Keegan and Schlegelmilch (2001)

Management > Global Marketing Management > Lectures > Independent Research > Keegan and Schlegelmilch > Differences > Specific countries > Maslow > Lee

Lee

James Lee, in Harvard Business Review, states that people tend to see problems in other cultures too much through the eyes of their own culture. He suggests four steps to overcome misunderstandings between cultures:

1. Define the problem in terms of the home country cultural traits, habits and norms.
2. Define the problem as above, but from the perspective of the host country.
3. Isolate the SRC (self-referencing criterion) influence and examine it to see how it limits one’s perspective on the problem
4. Redefine the problem, minus the SRC influence, and solve it for the host country market situation.

Products need to be measured for their environmental sensitivity, as those which are very sensitive will need to be altered to the host country’s requirements. The product adaptation mix shows food as having high sensitivity, while integrated circuits, such as Intel Inside, are very insensitive.