Equality and diversity from a marketing perspective

Transcription

1 Equality and diversity from a marketing perspective From Dr. Jonathan A.J. Wilson U nderstanding and addressing equality and diversity is at the heart of every marketing activity especially as businesses more than ever are being drawn towards performing on a local, international, and global level. Furthermore, being able to connect with all stakeholders, inside and outside of the organization necessitates a deep understanding of their core needs and value systems. As a business, being able to provide a level playing field, where all parties are engaged and valued, requires a strategic understanding of equality; and an ability to embrace diversity affords further market and network stability. The strategic aim is one of both wealth creation and risk reduction; by generating reciprocal financial and social capital amongst those involved. Ideally, there should also be a wider social obligation. For most organizations, diversity according to ethnicity, race, and nationalism are of more Understanding and addressing equality and diversity is at the importance than just achieving heart of every marketing legal compliance and best activity practice. They are critical success factors, increasingly used proactively as resources, engineered to present a competitive international market position. Notwithstanding such wide acceptance and positive endeavours within this field, a lack of sufficient diversity and nuanced understanding still remains. If not addressed and managed, then diversity or a lack of diversity may act as an inhibitor or barrier that undermines wider educational, intellectual, and business objectives. Furthermore, beyond ethnicity, race, and nationalism: factors associated with religion, gender issues, linguistics, high and low context cultures, uncertainty avoidance, society, and community also play a significant part. So diversity or a lack of diversity much so that these supporting factors may become may act as an inhibitor or barrier that undermines wider inseparable or synonymous with main biographical educational, intellectual, and variables of race, ethnicity, and nationalism. business objectives. reprinting, systematic distribution, ing, web hosting, including institutional repositories/archives or for any other commercial purpose without the permission of the publisher. 1

2 For example in the State of Israel, approximately one fifth of the population are defined as Arab Israeli, and three quarters as Ethnic Jews. In general, Arabs and Jews are held to be a race, or an ethnic group. Historically, they have also been attributed to those who have undergone a process of cultural or linguistic conversion. Similarly, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, concepts of a Saudi Nationality and Nationalism are often terms used interchangeably with Arab, and Muslim. Furthermore terms such as black, used to denote ethnicity or an ethnic affiliation, depending on its usage and context, may be of value and relevance; but equally could be viewed as paradoxical, pejorative and counter-productive. Collectively, these examples highlight the nuanced contextualization and influence of race, ethnicity, transnationalism, skin colour, language, and religion when constructing a distinguishable identity especially outside of the Western world (the term West in this context is interpreted and applied from a socio-cultural standpoint). Diversity and Equality functions and factors These are best understood within a cultural paradigm. This consists of the formal and psychological contracts, which are concerned with the individual and collective traits, customs, norms, and values that constitute stakeholders decisions and judgements. The following are a suggested list of key factors that should be evaluated and cross-referenced using quantitative and qualitative measures - according to population data and wider corporate practices within the region; and benchmarked across competing business schools internationally: Hard Values: Geo-biographical factors Locations of interaction. Stakeholders countries of origin, nationality, and residency; languages spoken; race; ethnicity; religion. Compliance with legislation locally, and level of comparability with other regions. Evidence of formal diversity training programmes, monitoring and policies in place. Recruitment and selection success rates amongst national, racial, and ethnic groups. Roles, responsibilities and promotion success rates amongst national, racial, and ethnic groups. 2

3 Success rates and parity amongst national, racial, and ethnic groups inside and outside of the organization. Stakeholders exposure to these geo-biographical factors through defined touch points. Soft Values: Associated preferential cultural factors Communication Language and mode of transmission; dialects and slang; rhetoric; pitch, pace, and prose; haptics (touch); eye contact; and body language gestures. Interaction Social transactions; high and low context governed cultures; uncertainty avoidance; social space; and group size preference. Network - diversity of cultural factors held within groups. Diversity challenges However, notwithstanding all of these activities, disparities still remain. Diversity is often restricted in its definition to being a management component which both assumes and encourages participants to create a universally tenable working environment. This being the case, diversity only seems to become of significance if either problems arise, or they present a commercial gain. From Diversity is often restricted in its definition to being a this paradigm it can be argued management component - that any explicitly derived which both assumes and encourages participants to knowledge and understanding create a universally tenable may tend towards being working environment. superficial, sporadic, or at the very worst exploitative. As a result this polarizes individuals into those who champion diversity and those who do not. In accepting this, it also appears to present uncoordinated or shortterm benefits, to only select parties. Furthermore, partial achievement of ethnic diversity may be seen as being self-evident or sufficient, without actually having any specific qualitative data that confirms more quantitate statistical observations. 3

4 Solutions - Conceptualization of Cultural Sensitivity Figure 1. Cultural Petals, (Wilson, 2013) Following earlier assertions that it is more conducive to view equality and diversity from a cultural perspective, Wilson (2013) presents a model, arguing that cultures cannot be judged along one universal scale, as this is problematic. The diagram should be viewed as a Venn diagram model with seven variables. In some situations, only one cultural frame of reference may predominate, for example local customs. However, in other instances, several variables may work in tandem or against each other. Here, there may be a subculture, which draws from local customs; or a departmental culture, which clashes with organizational culture. Wilson (2011), and Wilson and Liu (2012) also provide a broader cultural perspective, outlining a framework that charts a macro-process of cultural understanding within a business-cultural context, in an attempt to reconcile differences in global brand literature [Figure 2]. 4

5 Figure 2. C.H.A.N.G.E.S. model (Wilson, 2011) In the CHANGES model: intercultural analysis, through contextualizing factors that govern stakeholder interactions, should be mapped out according to: cyclical, dynamic and time specific communication networks. To this end, culture is transmitted through the subsequent stages of the model, with these stages representing critical rate-determining evaluative factors. The culmination of this is achieving a sense of Surrogacy where parties adopt and are adopted meaningfully joined in a way analogous to grafted branches or families. They also argue that English is the lingua franca of business and key to cultural transmission and understanding. But, as it is as second language to many more than hold it as a native tongue, English language itself demonstrates continual evolution increased by non-natives. About Dr. Jonathan A.J. Wilson Jon Wilson is a Programme Director of the Postgraduate Marketing degrees at the University of Greenwich. He has a career spanning 20 years; which has taken him throughout Europe, the Muslim world, and Asia. Jon is a chemistry and life sciences graduate who started off in media, advertising, and marketing communications; working in industry as an Advertising Manager, Head of Print Marketing, and Marketing Consultant. Later on, he branched into academia, professional training, conference speaking, and journalism. 5

6 Jon is the Editor-in-Chief of Emerald s Journal of Islamic Marketing, which tackles the nuances associated with Muslim consumption patterns, doing business in Muslim markets, and targeting Muslim consumers. References Eckhardt, G.M., Belk, R.W. & Wilson, J.A.J. (2015), The rise of inconspicuous consumption brand subtlety, sophistication and new luxury, Journal of Marketing Management, (Online 13th Dec. 2014). Kokkranikal, J., Wilson, J.A.J. & Crojne, P. (2011), Human Empowerment, Management and Tourism, [Chapter], in (2011), Strategic Management in Tourism, 2nd Edition, Ed. by Moutinho, L., CABI. Wilson, J.A.J. (2014), The Halal phenomenon: An extension or a new paradigm, Social Business, Autumn, Vol.4, No.3, pp (17). Wilson, J.A.J. (2013), Why culture matters in marketing and where?, The Marketeers, June, Indonesia: MarkPlus Inc., pp Wilson, J.A.J. (2011), New-School Brand Creation and Creativity lessons from Hip-Hop and the Global Branded Generation, Journal of Brand Management, Vol.19 Issue 2, Oct/Nov, pp Wilson, J.A.J. (2010), When in Britain, do as the British do if anyone knows that that means. Multiculturalism in a British university business school, Multicultural Education and Technology Journal, Vol.4 Issue 4, pp Wilson, J.A.J., Belk, R.W., Bamossy, G.J., Sandikci, O., Kartajaya, H., Sobh, R., Liu, J. & Scott, L. (2013), Crescent Marketing, Muslim Geographies and Brand Islam: Reflections from the JIMA Senior Advisory Board, Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol.4 Iss.1, pp Wilson, J.A.J. & Hollensen, S. (2013), Assessing the implications on performance when aligning Customer Lifetime Value Calculations with religious faith groups and AfterLifetime Values A Socratic elenchus approach, International Journal of Business Performance Management, Vol.14 No.1, pp Wilson, J.A.J. & Liu, J. (2012), "Surrogate Brands - The pull to adopt and create hybrid identities - via sports merchandise", International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, Vol.11 No.3/4, pp