Cultural Influences on Consumption

8/13/2019 Cultural Influences on Consumption

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Cultural influences on consumption

By: Sunil Kumar Gunti (122096)

Sushil Ramteke (122098)


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Table of Contents

Cultural influences on consumption ............................................................................................................. 3

Defining culture ........................................................................................................................................ 3

Sources of Culture ......................................................................................................................................... 4

Cultural Dynamics ......................................................................................................................................... 5

Dimensions of time orientation .................................................................................................................... 5

Model of Cultural dynamics .......................................................................................................................... 6

Interaction Models .................................................................................................................................... 7

Culture based attitudes towards action ....................................................................................................... 7

How to relate thinking to action ................................................................................................................... 7

Hofstedes cultural dimension depends on Self-reliance/dependence ........................................................ 8

Cross cultural consumer behavior ................................................................................................................ 8

Culture and consumer behavior ............................................................................................................... 8

Impacts of cultural differences on consumer behavior ................................................................................ 9

Investigating the cross-cultural applicability of consumer behavior .......................................................... 10

1. Consumer dissatisfaction ................................................................................................................ 10

2. Questioning consumer behavior ..................................................................................................... 10

3. Radical Questioning ........................................................................................................................ 11

Ethnic Consumption .................................................................................................................................... 11

Examples of cultural influence on consumer behavior .............................................................................. 12

References .................................................................................................................................................. 15


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Cultural influences on consumption

Defining culture

Culture is the outcome of learning which we get from our parents, friends and society. People

share this learning and transmit to other members of the society which itself forms behavioral set

that we call as culture. Culture comprises of many internal and external elements,

1. Language2. Institutions3. Material Production4. Symbolic Production

Culture mostly forms by interworking of above mentioned elements which provides knowledge

that shows direction to members of our society to lead normal life. Language is one of the most

important aspects of culture and is formed of emotions, words etc. It helps in achieving timely

behavior and establishes communication between two individuals. Language can establish

positive and negative impact in the society. It depends how an individual uses it in his or her life.

Institutions include family, relatives, political family or any kind of social organization which

teaches individual to behave properly in the society and abide by rules and regulations.

Institutions act as a spine of culture, many of the rules are not same and they change when

something else changes for the welfare of the society. (emerald)

Use of symbols is very often in societies, communities and religion. It was a major source of

communication in traditional days but not anymore. Symbolic representation varies across

countries and has a huge impact if not used properly. Some countries use symbolic

representation in religious activities and hence they are perceived as sacred. Societal outcomeshelp in improving through past learning. This would eventually help the society to evolve in a

positive direction.


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Sources of Culture

Source of culture can be relevant to different segments that exist in our society. If we take the

example of different states in India, we come to a conclusion that every state is having similar

features, ethnical parity in terms of rituals, mode of communication etc. Language is the

differentiating factor and becomes a backbone of their identity. Similarly, we can relate things in

other countries and continents. There are different streams of education like agriculture, biology,

physics, engineering and management studies. People who are in a particular stream have

functional equality within that group and differ with other groups. Area of interest, job variation,

nature and mindset will be totally different from one group to the other.

There are various religions that exist all over the world and peoplesway of preaching towards

god also varies with respect to the religion. People following similar religion form ethnical parity

Corporate Culture

Social Class

Sex

Family Religion

Group (ethnicity)

Profession

Education

Nationality

Languages

Sources of culture


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and they have same philosophy and perform similar rituals. Sex and corporate culture are certain

parameters people think differently when assigning highly stressful or highly confidential work

to women. Companies generally do not prefer women in manufacturing, civil, electrical fields,

because they think that they are not capable enough to do it. Therefore, people who have similar

ideology related to women form one group which becomes culture in the future.

Cultural Dynamics

Basic assumptions of culture are in three major areas,

1. Time2. Space3. Concept of self and others

Time has a very strong influence on the functioning of any individual in the society. It helps in

synchronizing individual human behavior which would be beneficial for everyone. Relationship

between people often change with respect to time across technological advancement, social

rhythms etc.

Dimensions of time orientation

Economicity of time: Should we consider time as scare resource and a tangiblecommodity?

Scheduling of tasks: When people undertake only one task at a time based on pre-decidedschedule, it is treated as Monochronism. This concept is followed by an Agenda society.

When people undertake multiple tasks and are flexible in their meetings, it is treated as

Polychronism. In this case, time is given very less importance relative to context of the

situation.

Temporal orientation:o Towards past: History teaching, preaching, traditions etc. play an important role

in this context. Basic assumption is that seeds are sowed in the past and no plant

can emerge without seeds.


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o Towards present: True reality is taken into consideration and present is acceptedas it is, but it should be beneficial to society.

o Towards future: People mostly envisage and plan for the future. This approach ishaving a pre-defined scope, long term plan for appreciation of achievements in

the society. (lavoiser)

People are mainly nature territorial. They define who is owner of different parts and space. Space

related assumptions that correspond to different cultural orientation are,

Personalization and depersonalization In group orientation Concrete and abstract territoriality Group and individualistic cultures

Model of Cultural dynamics

Within persons Between persons From persons to world

1. Time

3. Concept of

self and others

2. Space

4. Interaction

Models

5. Attitude towards

action

Basic assumptions on the nature of reality


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Interaction Models

The concept Individualism and Collectivism evolves from concept of self and others. There are

countries which are very high on individualism which mostly follow self-sufficiency concept and

are less dependent on family members and society. They will try to use private gardens for

gathering instead of public spaces and do not socialize easily with others. They will portray

hobbies like painting, carpentry, home dcor etc. There are various cultural orientation that exist

in this model like power distance, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, dependence

on others and communication styles.

Culture based attitudes towards action

An action is more about bringing a change in the society. Many times action doesnt help in

problem solving and it is repetitive task and programmed routine. Whether culture tends to

classify speeches, words or not? Life is very complicated in the real world and communication

is a category of act which is having influence on others that makes it action related activity and it

differs across various cultures.

How to relate thinking to action

Effective communication would be difficult if the partners do not share same mental trauma. If

they are not having same mental schemes, then it is very difficult to solve problems. There are

two different aspects relates action,

1. IdeologistsIt uses whole body of ideas which provide them formal description of the globe. In this

framework, every event has to convey some meaning. In this scenario, mostly ideologists

draw out many decisions and make only one final decision out of them. (usunier)

2. PragmatistsIt considers differences in the real world problems. It helps to derive principles

inductively and tries to solve real world problems through it. Pragmatists are not only

involved in making decisions but also implementing them. Most of the decisions are not

just selected but enacted as well.


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Hofstedes cultural dimension depends on Self-reliance/dependence

Hofstedes dimension Influence on self-reliance/dependence

Individualism Increases self-reliance

Power distance Promotes dependence

Masculinity Increases self-reliance

Uncertainty avoidance Promotes dependenceLong term orientation Promotes dependence

Cross cultural consumer behavior

Culture and consumer behavior

Consumer behavior is having very strong components in which cultural variations play an

important role. Consumer behavior is influenced by cultural variations such as,

1. Consumer needs are arranged in a hierarchy. This shows different demand across variousproduct categories.

2. Cultural values like individualists or collectivists have influence on consumer mindsetduring buying decisions and their purchasing behavior.

3. Consumption mostly arises from social roots and is highly influenced by variousinstitutions. (Schiffman)


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Impacts of cultural differences on consumer behavior

Aspects of consumer behavior Impact of cultural differences

Perception Perception changes according to different colors, shapes used

in different cultural rituals.

Age Respect is having different strata according to different age

groups in society

Motivation How consumers are motivated to share, own, show etc.

Learning and Memory Education plays an important role in society which judges

memory of consumer and literacy level matters in the

society.

Sex Role There is sexual division of labor exists in the society and

fixed work set for male and female exist in the society.

Group influence Attitudes, buying behavior, self-actualization and individual

identity play a major impact on consumer behavior.

Purchase Legal issues, influence factors and loyalty of salesman

impacts purchasing decision of consumers.

Decision making Involvement of family happens and compulsory type of

regulation exists in this scenario.

Post purchase How customer thinks about products, whether they complain

and are they satisfied or not?

Attitudes changes Resistance to change, uncertainty avoidance, fatalism and

past orientation etc. comes into picture if customers attitudes

is going to check

Social Class What kind of Social status minded consumers have before

buying any product?


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Investigating the cross-cultural applicability of consumer behavior

Cross cultural lenses are used to filter various elements of consumer behavior. Word of mouth

prevalently helps in transferring knowledge and exchanging information on consumption pattern.

But there are many factors which are related to others, but some are acquainted. One of the

solutions to find out cross culture applicability is to understand the common problem. There are

three ways which help in investigating cross cultural consumer behavior,

1. Consumer dissatisfactionWe can easily investigate consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction through comparison

of antecedent factors, behavioral output and process of dissatisfaction formation.

Constructs tell us about the concept of various dimensions which can be measured. It

identifies five different domain of attitude for complaining,

a) Beliefsb) Perception about the inconvenience or cost involved during registering a complaintc) Perception of retailers attitude towards solving customer problemsd) Effect of consumer complaint on overall benefit of societye) Social appropriateness towards registering consumer complaints

2. Questioning consumer behaviorThere are four different ways through which we will encounter consumer behavior

towards products,

a) Global perspective:It covers whole consumer and theories of universe but misses specific insights of

customers from the market.

b) Imported perspective:This perspective helps in discovery of parity and resistance to change arguments and

it also helps to discover social status of families or groups.

c) Ethnic consumption:It takes universal consumers into consideration but researchers used to target only

small ethnic groups like North American or Europeans etc. (stable)


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d) Cultural meaningIt mostly uses specific theories to different set of consumers. It helps to reveal

symbolic arguments which are used in different aspect of tasks.

3. Radical QuestioningDifferent aspects are required for questioning. Motivation can be used to question

consumer behavior cross nationally. There are various actions used for motivation as,

a) Motivation to ownb) Motivation to consumec) Motivation to buyd) Motivation to savee) Motivation to spendf) Motivation to displayg) Motivation to give

Ethnic Consumption

Ethnic consumption is one of the influential models of adaptation and adjustment process of

migration. This is based on two dimension viz, maintenance of home culture and relationship

with host culture. But these dimension led to four different strategies are as follows,

1. Assimilation: Acquire host culture but not adhering to their home culture.2. Integration: Acquire host culture but maintain home culture3. Separation: Reject host culture but maintain home culture4. Marginalization: Reject both host and home culture


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Examples of cultural influence on consumer behavior

I. Majority of population in India are Hindu and they consider eating beef as a sin. Peoplewould avoid eating at restaurants or food courts where beef is being served. This has

forced large food giants like Mc Donalds to remove products made out of beef from

their offerings in India, which otherwise are very popular in America. This has also led to

introduction of customized products such as Mc Aloo Tikki due to large number of

vegetarian population.

II. Many people coming from conservative families, especially in India think that taking abank loan is a bad thing. Traditional families are afraid of taking loans either for their

personal use or doing some business due to the fear that they might not be able to repay

back the loan. It has been a tradition followed lately where people sell their land or

property to fulfill their monetary requirements. Particularly well off families in rural parts

of India perceive taking loan as a damage to their pride. These are the people who have

traditional mindset and try to source their spending only through savings that they have

done in the past. People also think that they are shedding out huge amount of money by

paying high interests on the loan. Though, the situation has drastically changed in the last

couple of decades, there are still few people with such mindset.


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III. Pension funds and medical insurance are very popular in America compared to India.This is because people in America like to live an independent life in their old age without

depending much on their children. Also, because of very high cost of living and medical

expenses in America, which middle or lower level income people cannot afford.

Therefore, most of them end up enrolling for medical insurance and pension funds inAmerica compared to very minimal percentage in India.


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References

emerald.(n.d.). Retrieved from emerald:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=856381&show=abstract

lavoiser. (n.d.). Retrieved from lavoiser: http://www.lavoisier.fr/livre/notice.asp?ouvrage=1046064

Schiffman, L. G. (n.d.). Consumer Behaviour. In L. L. Kanuk, Consumer Behaviour(p. 490). Pearson.

stable. (n.d.). Retrieved from stable: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209528

usunier, J. C. (n.d.). Marketing across culture. In J. A. Lee. Pearson.

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Cultural Influences on Consumption