Electricity being out for three weeks nearly forces an elevator sale to nearly be cancelled, no suitable drainage from massive rains floods his family's apartment, and the Indian value of bartering and customizing is diametrically opposed to the strict discipline of a low-end product strategy where no variation in standard products is allowed.
Mr. Napoli's experiences culminate in one year elapsing before a single elevator is sold, and that one sale is made when he's out of the country and his Indian sales managers compromise and sell a customized unit. Mr. Napoli, upon hearing this while in Italy for the birth of a child, becomes angry and feels betrayed. While Mr. Napoli did have several excellent tactical victories, he lost the cultural war in his first year of working in India. No matter how strong-willed and stubborn, Mr. Napoli could not make even a small part of the Indian culture he was interacting with bend to his expectations. India taught Mr. Napoli patience and respect for its own perception of time, and the need for significant flexibility in business models when entering new nations and cultures. To reflect on his experiences, one can see how the westernization of third world nations is anything but pervasive and is simplified in many discussions. In the end, Mr. Napoli became more Indian vs. India becoming more like Mr. Napoli.
Key Findings on Globalization and Culture
In analyzing globalization and its impact on cultures, the reciprocal effects of one culture on another is a central focus on this paper. For every example of westernization influencing widely divergent cultures, the same holds true of westernized nations failing in their attempts to accomplish business strategies in widely divergent cultures. In studying the impact of globalization then it's best to focus on case studies at the individual and group level. Observations, analysis, and conclusions gained at this level of analysis are useful for defining the broader implications of globalization across cultures. The lessons learned from this level of analysis are presented in this section.
First, ethnocentric behavior on the part of people and organizations force more compromise in all cultures affected by it and a moment of truth for many cultural members. What globalization is forcing however is a moment of truth for all cultures participating on a global scale, and that moment of truth is the questioning of ethnocentric perceptions of themselves and others. The moment of truth in ethnocentrism for Indian call center representatives was the call completed with no reference to outsourcing and services up-sold to clients in the U.S., the UK or any other western nations. For Silvio Napoli and others like him, the moment of truth was realizing that new and unusual cultures weren't there to support their strategies, but that their strategies must support the cultures they are intending to participate in. Focusing on the personal interactions first and how they accumulate up to one cultures' response to another is critical in seeing this dynamic. Applying social science research tools to ethnocentrism followed by culture shock, then assimilation and finally acceptance would quantify this trend.
Second, each nation and culture in the world has much more bargaining power than ever before because personal productivity is the most lasting competitive differentiator there is in manufacturing and service industries. According to Dr. Porter in Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990), personal productivity is the prime differentiator and competitive strength of economies and companies. Nations and cultures now have the choice of who they will work with or not. There is an increasingly level playing field emerging directly as a result of global economics playing out. Wal-Mart needs Indonesia and Southeast Asia for manufacturing workers and to keep their prices down, but these countries could easily push them away. They don't because Wal-Mart brings work to these poor nations but must be monitored to make sure they do it ethically and without taking advantage of these disadvantaged counties who need the work. The bottom line is that there is a bargaining going over more than ever before between the nations whose industries need labor, materials, and unique competitive advantages the developing nations have. These latter nations literally have their choice of which nations and companies...
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