Case Study Answers

 Case Study Answers

Question 1

Hollywood movies have an impact on national culture outside America, especially in their use of idioms, cultural metaphors, and stereotypes in communicating various messages. Idioms are used to conceal the literal meaning of something. For instance, saying something is yesterday’s news means that it is no longer of interest. According to Gannon (2011), cultural metaphors are the significant activities or phenomena in a country that people identify with the most from an emotional and cognitive standpoint with a good example being American football. Stereotypes associate a certain behavior with particular people, such as Americans with being smart as depicted in crime-busting and sci-fi movies. As such, other cultures from around the world make movies based on their perceived strengths.

Hollywood films promote varied aspects of U.S. culture. For instance, the perceptions of beauty were satirized by Sandra Bullock in the movie titled Miss Congeniality. Additionally, the conflict between competition and cooperation, highly present in American culture, was conceptualized by Guy Pearce and James Cavalier in the movie, The Count of Monte Crisis (2002). Relationships between subordinates and their superiors were depicted by Toby Maguire in the movie Spacesuit, while family relationships and their dynamics are seen in Sarah Jessica’s film, The Family Stone (2005).

There are many observable positive impacts of Hollywood movies on international cultures.  For example, many foreign movies now show their traditions and esteemed cultural values, an apparent influence of American movies on these cultures. Hollywood movies have depicted main characters as capable of surviving many odds. This aspect is now incorporated in many foreign movies as they showcase their cultural, religious, and political icons to communicate their influence and value to these foreign cultures. Additionally, Hollywood movies have used various elements of culture, such as aesthetics, to depict the desirability of their favored traditions.

Such depictions have not only helped other countries espouse their values through films but have also taught them how to use such aspects to enforce better cultural values such as communicating clearly and working hard. Moreover, other positive effects on international cultures have been enabled by movies such as Pearl Harbor as well as The Godfather, which have depicted some good patterns of making decisions. Hollywood movies such as Pearl Harbor have also likely influenced the decision-making engagements of different world militaries.

Question 2

Movies have undoubtedly impacted the broad audiences that interact with movies, and, in light of this assertion, movies have significantly influenced company undertakings, managerial duties, and even ways of conducting business globally. Although these impacts have come through entertainment, there are nonetheless many clear illustrations of the influence of movies on these critical aspects.  For instance, movies have engendered colonization, which has led to the socialization of workers into primary overlapping cultures, namely, corporate, national, and professional culture. As individuals get socialized into a specialty and a work setting, there is a tendency for corporate and professional cultures to grow. Further, these cultures are entrenched in every country’s national cultures.

Movies influence and also come from the aforementioned important intersecting cultures.  With the infusion of culture into business on varied levels, films invariably mirror global business engagements, company activities as well as managerial responsibilities. On the other hand, films depict global business undertakings and different approaches to engaging in business, resulting in emulation of the role models as they perform in corporations or the movies. As such, by watching foreign films, it is possible to learn about the ways other cultures approach business. It is thus possible to learn that another culture may not esteem the particular business strategy adopted by one culture.

Hence, watching foreign movies can be a good way of understanding the execution of business internationally, especially because culture is very critical in global business, such as in the development of services and products. It is also important in determining how to interact with global business partners, in preparing materials for promotion and in picking foreign distributors. It is also important to note that cross-cultural disparities obfuscate workplace issues that include employment and teamwork. As such, watching foreign movies can help clarify the complexities involved in international business and teach the viewer how to deal with such traits. For example, a viewer may learn about different interpersonal exchanges, and understand how to include the cultural context in various value-chain engagements such as in designing and marketing products. For instance, a viewer can know that the Russians favor the red color and consider it beautiful while the South Africans associate it with mourning. Understanding such cultural aspects may avert the likelihood of cultural conflicts for a would-be international business person or corporation.

Question 3

There are many factors attributed to the high demand for Hollywood films around the world. One of the most persuasive factors contributing to the high demand is the high levels of technology used in these films. With the advent of useful technologies such as computer animation, a movie director can execute their perception of the future in a movie. Today, tech creators and sci-fi writers can utilize technology in movies to produce creative depictions that provide the chance and avenue for exploring extraordinary terrains on and outside the Earth (Redbytes, 2018).The high demand for Hollywood films, especially among Americans, is because they are made for entertainment, unlike European-made movies that are usually more thought-provoking. Americans tend to prefer the special effects and easy, entertaining storylines as incorporated in Hollywood films.

The high demand for American films in countries such as Japan and in Europe and Latin America is also attributed to the presence of many world renowned stars. The European and other global film industries do not have many of the majorly and globally recognized stars as in the American films. As such, non-Hollywood films lack the international repute and clout, which then diminishes their audiences. Without audiences, it is impossible to produce many big-budget and technologically advanced and yet entertaining movies as Hollywood films. The lack of stars and big budgets by other film makers in other countries means that Hollywood films will continue dominating the local and international markets.

Foreign films are not demanded highly in the United States because they lack the technological advancements seen in Hollywood movies, which increase their persuasiveness to local and international audiences.  Further, they usually have bland storylines that are of little or no interest to the American culture. This lack of interest in foreign films may be the result of Americans generally knowing too little about other countries and cultures, compared to the vast knowledge the rest of the world has about the United States. Moreover, the popularity of forewing films in America may be because they are made in foreign languages including Chinese, German and French, which creates a language barrier.

To increase demand for their movies in the U.S., filmmakers can seek collaborations with established American movie-making companies, for instance, by developing the storyline together and using the resources of the American companies to make the movies. Although the foreign filmmakers may pay hefty costs for such an undertaking, they would benefit massively from the wider audience. Further, filmmakers could consider producing high tech movies in their own language to contextualize their culture but translate their movies to English instead of having people follow the movie by reading English subtitles, which may be hectic and eventually boring for the American viewer.

Part 2: Essay Questions Answers

Question 2

There are varied approaches a corporation can use to protect against piracy and violation of its copyrighted products. One of the most important ways is by having strong built-in measures in its service and products. It is imperative that any encryption system be built meticulously because of the many potential and usually subtle ways that can be used to capture private information, with one of the most pertinent being breaking the encryption code. For instance, a company can use public-key encryption, which, as observed by Lord (2018), is a cryptographic system that utilizes a publicly known key and a secret or private key recognizable only to the message’s recipient. For example, if a company desires to send another company a secure message, the sending company uses the recipient’s company’s public key for the encryption of the private message while the receiving company uses its private key for the decryption of the private message. The major feature of public key encryption is that the relationship that exists between the private and public keys because neither can do without the other.

A company could also watermark its patents digitally, just as a paper can have a watermark. In this regard, the digital watermark helps to conceal a message associated with a digital signal, such as a video, a song or an image. It conceals information related to the digital signal’s particular content. A digital watermark helps the owners of the patented information to track duplication and circulation of their digital works. It is also possible to use IP identification information to identify objects through established systems of numbering, such as the ISBN utilized in identifying books.

Question 3

The video describes how the GAP Inc. Company operates internationally by focusing their markets on the medium-income and rich countries of the world. The company’s strategy excludes the markets of developing and poor nations in Africa and in some regions of the Caribbean, South America, and Asia (Evans, 2014). It concentrates on the major markets of the North America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and other economically formidable economies. The company has over 100,000 employees and has around 3000 stores and 400 franchises internationally.

Segmentation denotes the separation of buyers in the market by categorizing them according to groups that have distinct desires and needs. Such groups may be according to profession, geographical location, psychographic aspects, social class, among many other grouping factors (Lynn, 2011). Targeting denotes the selection of an especially desirable market segment to target it with a specific product. GAP Inc. has attained effective targeting is done using advertisements as well as brand offering to attain optimal sales impact and efficiency. Targeting allows the company to attain its targeted strategic objectives, which allows it to determine the best approach to use to reach the target market.

Positioning entails placing a product strategically in the market to influence the customer’s perception of the company’s products by using product positioning messages and persuasive branding approaches. GAP Inc. has used positioning effectively because it has focused effectively on communicating its product’s prices, quality, product range, product characteristics and differentiation. Consequently, GAP Inc. has managed to impress its customers on the uniqueness of its products and hence acquired the wide international market for its brand.

Evans (2016) depicts GAP Inc. as a firm that caters to the clothing needs of people in virtually all groups, including professional classes, gender, age groups, and other groups by utilizing the model known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the level of physiological needs, a GAP Inc. clothing line called Old Navy focuses on the low income group while the Banana brand line focuses on the upper and middle income groups.

References

Evans, E. (2016). Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning within Gap Inc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlQtjaLyW-w&t=253s

Gannon, M. J. (2011). Cultural metaphors: Their use in management practice as a method for understanding cultures. Online readings in psychology and culture, 7(1).https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=orpc

Gigante, M.D. (2013). Protect Your Good Name: 9 ways to defend your brand with patent, trademark and copyright. https://www.mdgadvertising.com/marketing-insights/9-ways-to-protect-your-brands-patent-copyright-and-trademark/

Lord, N. (2018). What is public key cryptography? https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-public-key-cryptography

Lynn, M. (2011).Segmenting and targeting your market: Strategies and limitations. https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1238&context=articles

Redbytes.(2018). Top 15 movies that explore the real-world technologies.https://www.redbytes.in/technology-movies/