Culture and International Marketing: A Sub-Saharan African Context

ABSTRACT

The authors review and extend the culture literature in international marketing by discussing some of the cultural underpinnings pertaining to the sub-Saharan African context. With the use of inductive reasoning, the authors offer several key normative suggestions for international marketing practices. Marketers should focus not only on the end user but also on those who significantly influence the final decision. Sub-Saharan African culture is characterized by long, drawn-out negotiation processes and by contracts and overall sales targets that likely will be dissimilar to those from countries with a linear view of time. Age is relevant when selecting people for negotiation assignments and hiring sales and managerial staff. Because of the importance of “respect,” messages should focus on an individual's need for belongingness rather than on the individual striving for achievement. The authors advocate that advertising appeals should focus on the society and on the individual as a member of the society and not on individual self-enhancement. Context and nonverbal communications are important in personal selling. It is better to establish social trust first in negotiations, personal selling, and buyer–seller interaction.     

U.S. Marketing Policies in the European Community:

This study raises important questions in connection with the "globalization-of-markets" debate generated by Levitt. An increased degree of standardization, over a 10-year period(1973-1983), was found in many of the consumer-good marketing policies followed by U.S. firms operating in the European Common Market - a development consistent with the position advocated by Levitt and others. However, industrial-goods displayed a greater degree of national adaptation than was previously the case. The role of the U.S. firms' European headquarters was found to be less significant than ten years before, but greater coordination in the fields of production, physical distribution and selling took place over the intervening decade.     

Deadly Drugs and the Doctrine of Double Effect: A Reply to Tully

In a recent contribution to this journal, Patrick Tully criticizes my view that the doctrine of double effect does not prohibit a pharmaceutical company from selling a drug that has potentially fatal side-effects and that does not treat a life-threatening condition. Tully alleges my account is too permissive and makes the doctrine irrelevant to decisions about selling harmful products. In the following paper, I respond to Tully’s objections and show that he misinterprets my position and misstates some elements of the doctrine of double effect. I also show how the doctrine constrains some decisions about marketing drugs with potentially fatal side-effects.     

The importance of integrating marketing planning with corporate planning

“Strategic marketing” implies that marketing has attained a corporate orientation. However, scant evidence is available to support this view. The primary focus of marketing remains at a micro, consumer-oriented level. Integration of marketing planning with corporate planning would suggest a higher perspective for marketers; recognizing that internal integration of planning is as important for effective marketing as external studies of customers and markets. Toward this end, four key dimensions of corporate planning are introduced. As corporate planning constrains marketing planning, it is this most “strategic” of outlooks that needs to be integrated into the process of marketing planning.     

The Ethics of Marketing to Vulnerable Populations

An orthodox view in marketing ethics is that it is morally impermissible to market goods to specially vulnerable populations in ways that take advantage of their vulnerabilities. In his signature article “Marketing and the Vulnerable,” Brenkert (Bus Ethics Q Ruffin Ser 1:7–20, 1998) provided the first substantive defense of this position, one which has become a well-established view in marketing ethics. In what follows, we throw new light on marketing to the vulnerable by critically evaluating key components of Brenkert’s general arguments. Specifically, we contend that Brenkert has failed to offer us any persuasive reasons to think that it is immoral to market to the vulnerable in ways that take advantage of their vulnerability. Although Brenkert does highlight the fact that the specially vulnerable are at greater risk of being harmed by already immoral marketing practices (e.g., deception, manipulation), he fails to establish that the specially vulnerable are a unique moral category of market clients or that there are special moral standards that apply to them. Moreover, even if Brenkert’s position were theoretically defensible, the practical implications of his position are far less tenable than he suggests. If our criticisms are sound, then Brenkert and others who endorse his position are seriously mistaken regarding how one can permissibly market products to vulnerable populations, and, in addition, they have improperly categorized certain morally permissible marketing practices as being immoral.     

Defining the Product in Social Marketing: An Analysis of Published Research

Social marketing, a discipline rooted in marketing principles, lacks consensus on the conceptual and operational definition of product. The purpose of this article was to explore how social marketing researchers have conceptualized the product and how this definition has influenced strategy development. A systematic review of 10 years of peer-reviewed literature resulted in 92 intervention-based articles. Nearly all studies focused on health-related behavior change. Few studies used marketing language and the three product level classification. One-third of studies provided a tangible product while communication was the only strategy in over half of the studies. The focus on behavior as the product and using communication as the primary or sole strategy may limit social marketing's effectiveness as the approach resembles other social change strategies. If social marketing research aims to advance its position as a social change strategy, a starting point should be to reexamine the definition of product.     

Relationship management: Managing the selling and the buying interface

The new age of industrial marketing, now often referred to as business-to-business marketing, is built upon effective relationship management. The industrial marketer must coordinate the marketing relevant activities of a company with the procurement needs and information requirements of the buying company. Managing this relationship requires the management of the selling and the buying interface. Competitive advantage hinges on the selling company's ability to demonstrate value that results from its cross-functional interdependencies and on its ability to influence the buying center participants' procurement decision processes. This article presents a conceptual approach to understanding and structuring relationship management. In addition, this approach provides a managerially useful framework for implementing industrial marketing strategy through managing the selling and buying interface.     

Consumer and Corporate Values: Yet Another View on Global Marketing

The author examines the issue of multinational marketing first from the point of view of the consumer. He argues that consumers make very personal decisions about the brands which they purchase. These decisions are based on each individual's own value system and on the values he or she sees in the brand. Independent research undertaken by the J. Walter Thompson Company indicates that successful multinational marketers understand this process. The entire debate on global marketing really concerns the management, development, manufacture, distribution and sales of brands around the world. The important link between consumers and marketers is the link of values. Because successful marketers understand both consumer values and brand values, they are capable of developing brands that work effectively across borders.     

Walter A. Friedman. Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. 356 pp. ISBN 0-674-01298-4, $27.95.

Given the centrality of selling to the emergence of the modernbusiness corporation, it is surprising that there has been nofull-length study of the subject before. Walter A. Friedman’spathbreaking Birth of a Salesman is a truly welcome attemptto fill this void. While he begins with earlier developmentsin selling techniques, Friedman’s real focus is on theemergence of "modern" selling, when the selling process becamesystematically organized and managed. Friedman maintains thatthis came about in the United States, not in Europe,     

Impact of employees’ perceived threat of market competition on unethical marketing and selling practices: Moral disengagement and ethical leadership

This study draws on the social cognitive theory to examine the effect of perceived market competition on employees’ unethical marketing and selling practices. The boundary conditions associated with this relationship were examined, and we posit that perceived market competition is related to unethical marketing and selling practices through the mediating mechanism of moral disengagement. We further propose that ethical leadership moderates the relationship between the perceived threat of market competition, moral disengagement, and tendency toward unethical marketing and selling practices. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 387 employees working in the banking sector in Pakistan. Our results suggest that moral disengagement had a full mediation effect between the perceived threat of market competition and tendency of employees toward unethical marketing and selling practices. Moreover, ethical leadership moderated the relationship between moral disengagement and the tendency of employees toward unethical marketing practices. The research findings indicate that when field employees encounter threat perceptions due to market competition, they have a propensity toward engaging in unethical marketing and selling practices when they can activate moral disengagement. This study also found that ethical leadership negatively moderates the relationship of moral disengagement with employees’ tendency toward unethical marketing and selling practices.     

‘Blame it on marketing’: consumers' views on unsustainable consumption

This paper addresses consumers' attitudes towards consumption, the extent to which excessive consumption is perceived as an environmental problem and what consumers perceive as their personal responsibility vs. that of marketing for this consumption. Findings from a focus group and a survey administered to lecturers of a university in Portugal are reported. A critical reflection upon the findings reveals that participants view consumption as excessive and mostly due to marketing, but do not associate high levels of consumption with environmental damage. The consumers surveyed did not accept personal responsibility for excessive consumption, and many of them do not perceive their actions to have a significant impact on the environment. The high educational level of our sample makes these findings of particular concern. This paper feeds the debate on sustainable marketing and expresses the need to address consumers', as well as marketing's, place in sustainability. Implications of this study are drawn and directions for future research are suggested.     

Functional magnetic resonance imaging in consumer research: A review and application

Although the field of psychology is undergoing an immense shift toward the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the application of this methodology to consumer research is relatively new. To assist consumer researchers in understanding fMRI, this paper elaborates on the findings of prior fMRI research related to consumer behavior and highlights the features that make fMRI an attractive method for consumer and marketing research. The authors discuss advantages and limitations and illustrate the proposed procedures with an applied study, which investigates loss aversion when buying and selling a common product. Results reveal a significantly stronger activation in the amygdala while consumers estimate selling prices versus buying prices, suggesting that loss aversion is associated with the processing of negative emotion. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Aura: Aesthetic Business Creativity

As markets all over the world are becoming more and more surplus-markets, competition is gradually taking new forms. At the same time as markets are overloaded with products and alienation is growing, companies that produce feelings that tries to give meaning not only on the level as a marketing concept, is growing. Introducing the concept aura in marketing, this article explores the process how values becomes tangible in the mind of the customer. Aura is defined as a cover that is related to the feeling-experiences of beauty, exclusiveness, unique and authenticity that a product, service or a brand creates. Aura-production describes the building-process how aura is produced and factors that influence the outcome of the aura.     

Relationship Selling

Abstract

Recently marketing has witnessed an explosion of interest in creating and maintaining relationships. It is widely being heralded as a revolutionary new way of responding to markets. But has this ?new“ method been explored or practiced before? Undertaking an early century literature review, the author uncovers evidence that writers and practitioners of 1910-1935, contrary to current belief, incorporated relational methods and espoused a relationship philosophy. Results indicate that relational selling was not only practiced for the benefit of the seller, but was also for the customer and the relationship. Conclusions about why relationship selling disappeared only to resurface again at the end of the twentieth century are put forth     

Values,the key to business in 1990 and beyond∗

This article is concerned with the changes which have affected the personal selling function in industrial markets in recent years. It reviews research findings from the UK, Europe and America, and discusses the implications for sales force management and sales training. It concludes that industrial marketing must focus upon key account relationship management, rather than the manipulation of the four Ps in order to create competitive advantage, and that radical new approaches are needed in sales training which reflect the changing nature of the sales person's role, and which may be demonstrated to have a positive affect on selling effectiveness.     

营销的本质是管理交易而非买卖交易——兼论营销与销售的区别

"营销的本质"和"营销与销售的区别"是市场营销理论和实践的基本问题。从制度经济学的视角看,营销的本质是企业的一种管理交易,而不是产品买卖交易。营销具有管理交易的本质特征:生产性、效率性和层级性,而销售具有买卖交易的本质特征:分配性、价格性和平等性。营销本质上是生产者的行为,是产业资本的行为,而销售本质上是商人行为,是商业资本的行为。     

互联网营销中诚信问题的探讨

互联网营销是 2 1世纪营销创新的焦点 ,随着网络技术的日新月异 ,网上营销的技术障碍逐渐消除 ,而改革和创新网络营销理念 ,特别是强化诚信营销意识 ,这一点在虚拟的互联网世界里变得尤为重要。对当今的互联网营销现状分析后不难发现 ,诚信缺失已成为网上营销发展的真正瓶颈。从微观的角度而言 ,企业的网上诚信营销是它今天的生存之道 ,也是它未来发展的必由之路 ;从宏观的角度来看 ,政府和相关行业部门 ,在构建互联网营销的信用体系上是完全可以有所作为的。     

Innovation and the management of marketing in high technology small firms

This paper initially attempts conceptually to integrate marketing into the total innovation process within high technology small firms. It is argued that an understanding of marketing problems can only be achieved when viewed in terms of other preceding stages in the innovation cycle, of which marketing is a key final act. The subsequent presentation of evidence from two recent research studies indicates that marketing has been neglected in a surprising number of the high technology small firms studied, in which there was a considerable reliance on unsolicited orders as a reactive form of selling. It is argued that this lack of marketing vigour is partly caused by a shortage of human and financial resources which frequently stem from expensive earlier stages in the innovation cycle (e.g. R&D). It is concluded that vigorous marketing would increase output and growth in several of the currently reactive instances. Thus, the paper concludes with suggestions for a more pro‐active policy on the part of government agencies towards the promotion of sales growth in these currently inactive high technology small enterprises.     

Interdisciplinary Contributions to Marketing Thought

In this volume, we explore cross-disciplinary contributions to marketing knowledge. Examples are drawn from four related areas: a) management; b) art & design; c) electronic commerce & retailing; and d) psychology & consumer behavior. Traditionally, retailing and consumer behavior may be treated as sub-areas of marketing, rather than being viewed as disciplines in their own right. Here, the opposite view is adopted. In general, there is a focus on identifying knowledge that originates in other disciplines and then flows to marketing. Future studies may want to examine knowledge flows that occur in the opposite direction.