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.