Cultural studies on international marketing for multinational companies

A countrys culture has long been identified as key environmental characteristic underlying systematic differences in behaviour. Cultural norms and beliefs are powerful forces shaping people’s perceptions, dispositions, and behaviours (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Culture is reflected in “general tendencies of persistent preference for particular states of affairs over others, persistent preferences for specific social processes over others, and general rules for selective attention, interpretation of environmental cues, and responses” (Tse et al., 1988, p. 82).International culture has become the most important for all the companies and it’s a challenge for all the marketers to develop and international marketing strategy to capture the mindset of the people in the following country that they going to market their products also there several issues related to marketing in foreign country those factors make constraints to the marketing plan, the culture is the most important factor to be considered in the international market. Subsidiaries are tending to be the most important business body for a multinational company. Furthermore subsidiaries are considered to be valuable strategic vehicles for multinational corporations, their specific role within the multinational companies have increasingly attracted attention of researchers. Subsidiary may be established to explore new markets, identify opportunities or garner commitments for the resources necessary to tap a local markets (Birkinshaw p..01, 2005), Although subsidiaries are considered to be a tool to explore new markets it has to have a well developed brand strategy to capture the local market in the hosting country, these bradns should focus on the host countries culture adn delever its brand according to that. ” as mutinational companies expand globally and enter foreign markets, ethical conduct of officers and employees assume added importance since very cultural diversity associated with the expansion may undermine the much shared cultural and ethical values observable in the mores homogenoues organization”(Madhavi, 2001).This approach mutinational companies when entering new markets, several researches had been done accordance with the subsidiary and the mutinational companies marketing strategy but this particular topic will analyse deeply into cultural affects rather than looking the problem has a whole, as a result this mainly studies the effect of culture on subsidiaries of mutinational companies in the global market.in addition this study will analyse the importance given or respect given by the mutinational corportion to the local market of where the company is going to operate.

Research and objective

The research is based on the cultural impact on international marketing on multinational companies. Culture is an important factor when trading internationally, the effect arises for the multinational companies in globalization. When entering an international market the research concerns towards the factors that going to effect when marketing internationally these are the following objectives

To Identify how the culture of the host country will affect the international marketing

To identify the importance given by multinational companies to the hosting countries culture.

To give recommendations to the multinational companies based on the research

Research Questions

Problem Statement

How do international marketers challenge themselves against the host country’s culture?

The main research questions was derived from the impact of culture and how it varies according to the business operations because several Multinational companies having incorporating several countries each and every company has to different cultural values in the overseas market, as a result the questions was developed how the companies adhere to the culture. Even though if they value the culture this will enable how they reflect that through their marketing communication or vice versa haven’t they identified the factors and adjusted according to it.

Background of the study

This project is mainly done to identify the effect of culture on MNC subsidiaries branding. This study will explain the cultural factors that affect MNC subsidiaries in the host country. This study is mainly implication for studying how much the MNC value its host countries culture. Benefit of this significant study is to evaluate the advantage of this particular research. This study narrowly focuses on the cultural factors host country, because several organizations fails to identify the importance of the host countries cultural values therefore this would be great advantage to study about the different cultural background and analyze its when marketing internationally.

This will be beneficial for the MNC manager when it comes to decision making on international market and because they have the opportunity to identify there are some critical factors need to taken into consideration when marketing internationally.

Literature Review

Importance of culture

According to (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1989).Cultural differences constitute an important barrier to foreign-market entry, as managers’ perceptions are also influenced by their cultural beliefs. In that case the multinational companies should study the cultural impact of a country before entering to the local market, also if the company also need to give respect and importance for the countries cultural values. Recent findings suggest that the effects of culture distance can be mitigated through experiential learning about a market close to a target country. Although the world economy has become increasingly integrated, cross-country or cross-cultural differences still remain. International marketing researchers have observed that national distinctions, such as consumer preferences, marketing environments, and infrastructures, can be harmful to the application of existing marketing skills in foreign lands, and will slow down a firm’ space of entering a new market (Whitelock and Pimblett, 1997). Its exact to measurable definition is allowed to differ across national perspectives because different culture holds different values and perceptions.

Research methodology

Research Approach

The approach that has been proposed for this study is of potential of steel business. The approach is a better choice to especially when taking into consideration the nature of the research. The structures of this study it to analyze the factors that affect the economic growth and forecast the demand.

Research Strategy

The research strategy is mainly compromised survey based strategy. This is because the availability of resources and limited time to conduct the research. Therefore survey based strategy will be conducted to enhance the study.

4.1.3 Time Horizon

The time horizon ended to conduct this research will be discussed here. The total time allocated to conducting the study is allocated 33 weeks which includes 14 week of research proposal. The Gantt chart is attached to Appendix 2

4.1.4 Sampling

A sample will be taken considering the steel import and organization that uses the most amount of steel product for their purpose. The sample is taken as to the limited time and resources allocated for the study. The main sample would the importers and the building constructors.

Research Methodology

According to the research topic the MNC’s were HSBC, CocaCola, & Mcdonalds, the reason for choosing these companies because these 3 companies functions in different streams and different cultural factors would affects its functions, due that reason I’ve chosen the following companies. The primary sources for this research would gather through a questionnaire which will be emailed to the following representatives’ in that following companies working overseas. Secondly, the literature review part which is the important part of a research most of the data is collected from the journal articles.

Research models

The research methodology for the following topic will be a case study approach because in past several researched had been identified the links between the MNC and cultural factors therefore this study identifies the values that have given by the MNC for the overseas market. Therefore the proposed approach would a case study approach of the following research topic where this topic would b quantitative research.

Timetable

Topic Approval

3 days

Oct 20

Oct 23

Carry out survey

5 days

Oct 23

0ct 28

Get updated information

5 days

Oct 28

Nov 2

Literature review

Throughout

Oct 20

Jan 14

Methodology

2 days

Nov 15

Nov 17

Research findings

4 weeks

Dec 8

Jan 8

Compiling

3 days

Jan 8

Jan 10

Documenting

2 days

Jan 11

Jan 13

Conclusion

this research was analyzed and derived from several journal articles and though there were research done to the similar topic, this has been differentiated into a different stream where this research focuses only the cultural aspects of all the multinational companies operating overseas in accordance with that literature review has been done, then the methodology had been clearly explained they way that the research is going to carried out in order to gather the primary sources, after that the research model have been explained which would be an case study approach which will a qualitative approach to give a clear idea for managers what are the challenges that they need look at into the international market when entering it, also the time frame had been included to show how much time would the proposed research would take for its completions

And lastly I hope that this project will a feasible research topic for the next generation managers who trying to invest in foreign market and this would be an ideal subject matter for them.