jasmina djordjevic the global beats the hell out of the local or is it the other way round

8/9/2019 Jasmina Djordjevic The Global Beats the Hell Out of the Local or is It the Other Way Round

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The global beats the hell out of the local! Or is it the other way round?

Introduction

I was born in Germany and in 1984 my parents decided to finally give in to my wish tomove from Germany to Serbia. I loved Serbia, or better Yugoslavia in those days, and

though I had been living in Germany for almost 13 years, I couldnt fit in. And so we movedto Vranje, my newly-found hometown in the deep South of Serbia.

The number of situations when I had to deal with issues concerning the clash oftwo different ways of living, the German and the Serbian one, is infinite. Apart from the factthat I was speaking Serbian in a way similar to Tarzan speaking English when he metJane in the jungle, I made people around me laugh on a regular basis! One particularoccasion was when I told my classmates that I would come to school on a bike! They wererolling with laughter and I really couldnt get why. Well it took me some time to figure it out.

First, in Germany children go to school either by bus or on a bike becauseelementary school ends with the fourth grade and the next level of education is oftenattended at a school several kilometres away from ones home. The bike is a preferred

means of transport whenever the whether permits it. However, the streets in Germanyhave lanes intended for bikers, every child has to undergo training and actually takesomething like a driving test. We all had bikers licences! Furthermore, every school hasfacilities, a garage or some other kind of space, where the bikes are parked during schooltime. There are even guards and your bike cannot be stolen!

I do not have to explain that riding a bicycle in Vranje in 1984 was a curiosity! Why?Because there were only old-fashioned bicycles, those funny and clumsy black monsters!When picturing me on a bike they probably imagined me (and I am very short, I havealways been short!) struggling with the huge black beast! Most of the streets in my townwere not paved! Another reason against a bike ride! Who needs the aggravation! Yourkidneys and every other organ in your body would be shaken up and probably misplacedwho knows where. Last but not least, the moment I would park my bike (everybody new ithad been bought in Germany), it would most certainly disappear instantly!

Of course it took me time to understand all that. Especially the last bit because inGermany, the moment your bike is stolen, you go to the police to report it and they actuallyfind it because every bike has a registration!

1. Whats the big deal?

Even today it makes me wonder, who has educated whom? Fact is that I havemanaged to fit in. Ive become part of the puzzle. Have I made them accept me or have

they made me accept them? I say I am Serbian, but I feel as a multicultural person fluentin three languages and belonging to at least three different cultures.Now imagine yourself being a representative of Ikea in Japan! Or selling Serbian

slivovitz in an Arabic country! Or skis in Egypt! The adventure would be causing laughterand disbelief similar to the experience explained above.

What every representative of the global in a local environment should ask is thefollowing: Is it possible to just introduce the global to the local and expect it to kick in or isthere more to it?

2. The global vs the local

For starters, the word globe, according to the seventh addition of the Oxford AdvancedLearners Dictionaryis:

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1. [C] an object shaped like a ball with a map of the world on its surface, usually on a standso that it can be turned2. the globe [sing.] the world (used especially to emphasize its size): tourists from everycorner of the globe3. [C] a thing shaped like a ball

But the basic form, when subdued to derivation, renders the following list of words:

global, globally, globalise, globalisation, globetrotting, globetrotter, globule, globular,glocalization. Furthermore, very important collocations are derived, such as globalcompetition, global corporation, global demand, global economy, global market, globalmarketing, global view, global village, global warming. And, of course, the fancy onesshould not be forgotten: go global, think global, act global!

As opposed to this spread-all-over-the-world aspect implied by the word global, theworld local implies a space limited within the boundaries of one nation, country orcommunity. Along with this limited spatial aspect, the word local clearly indicates arestricted market to be conquered by the global multinational company interested in it.

However, in order to be able to enter such a confined space, the global will have toendure quite some adjustments.

3. The problemObviously the differences between the conflicting forces of global production anddistribution on the one hand, and strong local marketing on the other, have a huge effecton multinational business. Furthermore, the impact of these forces on business cultures inparticular countries is enormous. What most often seems to be a problem is that the localculture is unable to incorporate the global dimension into their own immediate surrounding.

What is irritating is that, on one hand, we (the locals) do not always like thebehaviour of the others (the globals) and, on the other; the others might not like ourbehaviour! In both cases there is a problem because the trends in modern economyclearly suggest the necessity to identify, acknowledge and accept the global dimension ofmultinational companies so as to incorporate it into the local business environment. Anecessity of utter importance, and the answer to the problem, is adequate training in thearea of intercultural communicative skills to be implemented in international business.

The hot potato seems to be that the ever increasing global scale of world commerceand the reaction against it the commercial need to recognise the differences betweenlocal markets, and the reaction of people to what they consider to be the monolithic natureof multinational companies bring about very complex paradoxes. Some of them are thefollowing:

1. To minimise costs, large companies need standardised production methods and

uniformed products, and to achieve large sales they need as big a market aspossible. But they also need appeal to a wide variety of different local marketswhich, quite annoyingly, may be reluctant or otherwise hesitant to accept theproducts.

2. Branding is a modern alternative to spreading business! Multinational companiessimply set out with the assumption that if their primary brand managed to crack aparticular local market than a derivative will most certainly do the same.Unfortunately, more often this proves to be a dangerous misconception.

3. Sport sponsorships by multinationals are known to bring money to both thesponsors and the sponsored sport icon! However, assuming that the sponsoredperson comes from a poorly developed country, the constant bragging of a

multinational company by means of their logo on a national heros T-shirt mayprovoke serious issues. Especially if a local brand, from the same range ofproducts, does not sell well.

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4. Worldwide sports tournaments have been popular for ever and people, globally andlocally, love them. Yet there has been a tendency in the recent past to introducenew kinds of tournaments on a local level with the aspiration to help it develop moreglobally. The problem is the monopolistic character of the already existingtournaments making it thus difficult to local enthusiasts to launch something maybeequally interesting.

This list can go on forever. The point is that a certain kind of education based oninternational concepts of multicultural diversity incorporated with the freedom ofindividualism must precede any marketing strategy aimed at a new local market.Especially if it is the kind of market characterised by deeply rooted national, ethnic,religious and linguistic individualism.

4. The solution: Intercultural Communication Skills a foundation for modernmarketing strategies

In the context of a multinational company, different cultures meet and they have to worktogether to achieve the interest of the company make profit! If the multicultural company

does not run like clockwork, there will be conflicts and eventually no profit. Moreimportantly, if such a multinational company wants to enter a new local market, theyshould learn how to communicate with the locals on an intercultural level. Therefore, thebalance between the goal and the means in such a situation will be established if all theemployees develop five basic skills, all being part of an important, if not essential, aspectof the ability to communicate in a local environment trying to be a member of the global.

Thus the five basic skills of intercultural communication are:1. The skill to encode and decode messages coming from culturally different sources

a necessary precondition is one mutual language which is most often consideredto be English in its most general form. This actually imposes the necessity oflanguage training in the local environment. A general assumption among todaysmultinational companies is that it is much cheaper to pay teachers in the local areato organise courses than drag interpreters with them because they all have to raceagainst time and the faster the locals learn to understand the language of themultinational company the better. Conversely, there are also arguments in favour ofthe local language implying that maybe, at least some of the representative(s) of themultinational company, should learn the language of the local community as it willmost certainly be considered a sign of good faith and respect. In terms of diplomacythis may have a very pacifying effect in an otherwise prejudiced environmentconcerning the identification of the English language with the domination of theAnglophone culture.

2. The skill to identify, acknowledge, tolerate and accept people from differentcultures, which basically means the ability to surpass ones own ethnocentrism, isespecially important in environments torn apart between the desire to finallybecome part of the global market and the ever present dislike (even hatred) ofAnglophone cultures because of some issues from the past. There are many partsin the world where the multinational is often identified with Anglo-American, and notin a favourable sense. However, the issue of ethnocentrism has to be re-consideredon both sides involved in the story.

3. The skill to set goals of common interest which means to shift the level ofexpectations from the global to the local. The local environment must be allowed toparticipate in the process of setting goals so as to be convinced that they too will

have a piece of the cake.

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4. The skill to see the purpose of communication in the need of both the global and thelocal. This skill goes side by side with the previous one and a precondition is theproper identification of needs on both sides.

5. The skill to formulate the content of communication in a way everybody willunderstand so as to build a positive relationship towards others. On a basic levelthis means that human beings associate to people who have similar likes, dislikes,

interests, tastes, etc. On the level of multinational companies in a local environmentthis means exactly the same. In order to know which content to address, themultinational company should be well-acquainted with the local environment, findout everything they can about the aspirations and desires of the local communityand address them in an appropriate way. On one hand, this is respectful as it reallymakes the local feel important. On the other hand, it is useful as the respect willslowly be transformed into a mutual goal.

In one word, intercultural communication involves much more adjustment than regularcommunication where the individual has to adapt his/ her own personality to that of thegroup so as to be accepted by it. In intercultural communication, both the global and thelocal interlocutors have to accept the attitudes, interests, goals and aims of the other and

at the same time adjust their own attitudes, interests, goals and aims so as to make themacceptable to the other.

Conclusion

It goes without saying that communication is a two-way road. Representatives of the globalin the local environment will be interlocutors engaged in intercultural communication whowill come to terms with each other only if they learn how to identify, acknowledge, tolerateand accept the other. This may sound like mission impossible especially if the dynamics ofthe modern world markets are taken into consideration. Nevertheless, successfulintroduction of the global into the local, with as few bruises as possible, preferably withnone whatsoever, may be accomplished if they meet halfway. The modern course inintercultural communication will probably be guided by the ability to co-operate and co-exist with a huge number of various local cultures on the global market.

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jasmina djordjevic the global beats the hell out of the local or is it the other way round

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