GMS 522 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: High-Context And Low-Context Cultures, Cultural Literacy, Individualism

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Global Management Studies
• Course: GMS 522
• Professor: Helene Moore

Document Summary

Marketers must understand what drives consumer behaviour in different markets. Cultural literacy means the marketer has acquired enough detailed knowledge of the culture of a target market to be able to function effectively. Cultural understanding allows marketers to determine when adaptation is necessary and when commonalities allow for regional or global approaches. Understanding culture is critical not only in terms of getting strategies right but also for ensuring that implementation by local operations is effective. Culture is an integrated system of learned behaviour patterns that are distinguishing characteristics of the members of any given society. High context culture: context is at least as important as spoken words (japan) Low context culture: most information is contained explicitly in the words (canada) Language capability serves four distinct roles in global marketing: Company communications (including communication with channel members) Extends beyond mechanics to the interpretation of contexts. Marketers must learn and familiarize themselves with the hidden language of foreign cultures.