As an American, we are taught from an early age going through the education system to be mindful of thinking in ethnocentric ways. When I was younger, I had believed this caution to be on a larger scale that would never touch me so long as I believed with the masses that we were not better than every other country. But could this childhood and pre-adult learning have been part of a larger-scale plan to open young minds to learning how to work with other countries? This seed planted in in my mind around the same time as learning Algebra, could have been the start of the public education system training me to be part of corporate America- the America that so often handles business with China, India, the Middle East, etc.
Through school we are taught that believing that Americans are better at everything is not true, but we are not taught what to believe about other countries. With a President like the one we have today, President Trump, makes the world believe that America thinks they are superior to all other countries. But choosing to believe this can make business difficult because the assumption is that what works in America will work in all other countries with the same success (Moran, Abramson& Moran, 2014). Big name companies that have failed to adapt their American marketing strategy and story to new cultures have failed: Best Buy, Walmart, and even Starbucks (“10 Successful”, 2013). This type of failure could make a business move in the other direction and be more polycentric.
Polycentrism in business would find that “that anything learned about one foreign market would not apply to any other foreign market” (Moran et al., 2014). This belief leads that business to operate in a different manner in each local market it operates in causing decentralization and less involvement from the headquarters (Wright, 2018). One could imagine how difficult it would be for any business to let the power of decision making go completely to the localized team in a different country. We can also imagine how expensive this more local approach could become once developed in several countries. Every image and idea have to be specific to that one culture and cannot be used elsewhere. Clearly, this cannot be the truth we should believe and incorporate into all our businesses, but is there a middle between ethnocentrism and polycentricism.
The middle ground does exist in that “geocentric [multinational enterprises] seek to simultaneously achieve global efficiency and local adaptation” (Moran et al., 2014). This mindset produces products that are received well by customers and created by an effective global team. Could this be what should be taught hand-in-hand with the classic “ethnocentrism is bad” taught in school? What could we learn from geocentricism? This concept produces a “collaborative and cooperative effort” from both the headquarters and the subsidiaries for a high standard product with room for variations when necessary in certain localities (Moran et al, 2014). One proposition for creating the geocentric organization calls for a several step process, one of the most important of the steps includes “socialization, professional development, and communication” (Plakhotnik, Landorf & Rocco, 2010). I believe this could be the start for the growth of geocentric mindsets. These are simple enough competencies to teach and could benefit a student early on in their education.
10 Successful American Businesses That Have Failed Overseas. (2013, September 12). Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://www.internationalbusinessguide.org/10-successful-american-businesses-that-have-failed-overseas/
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., Moran, S. V., & Harris, P. R. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Plakhhotnik, M. S., Landorf, H., & Rocco, T. S. (2010). Towards a Process of Creating a Geocentric Organizational Culture of Global Corporations: Implications for Adult Education [Scholarly project]. In Casae Aceea. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from http://www.casae-aceea.ca/~casae/sites/casae/archives/cnf2010/OnlineProceedings-2010/Individual-Papers/Plakhotnik Landorf Rocco.pdf
Wright, T. C. (2018, April 05). What Is Polycentric Orientation? Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/polycentric-orientation-27300.html
cjh6034 says
Hi Zhane,
Very well said. I think it has become largely impossible to be able to avoid any of these ideas because it’s been drilled into us from a very young age that the United States is the best at everything it does, which simply isn’t true. As you said, multiple businesses have faltered in their global expansion attempts because they tried to utilize a “one-size-fits-all” methodology. What works in the United States will not always work for other countries because the cultures are vastly different. Besides, this kind of method will leave the country the company chose to expand into with a bad taste in its mouth, thinking it’s been subject to more Americanization. One such project learned that lesson the hard way.
During the 1990s, the Walt Disney Company wanted to launch a new Disneyland resort in Paris, France, and began construction on EuroDisney, their first European theme park. Naturally, they expected the park to bring in huge crowds and draw in millions of visitors each year simply because the Disney name was the biggest thing around. Needless to say, they failed miserably. Critics derided the park as the worst example of Americanization, as it felt like they simply taken a copy from the US and dropped it smack-dab in the middle of Paris, with no regard to French culture. This attitude led to low attendance in the early years and was costing the company big-time money. Luckily for Disney they managed to turn it around by adjusting the park to meet French cultural standards, but they should have built the park with that mindset in the first place. What especially stands out as ironic is that they built their Shanghai, Tokyo, and Hong Kong locations with the aid of cultural experts. So as you can see, egocentrism in the Americanization approach is almost always doomed to fail.
Iman Pady says
Hello Zhane,
Thank you for your post on ethnocentrism; I also find it to be a very important and central element to understanding leadership in a global context.
According to Moran, Abramson and Moran (2014), “the global leader, sensitive to cultural differences, appreciates a people’s distinctiveness and effectively communicates with individuals in different cultures and this leader does not impose his/her own cultural attitudes and approaches” (p. 25).
I agree with your view that it is not enough to teach that “ethnocentrism is bad” but the concept of geocentrism, global efficiency and local adaptation, is a more productive way moving forward.
I worried about with this very topic when I was living abroad and continuously tried to be self-reflexive of my privilege as a member of a dominant culture. What I found interesting was that those that I was so worried about offending my ethnocentrism were themselves busy with their own ethnocentrism regarding the cultural, social or class groups that they compared themselves with.
It did not change my views that “ethnocentrism is bad” but it was eye-opening to see how this view is displayed in other parts of the worlds and among various groups.
Storti (2012) makes an Argument for Ethnocentrism, in which he states, “Being culturally sensitive has very little to do with liking or accepting the strange behaviors of people from other cultures; it means acknowledging that we’re all strange depending on the context. Cultural differences and the judgments they provoke aren’t the problem; the problem is to deny culture, which is just what you do when you ask people not to judge (para. 9).”
Regards,
Iman Pady
References:
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. New York, NY: Routledge.
Storti, C. (2012). An argument for ethnocentrism. Profiles in Diversity Journal. Retrieved from http://www.diversityjournal.com/9336-the-argument-for-ethnocentrism/