The cultural environment of India

THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTSamara Siganto

LANGUAGE

Three Most Commonly Spoken Languages:

1. Hindi

2. Urdu

3. Bengali

RELIGION

Hinduism

• India’s population of approximately 900 million people, 700 million are Hindus’(Flood, 1996).

(Shastri, 2012)

CHRISTIANITY

• Based on a deep belief and faith in a greater being, who is referred to as God.

• ‘It is a faith relationship with God that solves the problem of sin [and is believed that] one is delivered from sin by receiving God's grace in Christ’

(Crain, 2013)

BUDDHISM

• Buddhism is a religion to about 300 million people in the world

• Focuses on leading a moral life, whilst being mindful and aware of thoughts and actions and to develop wisdom and understanding (Harvey, 2012)

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

Extended Family and Dynamics

• A normal Indian household will house a large extended family of three or four generations (Hockings, 2013)

• Arranged marriage is a traditional feature of the Indian community

• ‘It is said that a woman must first obey her father, then her husband, and then her son’ (Hockings, 2013)

VALUE SYSTEMS

Caste System

HIGH CONTEXT VS LOW CONTEXT CULTURES

• The ways in which a message is communicated within a society can be divided in to High context or Low context.

• High context culture ‘rests heavily on contextual cues, what is left unsaid is often as important as what is said’

• Low context culture ‘puts more emphasis on the written or spoken word, what is meant is what is said’

HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK

(Dudovskiy, 2014)

RECOMMENDATION

• The religions that are practiced in India do not have restrictions on alcohol usage

• Males will be the main target gender for Stone & Wood

• Thorough communication will have to be maintained by to ensure low context needs are being met

CONCLUSION

• India has great potential as a foreign market for Stone & Wood. However there are aspects of the culture such as its religions, male dominated environment and low context culture that need to be taken into consideration when forming the marketing plan to enter the foreign market. (Dudovskiy, 2014)

REFERENCES