1. Introduction

Communication is nothing but it is just the exchange of meanings between the individuals

with the use of the common symbols. In case of international marketing there is high need of

communication competence because through it in social situations in the international market,

command and selecting of the different languages to interact with the local people help to

understand the consumer perspectives and in this case marketing supervisor need to

understand the international marketing. Bennett et al., (1986. pp.117-134) states that there are

few factors that mostly influence the cultural environment such as the word of language we

select when speak is our culture, our state of mind, our social status, our norms and moral

concepts. Likewise any culture in the world, create its own identity and social status and if

that is ignored or not considered while thinking to enter in the international market, will

definitely lead to the failure of the business. Brislin et al (1986) introduces in his research that

every language is a cultural reflection in the world and communication is very effective due

to the use of the local language. It generates the self-awareness and finds the identity. This

report is also based on the same analysis that why intercultural communication is important

and what are the existing issues and how they can be made beneficial for the firms that are

entering or already established in the international market.

The basic element of the communication process those are important while communicating

such as message, message sender, medium and the receiver of the message. It is not necessary

that this can only happen in the same culture or environment but it can happen between the

people from the different culture or may be to the people from the different regions. For

example, two people from United Kingdom communicating in the native language describes

their social status and their identity through the communicating way as they belong to the

same culture and same country as described by Schneider (1997). In other case, if one

belongs to the China and other belongs to United Kingdom then it will be very difficult to

communicate with each other unless they know the common language so it is very difficult to

communicate. The sender of the message is someone having personal, professional, social

and informational desire (AXTELL et al, 1998) to communicate to others. This world is now

very small place than earlier age. At this time there are few words like global village, global

markets and globalization which are the new buzzwords in the existing environment of the

international market. In this report the main aim is to analyse the Intercultural communication

in marketing.

2. Intercultural Communication Scenario

There is one question always in the mind of the people as why the companies always tries to

expand its business activities to the international market and out of them only few get huge

success but number of them none? The answer to this question is that companies often go for

international market because of the motive of financial strength and entrance of the business

in to the new market for more potential customers and most of them fails because of the

miscommunication to the cross cultural environment as stated by Mole John (2003). This

report aims to in depth analysis of the intercultural issues and their enhancement for the

benefits of the international market. Every business wants to increase its turnover through the

international market and hopes for the higher profits from the market. Once it has been found

that the company can be bigger and the international expansion will be beneficial it enters in

the international market but forgets about the intercultural communication that is needed to

for the growth and establishment of the company. The sales potential is also important to

analyse for the company’s products and services in the international market.

There are few things which company need to analyse and figure out by the marketing

supervisor like legal, technical requirements and environmental regulations while need to

enter in the new international market to promote its products and another thing to analyse

after it is the logistics and distribution of the products and services. But more than these

factors the most vital factor that company ignored in the reparation phase is the cultural

environment of the international market. Beamer et al (2001) Failure to consider this factor

while entering in the international market is the falling of the business soon after

establishment. Intercultural is a vita factor that mostly influences the consumer behaviour and

ultimately affects the company’s growth and stability in the international market or in the

cross cultural environment. This is not an issue only for the firms that are entering in the

international market or those have the lack of the international experience but it happens to

the big fully established firms that already expanded its business to international market. For

example, as explained by Wiseman et al (2003) that the international experience of BMW &

Rover as well as Daimler & Chrysler that entered in the international market but lack of cross

cultural communication, these could not stand in the international market against the local

competitors.

3. Target audience (let us make it more specific , marketing supervisors, please find at

least 4 sources to give the definition of supervisor and two source of marketing). In

addition, describe the function of supervisors in international marketing.

International marketing is a requirement of the today’s increasing demand of the products and

services and also increase in the competition of economic development, financial strength

and larger customer base. For international market it is needed to explore the things globally

by the marketing supervisor in terms of intercultural communication and cross cultural

environment because it plays a vital role in the improvement and establishment of the firm in

the international market as described by Wiseman et al (2003, pp. 191-204). For all this the

targeted audiences belongs to the category of different culture from the different countries

with the different languages. Schneider, et al (1997) states that basically the big enterprises,

medium and small enterprises or companies comes under the targeted audience category

because in the international market only the firms can establish its own office or franchise or

might possible to go for acquisitions and merger if necessary.

Positions allocated to this classification supervise the development, implementation, and

evaluation of marketing, promotional, and outreach programs which promote the sales and

usage of state services, products, programs, facilities, activities and special events; supervise

strategic marketing research and analysis; develop and implement annual marketing plans for

the assigned programs; develop (Eleri R et al, 2010, pp. 450-459) or supervise the

development of promotional items, activities, events, and publications to publicize the

assigned program’s services or products; develop or supervise the development of records

and reports to analyze the trends and success of various promotional campaigns and

activities; and develop marketing program budgets, policies, and procedures. Positions use a

variety of marketing tools such as, publications, radio, TV, Internet and other electronic

media production (Philip Kotler, 2006). Positions at this level spend the majority of their

time performing professional marketing duties and supervising Administrative Support staff

or a mix of Administrative Support staff and professional Marketing Specialist positions.

Work is performed under general supervision.

This position develops, implements, monitors and supervises a marketing program for the

Sales Program within the Purchasing Services Department (Kirton, G et al, 2005) , which

includes two sub-organizations: the Materials Distribution Services (MDS); develops an

annual written comprehensive marketing plan, which includes market research, baseline data

analysis, internal customer development, and external customer relations; develops, tests and

implements methods to communicate regularly with customers regarding the products and

services available, including the internet (Robert W et al, 1985, pp. 49-55); develops a

program for customer relations and supervises the staff within the customer service section of

MDS; and revises, edits, publishes and distributes the MDS product catalogue.

4. Which problems may encountered in Intercultural Marketing

The difficulty lies in more fundamental issues than product, price, promotion and place. With

the transition from domestic-focussed operations to a true worldwide view, other factors are

essential for success. Marketing supervisor need to focus on more to build the culture among

the team to make things better to communicate with the local peoples. It is vital for Western

marketers to understand the expectations of their counterparts around the world. Even at the

threshold of the millennium, inability to master the basic cultural factors still leads to failure.

Marketing supervisor finds the issues in cultural patterns as cultural patterns (Hagen, S.,

2005) are a part of our lives and behaviour. These cultural patterns enable to the humans to

interact to each other easily with the other humans who also have the similar image of reality

and similar environment. That’s why it can be said that culture is considered as the artificial

human creation. This cultural theory of artificial interaction is supported by the scientific

evidences in the modern and also in the past ages. It is observed that the small numbers of

individuals are responsible for the cultural change or can say as cultural diversity (Kirton, G.

& Greene, A-M, 2005) because of the genetic differences. Same happens in case of the

international market as few people in the firms that is established in the overseas country if

have the few people in the organization with different culture and language will affect the

entire culture of the organization. There are number of issues existing in the intercultural

communication practice as follows:

4.1 Communication-related issues

Communication among the humans is necessity and if that is not done properly intercultural

communication gets affected. The people who are involved in the international marketing

business are having the problem of communication specially when they are from the other

region or belong to different diverse culture. Different cultural backgrounds, languages,

interacting skills and non-verbal communications are some of the basic issues in

communication among the people who are involve in the overseas marketing and business.

1. Language: The important part of communication system is language. Different culture and

regions have different languages and their communication methods are also based on the

existing language. When an organization establish its business to other cultural area where

the speaking language is different then it cause issue in communicating (Ellingsworth, H.W.

1983) with the local peoples there. For example, if a Chine company establish its another

office in USA and shifts its employees there then the Chinese employees will not be able to

communicate easily in English. Thus, intercultural communication because of lack of

understanding of the other local language causes big issues for survival of the organization

there.

2. Interaction: Some people don’t feel easy to interact with other cultural people easily and

thus unable to adopt the change in culture, language. It is very difficult to get involve with the

other cultural people because of the habits of not interacting with the people. For interaction

many factors are involved such religion, living style, communication methods (Schwartz, S,

1994, pp. 85-122). And the traditions too which restrict people to easily interact to each to

each other. Easily adoption of the habits and life style of the diverse culture is not easy and

thus causes the significant issues in the organization. For example, Pedersen, et al, (1997)

have also reported observations of difference in behaviours of users and the evaluators when

they belong to different cultures. They have observed such behaviours to be specific to the

culture from which they belong. Interaction not only causes issues among the team members

of the organization but also causes issue to the growth of the organization in the international

market and bad impacts on the potential customers which reduces the sales of the

organization and impacts on brand too badly.

3. Non verbal communication: As much as there are differences in various cultures, there

are commonalities too in terms of the nature of processing information cognitively. Ribbens

and Thompson (2000) have stated that people from western hemispheric cultures are inclined

to cognate information primarily in terms of pictures, sounds and feelings. In the case of

people from the east based cultures, in addition to the above, smell and taste also matters. It is

important issue as some people don’t easily understand the non-verbal communication

(Guirdham, M 2005) the feelings and the thinking of the people belong to diverse culture.

The biggest issue happens in the organizations where there are diverse culture people.

Communications in international business are considered more often at the verbal level than

in terms of body language and the signs and symbols that cultures use instinctively to convey

messages and attitudes. Yet some claim that more than 90% of the social content of a

message is contained in non-verbal cues. Clearly, if this is so, we neglect this aspect of

communication at our peril.

4.2 Culture-related issues

Hofstede identified four dimensions that he labelled individualism, masculinity, power

distance, and uncertainty avoidance. His individualism-collectivism dimension describes

cultures from loosely structured to tightly integrate. The masculinity femininity dimension

describes how a culture’s dominant values are assertive or nurturing. Power distance refers to

the distribution of influence within a culture. And uncertainty avoidance reflects a culture’s

tolerance of ambiguity and acceptance of risk. Hofstede and Bond (1984) identified a fifth

dimension, a Confucian dynamism labelled long term orientation versus short-term

orientation to life. The Confucian dynamism dimension describes cultures that range from

short-term values with respect for tradition and reciprocity in social relations to long-term

values with persistence and ordering relationships by status

Stereotypes in culture are important. For example, Kim Y (1995) examines that if social

research has established that 90 percent of some group have a trait, if we think that a member

of that group has that trait, we will be correct 90 percent of the time. In that case we would be

better using the sociotype than saying ‘I know nothing about that person’. ‘It seems

reasonable to argue that members of particular social groups often prefer to perceive their in-

group attributes in a more positive rather than negative light, especially in comparison to

other groups. The more they view their salient in-group values and norms as desirable and

rewarding, the more they tend to see their own membership identity as desirable and

rewarding. (Ting-Toomey, 1999:147-8)Moreover, individuals often tend to assume that

fellow in-group members are more similar to them than out-group members. The essential

characteristics of the self and in-group relationship appear to be loyalty and preference.’

5. How can these issues are addressed

5.1 Enhanced culture awareness

There are some issues existing because of which more organizations are unable to

communicate (Thorpe, M et al, 1993) with the different culture people and unable to adopt

the cross cultural communication environment which results in the failure of the organization

at very early stage. For this there is need to have the strong awareness of the intercultural

communication so that organizations (Landis, D., & Bhagat, Rabi, 1996) can strongly have

the customers perceptions and the chances of failure because of the cultural competitiveness

can be reduced. It is when difficulties pop up, and when cultural blunders blow up, that we

usually want to know the secret for successful intercultural communication (Marx, E. 2001).

There is one thing among the business is mindset which is very important to understand the

cross cultural environment and intercultural communication because if the organization’s

mindset is to adopt the intercultural communication it will be easy to move ahead in the

international market. The right international mind-set eliminates many of the risks in

miscommunication (Paige, et al, 1996, pp.35-60). It has been found that while analysing the

different situations for the international market establishment, there is need of estimating the

importance of the cross cultural environment and intercultural communication. There are

many differences between the cultures of different countries and that needs a lot of attention

to understand the difference of the cultures (Pedersen, et al., 1997, pp.149-160). With the

right mindset that is most important, the people or organizations can improve the cross

cultural communication skills beyond the measure. So it is important to have the right

mindset about the other culture otherwise the bad mindset for the other culture will limit the

international cultural skills.

There are few people, who find themselves to easy adoption of the intercultural

communication because of their good mindset (Schwartz, S, 1994, pp. 85-122). The good

mindset is definitely an option for easy to cultivate the good cross cultural practices and helps

in engaging with the others cultures. It is not always that the good mindset is a natural thing

but a good cross cultural mindset comes because of the mixture of the experience and the

personal commitment to make the changes that are needed based on the present requirement.

For the international business strategies it is firmly important to set the mind for a good

intercultural (Fowler, S., & Mumford, Monica G, 1995, pp-179-186) communication. The

people need to have the awareness of the different culture and the languages with the good

mindset towards that culture. In international marketing it is necessary to communicate

successfully with the target group so that that target group can be the customer base of the

firm and can buy the product and services of the firm. Awareness about the local

requirement, their religion, their lifestyle and their behaviour for any international market

environment is necessary to build the strong relationship and slowly – slowly learn their

culture and also in the organization there is need to hire the people from the existing culture

and communities (Wright, Albert R, 1995, pp.127-139) so that the communication can be

done effectively. Since culture and communication are inseparable, international marketing

needs to also consider culture in its attempt to communicate effectively and successfully with

its target group in a specific target market. If it is not done so then it will be very difficult to

communicate with the prospective customers.

5.2 Training:

There are many training institutes which allow learning to the people who are from other

culture and speak other languages than the local languages with the help of different approach

and models For this it is consider of different approaches to developing intercultural

competence such as Models & examples, ‘training’ vs. ‘education’ (Fowler, S., & Mumford,

Monica G, 1995) and application of a multidimensional model to suit particular companies’

current needs. There is need to apply the orientation approach for the training as in

organizations it is very important to give practical insight. For this there are few models need

to follow such as the self-awareness model, the area training model, the cultural awareness

model and the multidimensional model.

These models and approach make them aware about the mental skills, learning skills,

communication skills and the behavioural skills of the people and the local culture. Positive

actions (Ellingsworth, H.W, 1983, pp. 195-204) are also important by the human there in

other cultural environment as if the person belong to Chinese culture but he lives in the

American culture then the person need not to worry about the American culture and language

but positively face that which helps in encouraging and improving the American culture

easily. In the same way, the firm who are willing to go global need to positively face the

problems by accepting their culture and involving the organizations activities (Kim Y.Y.,

1995, pp. 170-194). According to Bennett (J-M., 1986) there are some approaches which

apply such as an ‘orientation’

Approach which emphasize on cognitive goals, ‘training’ approach that emphasize on

affective and behavioural goals and ‘education’ approach which emphasize on cognitive,

affective and behavioural goals (Ellingsworth, H.W. 1983).. Mostly the trainers start with

basic understanding of the Intercultural communication with the use of the training

approaches such as Culture-general where it describe about the general cultural diversity and

to involve with that easily, Awareness-raising learning experience & info, Participants’ own

culture and In-depth target culture. In depth target culture is an important aspect of the

training for the employees of the organizations or to the every human. Nicole McBride

(2010) states in his earlier research that in depth target cultural training gives the real insight

of the other cultural diversity and make the intercultural communication easier for the

international marketing while targeting to the specific cultural group. Therefore, in-depth

target culture definitely helps to understand the target based culture for interacting with the

customers and the societies in a better way.

6. Conclusion

Intercultural communication in case of the international marketing is surely a very powerful

tool which is used to maximise the revenue of the firm and increase in the base of the

potential customers. Understanding the human requirements of the different culture is very

important to survive there and to compete with the other competitors or can say with the local

competitors. It happens because of the minimizing the obstacles of intercultural issues and

being pro-active as well as starting the new horizons that allows the different cultural

viewpoints by working together and successfully.

In international marketing, it is needed to communicate with the different aspects of

information and in different countries and culture. In the modern world the increasement in

globalization it intercultural seem to be important to create and growth of the business. The

information and communications revolution has speed up the globalization process and its

positive effects on the marketing and to the business as well. Not only the big enterprises

who have entered in to the globalization (Fowler, S., & Mumford, Monica G, 1995) but also

the medium and small size enterprises or companies all are confronted with the diverse

culture as these enterprises or companies moves to the international market through

expanding its business. Not all the companies or enterprises that enter in to global arena are

well prepared with the diverse culture environment in the existing market because of some

inefficient approach or lacking in the intercultural communication.

There are number of firms or enterprises which are indeed got fail even though having the

superior products and services that cater to the need of the customers but because of lack of

the intercultural competence with others. The cross culture communication is very important

to avoid the disregard of the cultural competence in the business transaction and may lead to

the mistakes because of the cultural misunderstanding that happens because of the

miscommunication. The lack of the cross cultural knowledge and miscommunication number

of firm or companies get fail in the business process when it comes to the globalization.

There have been enhancements in the ways so that the intercultural practice could be

beneficial for the international marketing.

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