Culture

Three essential components come together to make culture;

1. Beliefs - processes that reflect our knowledge and assessment of products/ services.

2. Values - an indicator, which is used as a guide, for what, is an appropriate behaviour.

3. Customs - modes of behaviour that are culturally approved ways of behaving in certain situations.

The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for preferences of certain state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, natural-unnatural). Many values remain unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore they often cannot be discussed. Values can only be inferred from the way people act under different circumstances.

The Terpstra and Sarathy Cultural Framework help marketing managers to assess the cultural nature of an international market. It is very straightforward, and uses eight categories in its analysis. The Eight categories are Language, Religion, Values and Attitudes, Education, Social Organizations, Technology and Material Culture, Law and Politics and Aesthetics.

The anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, defines culture as a “historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols…by means of which men can communicate, perpetuate and develop their own knowledge about and attitudes towards life.”

Good examples of different cultures are the HSBC adverts they show the different cultures and rituals around the globe please click on the links

HSBC 1

HSBC 2

HSBC 3

• Society's perception (meaning the way the society wants you to behave, here the factor of pro and anti social behaviour is appointed).
  
• An individuals family values (For example, some families are independent and do not interfer in one another's lives. However in some familes their lives are connected with one another and would consult one another whilst doing anything like taking a decison regarding their life).
  
• Society's values and attitudes (integrates with society's perception)Community learning (basically learning how to behave in socity by observing other people's behaviour in socity).
  
• Communal or collective memory (meaning memorising the behaviour conducted by others in society and performing that form of behaviour in the next scenrio)
  

Culture is a complex concept, this is shown in the brief descriptions above. Culture is very difficult to define. Ralph Linton (1995) states that ''culture is the configuration of learned behaviour and results of behaviour whose component elements are shared and transmitted by members of a particular society.''