The Warner Bros studio said on Wednesday it has canceled plans to release its blockbuster Batman movie “The Dark Knight” in China, citing “cultural sensitivities” surrounding the film.
The studio, a unit of Time Warner Inc, did not specify what Chinese audiences or censors might find objectionable about the movie.
“Based on a number of pre-release conditions that are being attached to ‘The Dark Knight,’ as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film, we have opted to forego a theatrical release of the film in China,” Warner Bros said in a statement.
The film includes a sequence in which Batman, the movie’s comic book superhero played by Christian Bale, penetrates a criminal mastermind’s skyscraper redoubt in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
The South West must meet global export challenges head on with improved world class communications using effective language and cultural awareness skills, warned two West Country experts at the International Trade Forum in Bristol today.
The prestigious event this week sought answers for increased business opportunities worldwide, notably China.
The event’s Question Time panel led by broadcaster Peter Sissons included Professor Peter Gold of the Regional Language Network South West (RLN SW) based at the University of the West of England. RLN SW helps businesses in the region overcome language and cultural barriers.
Effective intercultural communications are seen as a must to open doors to export opportunities for South West businesses wishing to succeed in overseas markets.
Lenovo Group, the world’s fourth-largest computer maker, has been lagging behind competitors.
Its acquisition of IBM’s personal-computer business catapulted Lenovo onto the world stage: Now about 60% of the company’s sales come from outside China, and it is the fourth-biggest computer maker by shipments.
Lenovo has filled its ranks with Westerners from IBM and Dell Inc., opened factories in Mexico and Poland, and gone on an Olympics-led marketing blitz. While Lenovo has fared better than other Chinese companies that have tried to become global players, it has fallen behind competitors in the PC industry.
In the early days after the IBM deal, cultural clashes and power struggles nearly derailed the Chinese computer maker’s aggressive strategy to become a world player, say current and former executives. Now the company’s global ambitions must confront the economic malaise in the U.S. and Europe — two markets that were key to its expansion plans.
Bill Amelio, a former Dell executive who became Lenovo’s CEO in late 2005, was sometimes frustrated by his Chinese colleagues’ reluctance to speak their minds. “You don’t want everyone saying ‘Yes, Yes, Yes’ all the time,” says Mr. Amelio, a brawny former college wrestler. “You want them to be able to smack you upside the head and say ‘Hey, I’ve got a better idea.’” Conference calls were difficult as Americans hogged the airtime. “The Americans would just talk and talk,” says Qiao Jian, a vice president of human resources. “Then they’d say ‘How come you don’t want to add value to this meeting?’”
A new study shows that where a customer comes from plays a big role in how services are evaluated.
The study, carried out by Martin Reimann of USC, Ulrich F. Luenemann of California State University Sacramento, and Richard B. Chase of USC Marshall School, examined the impact of uncertainty avoidance on how the perception of a service drives customer satisfaction.
“Uncertainty avoidance indicates the extent to which members of a culture feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. People in uncertainty avoiding cultures are less comfortable, while those from uncertainty accepting cultures are more tolerant of unexpected changes,” said Reimann, a USC researcher in marketing and psychology, who began the study while at Stanford University.
The study found that in cultures where uncertainty avoidance plays an important role (for example, where numerous rules and rituals are established to cope with uncertainty in the future), a service must be much closer to what customers expect than in more risk tolerant cultures. Indeed, even small deviations from expectations result in high dissatisfaction among such customers, as their large-scale empirical study revealed.
The authors emphasize that, “there is very little chance to prevent a service defect when the customer encounters a situation or behavior that does not conform to his or her cultural expectations.”
I’ve watching events unfold in the global financial markets with a mixture of incredulity and fear – like most other people I suppose. What has transpired in the last couple of weeks would have seemed unthinkable a month or two ago and nobody seems to be able to call the low point in this whole mess.
What strikes me about it is the way in which certain key cultural characteristics – especially in the USA – may have been to key contributory factors to the problems. Let me briefly explain what I mean by this:
• Individualism: A key US characteristic (seen as a virtue in the States) which leads employees to have less of a sense of responsibility to the company and more of a sense of responsibility to themselves. This is one of the great strengths of the US economy but is it possible that, if left unchallenged, it can have the consequence of people making short-term decisions to better themselves at the expense of a greater whole?
• Short-termism: One of the by-products of economies which are mainly equity financed (USA, UK etc.) is that people are driven by quarterly results. This again leads to people taking short-term decisions and looking for ‘quick wins’ at the expense of a more coherent long-term strategy. This short-term outlook is, of course, exacerbated by a bonus culture which rewards people for delivering results NOW.
Chrisoph Lymbersky of the Management Laboratory Press has recently published a new title focusing on market entry management. The book is aimed at students and business personnel interested in areas such as market entry and overseas product launches. As well as covering the basics of thinking internationally the book also emphasises global efficiencies and its components. A large section of the book covers the area of interculturalcommunication demonstrating the author’s belief that such competencies are integral to succeeding on the international stage.
The book is split into four parts as follows:
Part One: Introduction to International Strategy
This section introduces the idea of thinking through the essential components of having an international strategy. It explores different types of strategies, SWOT analysis, goals and potential problems.
Part Two: Strategies for Analysing and Entering Foreign Markets
Part two provides a thorough overview of how to analyse foreign markets in terms of market potential, competition, legal structures, politics, sociocultural factors and possible barriers.
Part Three: Market Entry Strategies
The third section offers more in-depth and specific information on how to get a product or service into a new market. Topics covered include mode of entry, exporting, government policies, distribution, using intermediaries, joint ventures and licensing. The section also provides useful case studies from companies such as Calvin Klein and Virgin.
Part Four: The Influence of Culture on Market Entries
The last section concerns culture and cross-cultural awareness. Initially introducing the basics of cultural differences via the models of Hofstede, the author then goes on to explore how culture can impact market entry through issues such as language, culture shock, negotiations and M&As.
Christoph Lymbersky is head of the Management Laboratory as well as a consultant to start-up companies. He has lived, worked and done research in Germany, France, Australia and the US. His experience covers companies such as IBM and Wal-Mart as well as founding businesses such as COMODEX Internet and B2B Network.
According to the HSBC Commercial Banking report, a considerable number of businesses currently feel that a lack of information is preventing them from being able to expand into international markets. Nearly three quarters (74 per cent) of businesses which are considering overseas trading feel ill-equipped to take full advantage of the opportunity, with 47 per cent blaming a lack of experience from within their own business.
What’s more, eight out of 10 businesses (81 per cent) which are trading abroad agree that it is the differences in culture and etiquette in foreign countries that makes international trading more challenging. The language barrier is also a problem for almost two thirds of businesses (62 per cent).
Steve Bottomley concludes: “It is clear that there is as encouraging level of interest in overseas trading for businesses of all sizes. But there are pitfalls that need to be considered before settling on expansion plans. Information, expertise, language, currency, payment terms, etiquette, technology all alter significantly depending on where and what you are deciding to trade in.
Commerce has historically been a force for cultural cross-pollination. From Marco Polo’s tales of the Chinese court to the CocaColanisation of the world by American exporters, the flow of trade has promoted cultural insight and understanding between the people of the world.
Today business is more international than ever before, with not only goods but business processes and IT systems effortlessly crossing national and continental borders.
But the globalisation seen in the past two decades has been so rapid and on such a scale that the concomitant cultural familiarisation has been unable to keep pace. While technological developments have overcome the geographical distances between workers on different sides of the planet, in many cases the cultural distance is still pronounced.
And that has a genuine impact on performance. Not only is a lot of communication lost if the subtleties of intonation and reference in speech are not understood, it is also nigh-on impossible to manage individuals without understanding their attitudes towards work, towards each other and towards their managers.
Government policies aimed at encouraging innovation in manufacturing may be doomed to failure unless companies learn to take more risks, according to academic research.
An unpublished study of more than 700 manufacturers in 17 countries found no correlation between the degree of innovation at each company and the countries in which the specific companies were based.
The academics conclude that businesses’ corporate culture, driven by senior executives, is the key to success or failure, rather than external factors such as government policies in any particular nation. The countries covered in the study include the UK, US, Germany, India, Italy, China and Australia.
A strategy based on altering internal culture, the study says, is likely to “bear more fruit than one that relies on government to invest in or protect markets”. It says: “The appeal for government relief and intervention by firms [over such areas as financial support for product development] may well be a cover for cultural deficiencies in their organisations that they have hitherto overlooked.”
Creating a presence in one or more international markets requires a team of local service providers. They are your point people who can facilitate global trade, whatever the business process–finance, HR, legal, vendor sourcing and so on. Identifying the right LSPs for your business isn’t cheap or easy. But it is doable, especially if you follow these three proven guidelines:
1. Set your expectations correctly. That entails first identifying whether there’s a possible fit between what you need your business to accomplish and the opportunities and obstacles in a specific marketplace. The standard ways of conducting business–everything from putting together contracts to ensuring production quality–may be too frustrating for you in certain countries. In that case, investigate other markets, and don’t expect anything to be as straightforward as it is in the United States.
Once you’ve decided on a market you want to pursue, start looking for local representation. Folks at firms like Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and High Street Partners provide services that can help you connect with qualified locals in your country of choice.
Finally, tap into peer networks by joining trade associations, exhibiting at local trade fairs, and networking at conferences and seminars. You’ll meet entrepreneurs who’ve already gone through this, so you won’t have to reinvent the wheel.
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