhis, Moïse, Perrault, Senécal, 1997).

To illustrate Gordon’s theory, we sketched it as below:

Whereas, Berry’s bidimensional acculturation model is represented as the table below:

According to this model, integration is an acculturation orientation where immigrants both maintain their own cultural identity and adopt the local one. On the opposite, marginalization happens when neither the heritage culture nor the host one is taken on by an individual.

Assimilation is present when the immigrant entirely takes over the local cultural identity, losing its birth one, whereas separation occurs when the individual maintain its cultural identity and do not adopt the host culture.

Bourhis et al. developed Berry’s model into the interactive acculturation model (IAM). The significant difference between the previous two acculturation models is that the IAM involves the reaction of the host population towards immigrants because locals are also changed by the presence of culturally distinctive individuals (Taft, 1953).

That is why a second table is part of this theory, where this time the questions (“Is it considered to be value to maintain cultural identity and characteristics [dimension 1]/to maintain relationship with other groups [dimension 2]?”) about the two dimensions are asked to locals and not immigrants:

According to this model, integration is an orientation that implies that the host community values a stable biculturalism amongst immigrant group. Assimilation suggests that over time, locals will consider immigrants as members of the host community in their own right. The segregation orientation means that the host community does not wish to integrate immigrants or establish cross-cultural contacts. Locals would be in favor of keeping separate the different communities. Exclusionist orientation happens when the host community denies immigrants’ freedom to maintain their own cultural identity or to adopt the local one. It is usually against immigration and would be in favor for it to stop.

The individualist orientation is not in favor of maintaining nor adopting the heritage or host cultural identity since members of this orientation define themselves as individuals rather than as part of a group. To individualists, personal characteristics prevail over cultural identity. According to them, the success of their acculturation won’t be related to those two dimensions.

The next part of the interactive acculturation model suggests that depending on the immigrant and host community acculturation orientations, conflicting situations may happen.

The article “Towards an interactive acculturation model: a social psychological approach” (Bourhis, Moïse, Perrault, Senécal, 1997) tries to demonstrate the role, institutional policies have in foreigners’ acculturation. This responsibility is very important as it has implications on individuals’ acculturation orientations and therefor on the harmony of the society.

The diagram below retrieved from the article illustrates the relations between state integration and immigration policies, acculturation orientations and relational outcomes within the society:

“State immigration and integration policies as they relate to the acculturation orientations of immigrants’ community members and dominant host majority members” (Bourhis, Moïse, Perrault, Senécal, 1997).

What is most interesting to us, relatively to this blog’s main topic, are the implications of state integration policies on individuals’ acculturation orientations. Those policies “consist of approaches and measure adopted by state agencies to help immigrants integrate within the host society [… and] foster host community acceptance of immigrants” (Bourhis, Moïse, Perrault, Senécal, 1997).

This blog is trying to identify how global cities adapt to foreign cultures and make their environment welcoming in order to attract or retain foreigners. The article analyzed above and below show that institutional policies and accommodations put it place do influence the acculturation of individuals which will have an impact on the attractiveness of some cities for tourists, expatriates and immigrants.

As we can see on the illustration above, state integration policies have been split into 4 categories: pluralism ideology, civic ideology, assimilation ideology, republican ideology and ethnist ideology.

Those 5 ideologies share a fundamental premise: the modern state expects immigrant to adopt public values of the host country (commitment to democratic ideals, adherence to the Civil and Criminal code, adherence to values expressed in Human Rights Charters and Constitution of the state).

The pluralism ideology supports the idea that the state cannot control or rule individuals’ private values (language, cultural activities, religion, freedom of association in politics, economics and leisure). The citizens’ personal freedom is highly respected in a pluralist nation. A state adopting this ideology will provide both financial and social support to minority communities and immigrants.

The distinction between the pluralism ideology and the civic ideology is that the state won’t intervene in financing or promoting private values of specific groups of individuals, even though the collective organization to preserve or promote cultural distinctiveness is allowed and respected.

In opposition to the pluralism and civic ideologies, the assimilation ideology upholds the fact that the state can interfere with some private values of individuals. Immigrants living in nation with assimilation ideology are expected to adopt the cultural values of the dominant community abandoning their own ones. States sometimes limit manifestations of immigrant cultural distinctiveness.

The republican ideology is close to the assimilation ideology. It is in favor of the “universal man” where cultural distinctions have to be eliminated. Ethnolinguistic dissimilarities have to be “leveled-out” for citizens to be treated equally.

The main difference about the ethnist ideology with all the others discussed above is that, usually, it choses who can be part of the dominant community. In some country, origins and “blood” are the main criteria, “only members of selected “racial” groups can gain full legal status as citizens of the state” (Bourhis, Moïse, Perrault, Senécal, 1997).

Pluralism and civic ideologies tend to orientate towards integration and therefor harmony among immigrants and host communities whereas the ethnist ideology would lean towards separation and segregation orientations which could lead to a conflict and problematic situation.

The illustration below summaries how state policies are related cultural issues and the attractiveness of the country for foreigners.

What can be learned from this analysis is that in order to be attractive and retain foreigners in a country a consensual situation has to be reached rather than a problematic one.

Consensus is more likely to occur if integration or assimilation orientations are adopted by both foreigners and locals.

Considering the theories and analysis above, pluralism and civic ideologies adopted by states will tend to move toward consensus and harmony among the community.

Cities managers should take into account the influence state policies have on acculturation orientation of foreigners and locals and their implications on the attractiveness of the country abroad. 

References:

Berry, J. W. 1980. Acculturation as varieties of adaptation.

 

Bourhis, R. Y., Moïse, L. C., Perrault, S., Senécal, S. 1997. Towards an interactive acculturation model: a social psychological approach.

 

Gordon, M. M. 1964. Assimilation in American life.

Ngo, V. H. 2008. A critical examination of acculturation theories.

Retrieved from: http://www1.uwindsor.ca/criticalsocialwork/a-critical-examination-of-acculturation-theories

 

Taft, R. 1953. The shared frame of reference concept applied to the assimilation of immigrants.

Seoul's supermakets

After analysing restaurants, public transportation, touristic spots and universities we are going to take a look at supermarkets established in the city of Seoul.

The 4 main supermarkets present in the city are: Lotte Mart, E-Mart, HomePlus and Costco.

Supermarkets mostly affect foreigners living in Seoul for a long period as tourists generally don’t go grocery shopping and go eat in restaurants. Nevertheless, it remains an important place for everyday day life. Besides consumption is considered as a strong cultural element. According to the authors Martyn J. Lee and Grant McCracken: “Culture is recognized as a general influence on consumption; it is constituted and expressed in the consumption of countless products and services.” (Peñaloza, L. & Gilly, M.C., 1999).

After reading the article of Lisa Peñazola and Martin C. Gilly, “Marketer acculturation: the changer and the changed”, I decided that would be considered, for this analysis, the following elements: opening hours, methods of payment, names of the supermarkets, signs and display, sales support service as well as websites and information lines.

Opening hours:

Opening hours are wide, some supermarkets are open 24 hours a day while most of them are open from 10:00 am till midnight. A few of them are closed on Sunday (usually 2 Sundays a month).

Websites & Information lines:

The information lines offered by the four main supermarket chains present in Seoul are all available in English, Chinese and Japanese. (Korea Be Inspired, 2012).

Both E-Mart and Lotte Mart’s websites are also available in those three languages (other than Korean), but HomePlus’ one doesn’t seem to offer that possibility. On its side, Costco’s website is only available in Korean and English.

Names:

As you can see on the logos below, Supermarkets in Korea all possess an English name written with the Roman alphabet. Those names are easy to pronounce for Korean and English speakers.

Signs and display:

Overhanging shelves full of products, signs informing about promotions and products have a strong presence in supermarkets. In Seoul, most of them are written in Korean but numbers and percentages written using Arabic numerical system can be understood by everyone.

Some basic words such as: open, close, on, off, event, sale, etc. are sometimes used and written in English. I would, however, consider this phenomenon as linked to the fact that some English words are becoming more and more part of the informal language in some countries rather than to the willingness of supermarkets to adapt to foreigners.

The customer service and tax free service desks are usually indicated in English and sometimes in Chinese and Japanese.

Methods of payment:

As in most stores in the World, supermarkets in Seoul accept cash (only Korean Won) and credit cards. Nevertheless, some credit card types such as Visa may not be accepted in every shop.

Of course those supermarkets are part of famous chains that are quite well implemented in Korea. Seoul possesses a few stores and online services whose targets are foreigners. For example, High Street market is a shop located in Itaewon (district of Seoul popular for its high concentration of foreign residents) that offers imported Western goods. Products available are mainly from the US, Canada and the UK as most of their packaging are in English. The staff speaks English and sometimes others languages. The shop owns a website entirely written in English.

In the same thought, the website Fatbag is an Internet superstore for foreigners in Korea. It also sells imported Western products and even IKEA items. The website offers a certain amount of products coming from North American countries, Latin America, Europe, South Africa and Asia; the widest choice of products being those coming from North America. Payment can be made via credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) or Paypal, WireTransfer, etc.

The website is available in English and prices of products can even been shown in dollar (instead of Won).

Those real and online stores are really useful for foreigners that are having trouble getting used to Korean food. Unfortunately, physical stores are spread enough the city for everybody to have one next to home and some people do not feel comfortable shopping online.

As we had noticed through this analysis, supermarkets are making some effort to attract foreigners in their stores thanks to their website, information line and wide opening hours but once in the store foreigners to face Korean signs and products. Indeed for people that can’t read Korean and unfamiliar with Asian products, it takes a little time strolling through shelves recognising and trying to guess what products are.

Of course supermarkets have the same objective than any other business: be profitable. To make money, the number one marketing rule is: identify your customers and adapt your products/services to your target. Supermarkets’ main target being people that live nearby their shop, most of those individuals in the South Korean capital are usually locals; which is why few adaptation to foreigners has been noticed.

References:

Lee, M. J. 1993. Consumer culture reborn: the cultural politics of consumption.

Korea Be Inspired. 2012. Travel highlights.

Retrieved from: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=682553

McCracken, G. 1988. Culture and consumption: new approaches to the symbolic character of consumer goods and activities.

Peñaloza, L. & Gilly, M. C. Journal of Marketing, July 1999. Marketer acculturation: The changer and the changed.