Multicultural Market Research Articles

New Course Development in Multicultural Marketing

The multicultural market has witnessed tremendous growth in many societies, yet multicultural marketing is marginalized in the marketing curriculum. The focus of this article is to stimulate more discussion of multicultural issues within marketing by proposing suggestions for a multicultural marketing course and identifying appropriate teaching resources. Issues for discussion include defining the multicultural terrain, ethnic groups and boundaries, models of acculturation and assimilation, multicultural marketing research, and incorporating multicultural issues into the marketing mix. It will become increasingly unethical and socially irresponsible for marketing educators to exclude ethnic minority discourse when significant numbers of our students will be drawn from these groups and practitioners wish it to be included. Although teaching specialist multicultural marketing courses may be the prerogative of the few, all marketing academics can use multicultural examples in their mainstream teaching.

Recent Graduates’ and Language Teachers’ Assessments of ESP Preparation in Hungary

Like many teachers of ESP in Hungarian higher education, I have for several years been spurred to track and investigate those interrelationships that exist between the expectations of the multicultural European job market of the 21st century and the linguistic literacy competencies required of those young graduates that are searching for jobs in such an environment. What specific knowledge or rather, what specific combination of knowledge, skills and cultural competencies do they need in order to succeed? Are we, language teachers aware of the responsibilities we have in preparing our students for such challenges? This paper publishes partial results of a national survey conducted in 2000. The investigations involved 120 teachers of ESP in higher education and 71 young graduates of technical universities or colleges with different profiles. The queries covered a wide range of issues of which we will only be examining one – from two perspectives, though – here: a.) The retrospective satisfaction of recent graduates with the language preparation they received and b.) The teachers’ assessment of the importance of the components of the preparation they provided.

The use of gaan+infinitive in narratives of older bilingual children of Moroccan and Turkish descent

In this paper, I will focus on the use of the verbal cluster gaan+infinitive ‘go’ in Dutch jokes told by bilingual children aged between 6 and 13 years of Turkish and Moroccan descent. The children told these jokes at the so-called Salaam Lombok, a multicultural market which is held every year around September in the neighbourhood of Lombok/Transvaal in Utrecht. This neighbourhood is object of research within the TCULT-program (Cornips & Jongenburger 1999). The recordings took place in 1998 and the corpus is collected by all TCULTresearchers. The Moroccan and Turkish children have told their jokes in Dutch or in their native language Berber and Turkish, respectively. If we consider the Dutch jokes, it is striking that these bilingual children use the verbal cluster gaan+infinitive, as shown in (1), to a large extent (see Cornips t.a.):

Heterogeneity of regional trading blocs and global marketing strategies

While demand for many products has become more homogeneous across countries, cultural factors have strongly inhibited this change as well. In a multicultural world, cultural heterogeneity will continue to remain the most significant barrier to one global market. Cultures are resilient and enduring and so is the concept of global multiculturalism. At the global level, trading blocs may be viewed as a cluster of geographically close countries that share abstract and/or material culture in varying degrees. It is interesting to note that the three major regional trading blocs (i.e. the European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Association of South East Asian Nations) can be characterized by significant differences in culture. With the rapid emergence of trading blocs in the multicultural market, our paper attempts to meet several objectives. First, we discuss the growing importance and underlying motives of regional trading blocs in a multicultural setting. The level of trading arrangements between nations is described and a brief overview of the three major trading blocs is then presented. The level of heterogeneity of each trading bloc is examined with implications for market segmentation. The critical role of strategic alliances in the context of regional trading blocs is discussed next. Finally, we recommend marketing strategies for firms marketing to countries within its trading bloc as well as to countries outside its trading bloc.

Broad Marketing Implications of Recent Trends in the Multicultural South African Market Environment

This article documents the centrality and importance for marketers of acknowledging and accommodating multicultural consumer market trends in South Africa. Following an overview of recent research in consumer value systems in South Africa, including mega trends shaping the multicultural South African society, a case is made for adopting appropriate paradigms, contextual approaches, and strategies and tactics relevant to multi culturally segmented consumer groups. Further research challenges are outlined.

Corporate identity: an evolving discipline

As a developing discipline, corporate identity is still understood and valued differently in the various European countries. So the questions remain: What is corporate identity and how can it benefit a company? What is its role in internationalization, and whose identities are the best? Summarizes the fourth pan‐European study on the understanding and importance of corporate identity in multicultural market conditions.