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Unit 3: International Retailing: Internationalization and Globalization

way of life for a man. The other definition by Hofstede (1980) cited by Jones, D. & McCarthy, J. Notes
(2004) states that "culture as the collective programming of the mind which distinguished the
member of one human group from another". Culture can be different from one group to another
and can distinguish the way of living of the human from such groups.
As different societies have different cultures as believes and values, these eventually shapes the
people living and growing in that society (Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. 2008).
A culture of a certain society for example can shape the way of clothing for that society. People
growing and living in that society will have a belief and value on the certain type of clothing.
Cultural environment shape the way people do things which in turn has an effect on the retail
business environment.
There are numerous definitions of culture as a term, deriving back from end of 19th century. The
scope of the term has broaden and the importance of culture as a factor for understanding the
social, economic and political phenomenon have increased since then.
One of the most influential and most cited studies of national culture is the one developed by
Geert Hofstede (Geisler & Wickramasinghe, 2009).
Hofstede's five-dimensional framework have proved as an useful tool of measuring culture and
cross-cultural consumer behaviour comparisons (Mooij & Hofstede, 2002). It has been used as a
basis for a number of studies on the cultural impact over consumer behaviour and consumption.
Here, we are focussing on the relationship between national culture and retail development.
Culture is interpreted as an additional factor, by gaining understanding of which could help
some countries, industries and businesses.
Recently Blagoev and Minkov (2009) proved a correlation between Hofstede's Individualism
cultural dimension and retail trade and so set a good example on how the culture can affect retail
consumption through affecting the consumer behavior.

These recent researches give ground for exploring whether consumption, respectively retail
trade are affected by the cultural differences of the specific country.

Elements and Levels of Culture

Definitions of culture over time ascribe a lot of different meanings to the term and also expand
the scope of the term's use. The researchers who have tried to define it are coming from different
fields which makes it difficult to come up with single, universal definition. To study its effect
requires to have knowledge on its nature, elements and scope (Rugman at al., 2006).
Difficult to be defined it also is difficult to explain what exactly culture consists of, however
Groeshl and Doherty make a good attempt to explain it:
"Culture consists of several elements of which some are implicit and others are explicit. Most
often these elements are explained by terms such as behaviour, values, norms, and basic
assumptions. (Groeschl & Doherty, 2000, p. 14)"
Summarising, the four levels of culture Srnka (2004, p. 3) describes them as:
1. Supra-culture shared by nations with similar economic systems, development, ethnicity,
etc.;
2. Macro-culture shared by people of the same nationality, country of residence or origin;
3. Meso-culture shared by groups or communities, e.g., group of professionals from an
industry or gild, within a macro-culture;
4. Micro-culture shared by smallest social collectivities, e.g., family or clan or organisation.

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