Analyze the following case carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Cultural barriers is one of the most talked about in international business problems.It is, however, very interesting to note that cross-border transmission of culture is very rampant.
Many politicians, sociologists and others are highly critical of the invasion of the Western culture in the developing countries.The export of American culture is interpreted as means to spread American imperialism (Colonization).The Coca Cola culture or the corn flakes culture or the pop culture are terms which have come to be very broadly used to include, besides the pop music and associated things, the Western products and styles such as foreign jeans, cola drinks, fast foods, Hollywood movies and the like the youth, particularly, are crazy about.They have fast spread to the developed and developing countries.The emergence of culture as economic goods that can be traded - crafts, music, films, TV programs, software, books, tourism etc. - has contributed very substantially to the globalization of culture.
A UNESCO study shows that world trade in goods with cultural content - printed matter, literature, music, visual arts, cinematic, photographic, radio and television equipment - has grown tremendously.For the United States the largest single export industry is computers, and the combined exports of films, sound recordings, printed matter and information, and computer software industries.More recently, in films and television programs, Hollywood films grossed more than 30 billion worldwide in 1997, and in 1998 a single movie, Titanic, grossed more than 1.8 billion.As the Human Development Report 1999 points out, the vehicles for this trade in cultural goods are the new technologies.Satellite communications technology from the mid-1980s gave rise to a powerful new medium with a global reach and to such global media networks as CNN.The development of the Internet is also spreading culture around the world, over expanded telecommunications infrastructure of fiber optics and parabolic antennas.The Report referred to above points out that the global market for cultural products is becoming concentrated, driving out small and local industries.At the core of the entertainment industry - film, music and television - there is a growing dominance of US products, and many countries are seeing their local industries wither.Although India makes the most films each year, Hollywood reaches every market, getting more than 50 per cent of its revenues from overseas, up from just 30 per cent in 1980.It claimed 70 per cent of the film market in Europe in 1996, up from 56 per cent in 1987 - and 83 per cent in Latin America and 50 per cent in Japan.By contrast, foreign films rarely make it big in the United States, taking less than three per cent of the market there.
Questions:
a. What are the issue and prospects discussed in the case?
b. What are the implications of the spread of pop culture for business?
c. Can pop culture encourage achievement motivation?
d. Based on the case, project future business environment.
