Introduction
The primary objective of this work is to compare and contrast two national cultures in terms of marketing practices. Particularly this work investigates Chinese and American national cultures as well as their impact on marketing mix. Along with general cultural information, this work provides current trends in national culture of these countries. Finally based upon findings the research gives some recommendations.
Five cultural dimensions
As companies around the globe started to expand their business beyond their domestic borders, the phenomenon as national culture became the stumbling block for them. They started to realize the importance of recognition of culture. Culture itself is defined as values, beliefs and assumptions learned through early childhood that distinguishes one group of people from another (Newman and Nollen 1996). Prominent writer in this field Geert Hofstede (1994) in his work referred culture as ‘the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another’ and also adds that ‘category of people can be a nation, region, or ethnic group, women versus men, old versus young, a social class, a profession or occupation, a type of business, a work organization or part of it, or even a family. In his research of national culture, he observed subsidiaries of a multinational corporation (IBM) in 64 countries and two groups of students in 10 and 23 countries, and identified five dimensions of national culture differences. They are: power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long term versus short term orientation.
In power distance Hofstede (1994) argues that the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally and that it represents inequality