This kind of information typically has two ends, equally vital to development and survival. Errors need corrections if continuous improvement is to occur. Results need to be framed by questions if knowledge is to accumulate. Differences need to be integrated. Competing needs to have its results shared cooperatively if learning is to come about. Rules need exceptions for increasingly enlightened legislation. Local, decentralized activities need to be thought about globally and centrally if strategies are to improve.
We improve and prosper not by choosing one end over the other, but by reconciling the values at both ends and achieving one value through its opposite. Two desirable aims are in creative tension-and hence dilemmas, pairs of propositions, must be reconciled.
The opposites that marketers must deal with, like growth and decay, put tension into their world, sharpen their sensitivities, and increase their self-awareness. The problem cannot be "solved," in the sense of eliminated, but it can be transcended. Small and family businesses need stability and change, tradition and innovation, public and private interest, planning and laissez-faire, order and freedom, growth and decay. Successful marketers get surges of energy from the fusing of these opposites.
Dilemma reconciliation could easily be described as good judgment, intuition, creative flair, vision, and leadership. Yet all these capacities have proved elusive when people try to explain them and they tend to vanish as unexpectedly as they first appeared.
Thinking in Dilemmas
A dilemma can be defined as "two propositions in apparent conflict." A dilemma describes a situation whereby one has to choose between two good or desirable options, for example: "On the one hand we need flexibility while on the other hand we also need consistency." So a dilemma describes the tension that is created due to conflicting demands. In dealing with such apparently conflicting propositions, there are several options.
Ignoring the Others
One type of response is to ignore the other orientation. Stick to your own standpoint. Your style of decision making is to impose your way of doing things either because it is your belief that your own way of doing things and your values are best, or because you have rejected other ways of thinking or doing things because you have either not recognized them or have no respect for them.
Abandon Your Standpoint
Another response is to abandon your orientation and "go native." Here you adopt a "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" approach. Acting or keeping up such pretences doesn't go unnoticed. Others may mistrust you and you won't contribute your own strengths to the situation you are in; it's like trying to impress on your first date.
Compromise
Sometimes do it your way. Sometimes give in to others. But this is a win-lose solution or even a lose-lose solution. Compromise cannot lead to a solution in which both parties are satisfied; something has to give.
Reconcile
What is needed is an approach where the two opposing views can come to fuse or blend, where the strength of one extreme is extended by considering and accommodating the other. This is reconciliation.
At their simplest, values are seen as opposites, and we tend to see only the differences.
However, one value cannot exist without the other. Errors need corrections for continuous improvement.
Competing proves beneficial only when the results can be cooperatively harvested. Rules need exceptions for increasingly enlightened legislation. Local, decentralized activities need to be thought about globally and centrally.
We can now break the initial line into two axes and create a value continuum. "Value added" is probably too narrow a term, because only seldom do values stack up like children's wooden building blocks placed on top of each other. Values come in all shapes and sizes and must be reconciled or integrated into larger meanings.
Bridging these opposites in a creative way could be called an upward spiral. You could also describe it as innovative learning, or creating value. Marketers succeed and prosper not by choosing one end over the other, but by reconciling both and achieving one value through its opposite. Two desirable aims are in creative tension; hence dilemmas must be reconciled into new integrities.
Clustering Dilemmas of Marketing
To show how this reconciliation can be achieved, we first need a way of clustering dilemmas so that we can offer a robust, generalizable framework in order to reconcile each type of dilemma. First, therefore, we have to describe our model of cross culture, which itself differentiates between norms and values of different cultures.
Culture, like an onion, comes in layers. The outer layer covers everything you can see and hear. Take any airport far away from home. When travelling from the airport into town you'll probably see the same things everywhere: factories, office buildings, traffic, food outlets, housing, and people. You only need to look a bit closer to see the differences. All the things that are visible and audible belong to the "outer layer of culture." This layer is thin. It can be peeled off easily, revealing a deeper layer. You simply notice that people in other cultures behave differently. The reasons why they do so are in the second layer: the domain of "norms and values," "good or bad," "right or wrong." You will never be able to see a norm, nor shake hands with a value. You can only observe their power on the surface level in the behavior of people. You may feel uncertain interpreting certain behaviors; what's good or normal in your culture may be wrong or strange in another. Is it bad when people shout? How should you interpret the feelings of customers who show no emotion? What impact would it have if you were to be late for an appointment with a client?
To understand marketing across cultures, we need to look for an explanation for all these differences in the core, the innermost layer. Every culture has its own history, often a long one. There have been disasters and plagues, shortages of food and labor. There have been influences from other cultures, war, migration. And then there's nature, sometimes wild and dangerous, sometimes willing and generous. And don't forget "other people": old people, young people, friends, and enemies. Throughout the centuries mankind has faced similar basic problems concerning other people, time, and nature. Each society has solved these problems in its own unique way and each solution is called a "basic assumption." Culture is the result of all the basic assumptions a society has developed over the centuries in order for it to survive. Only if you are familiar with these basic assumptions can you really understand a specific culture.
Basic assumptions are all in the heart, passed down from generation to generation. They're in your head as well and they got there unnoticed. Basic assumptions are very important for understanding cultural differences. They can be measured by dimensions, and at THT we distinguish seven basic cultural dimensions. Each one is like a continuum, covering all possible combinations between two contrasting basic values. Someone from a different culture will have a cultural profile that is different to yours. But remember that differences are just differences; in music an F-sharp is no better or worse than a B-flat-they are just different. Exactly the same can be said about cultures.