Hi, guys. Welcome back to Global Business Environment. This is module four, and this will be part five of module four. In which we've been trying to understand the role of culture on the Global Business Environment. We've been talking about this particular case, in the last two parts, we've been talking about how people live, and how that reflects culture. As you might imagine, some, parts of the world that embrace, more of an urban lifestyle, the inside, or the interior of the living spaces can be quite small, and so, and this is just one example, this is a relatively nice apartment. Some individuals in the world have don't have as of great of purchasing power, and may not have some of these devices or furniture, they may not have some of the comforts that are reflected in this particular room. And so, when we look at images like this, what we want to understand from a business perspective is how the culture impacts lifestyle and therefore business transactions. So here's a simple thing portion sizes. If you live in a society that has more of an urban lifestyle or smaller living spaces, you may see individuals purchasing more from large containers and placing them into individual very small bags. Now this right, may reflect, lower prices because the packaging may be cheaper. But individuals may purchase every day. They may come every day to buy some beans or some rice. It may be the case that in some cultures, individuals are paid on a daily basis. For example, my father-in-law was a taxi driver in Mexico for most of his life and he was paid each day in cash and therefore his family went to the market each day and bought from a local corner store like some of the ones that we've seen In these other pictures. Not, not in the suburban life, but in from a store that might be around the corner and, took it home and ate it that day and then came back the next day and bought again from this, store. They may have purchased meat or chicken when they could, in a similar way. Here's the, this type of store, the local store, and in fact, in many places in the world, you see, stores like this placed very, regularly in a neighborhood. You might have a store on every corner, and so you can walk. You don't need to have a car. In some places, cultural values are, are such that you may not see as many cars. It may be also economic reasons that that impede the purchase of cars. And you need to understand that when you go into this different place that people are buying perhaps on a daily basis and they're walking to their place of business rather than driving. They may buy, in a small bag, a liquid that might be purchased in another place in a carton with in a larger size. You may have seen in other parts of the world, in some parts of the world, individuals drinking this type of liquid, a juice or a soda or a milk out of a bag like this. Which would be very different in, in other parts of the world where they're used to drinking out of a bottle. This may reflect cultural values, as well. About packaging and the environment. It could reflect environmental concerns. There, there are a lot of reasons. There are other places in the world, individuals go, as I mentioned earlier, to the store, very frequently and they have the storage space to store a large a box of diapers for example for their baby where in other parts of the world, an individual may go to a corner store like this and buy a single diaper. You know, in some place in the world individuals purchase a dozen eggs. At these corner stores you may see a single egg for sale. And so different societies sell in different portion sizes. This may be reflected in the value of the individual's place on freshness of food versus processed food. It may be reflected in, the types of food for sale. The, the value placed on health versus versus enjoyment of flavors. The, the businesses need to be aware of the structure of society and the values they place on, on different lifestyles when they consider investing in new locations. For example, here's a Burger King in an urban setting. And you notice, there's no drive through. In most, in most places, in the United States of America, for example, a fast food restaurant like Burger King would have a drive through, because most people are coming to purchase or many people are coming to purchase in their vehicle and want to eat in their vehicle. In other places, there would be a, a strong cultural value, placed on enjoying a meal sitting down, homemade, and you would never consider eating in a car. I will tell you that my wife, ate in her, the car for the first time with me. And it seemed very odd to her to be eating while, moving in a vehicle, and so businesses need to be very aware of this that the investment decisions will be very different. A company like Burger King wouldn't have to worry about purchasing a large piece of land and, and, planning for parking spaces in a place like this. Foot traffic will be a large, portion of their business, and individuals may need to, have greater access to, to the locations of businesses like this, so you may see them more, compactly spaced. You may see them every few blocks in some parts of the world, and so there are all kinds of, of factors that something as complex as lifestyle and structure of living can have on business and business transactions, and as you, travel around the world or interact with others around, being aware of these complex, the complex historical reasons for all types of things that you may see, are based in things like culture, history, religion, language, etc. And so this is just one example. We could have looked at a lot of different things to try to understand culture. This is just one case that I like to use to try to demonstrate to you to get you thinking as you see, how people live. To try to start asking questions, well why is it that way? And, and is there another way to do this? And, how would we change, from, from this type of lifestyle? For example, in some parts of the United States of America you see individuals increasingly embracing more of an urban lifestyle. Because of changing values. Maybe that reflects, a growing, or a decrease in individualism in some people in the United States. So even though cultures are relatively stable, they do change. Over time you may see, some societies, decrease or increase their the, the value they placed on material things. We, we're going to talk in this course about economic development and it's probably important to to understand that even though we speak of economic development as a positive thing, in some places in the world there's less value placed on material things. We're talking about the global business environment and talking about commercial transactions, but for some people, there isn't the same desire to grow in the same way, at the loss of perhaps some cultural values, and so, culture's a complex thing to understand. We've defined it as the norms and values and behaviors, the collective mindset of a people or place. Trying to understand it can be difficult. This is just an introduction. And we clearly haven't given you enough information to go be successful in the business world tomorrow. But, I hope that we have made you aware of its existence and importance in the global business environment. Thank you, very much. This will end Module Four. This has been Part Five. We'll see you back next time in Module Five, and we'll explore another aspect of the global business environment. Thank you, very much.
