Analysis of the Effects of the Internet - Coursework Example

Internet has been a major force in changing the face of economies. It has brought about change in the way view of economies by shifting them towards the western outlook and integrating them in their culture. Internet has ensured that consumers get a lot of options and variety to choose from. The customer can use internet and compare the products of different companies thereby making their decision making process better and ensure that they get desired product. This has also caused a shift to westernization in countries all around the world. The paper looks into the manner, in which growth in technology such as internet has caused a shift towards westernization and has affected the culture, political, business, technology and science. The paper thereby looks into the different area which has been affected due to westernization and the effect it is having on economies. An area where the growth in technology has affected is culture. Growth in technology has affected a culture prevalent in one country as it has led the economies to absorb the western culture. Culture affects human behaviour. It is something which humans acquire. This brings a change in human pattern. It makes them do different things. Culture gets ingrained by the group he has. “People belong to different caste, country, creed, colour, and region which affect the manner in which they carry out their duties”. (Innah, 2009) Suppose, a person influenced from the western culture will have a liking for different product compared to others. The culture also affects the pattern. “A set of beliefs, attitude, language, life style affects the spending pattern”. (Innah, 2009) This brings changes. Growth in technology has fuelled the economies to look towards western culture. This has made economies forget their own culture and look towards the western culture. A research shows that people from different countries have different culture as a result of which their pattern of influencing other is also different there by suggesting that culture brings about a change in the way person behaves and this gets moulded by the group he belongs to (Ralston, Hallinger, Egri & Naothinsuhk, 2005). Growth in technology has integrated the different culture which has resulted in people think alike. This has increased the preference of people towards the western culture as economies are looking towards integrating the different culture. This has resulted in the loss of the economies as personal characteristics of the economies are being wiped out by integration of culture. This is seen in the Middle East. The region is dominated by followers of Islam. So a multinational companies coming with a service that goes along with the custom of that country helps to build relations. Those companies are favoured and they find it easy to market themselves because they are easily adaptable to the culture of the country. This is a concern for company as it can backfire if the company looks towards using the western culture in a country where it is not acceptable. A miscalculation or interpretation might result in ruining the name. This would put a stop for the company to grow in countries which are similar as they loose reputation. Thus understanding the local typologies helps multinationals to pave a path which they can follow for their success and it is necessary that companies look to understand the local culture and dont look towards westernization which is a prevalent situation in this world. Different culture also gives rise to conflicts. People think differently. This affects the growth part. It creates conflicts. People belong to different regions, countries and differ in their process of thinking and doing things (Innah, 2009). So when this people come together it results in difference in opinion and looking at things differently which gives rise to conflicts in the organisation (Innah, 2009). This has created a situation where different economies are looking towards disintegration of their culture which is raising concerns for economies all around the world as westernization has resulted in the old traditions to be wiped out. Multinational companies look towards endorsing the western culture instead multinational companies need “to look into more cultural sensitive factors to be able to win consumers”. (Slawomir, 2010) This is a very vital point for any company. This helps them to win the hearts of consumers and as a result get loyal customers. Multinational companies need to ensure that they bring about a change in the perspective so that they can enter a new market and shed the traditional culture of endorsing the western culture. This can be seen from the case of McDonalds in India. India being a culture sensitive country and high on religious favour companies which have this fundamentals. McDonalds when it entered the country came with beef in its products. It even used oil which contained animal fats followed in the western world. The religious custom didn’t allow those. McDonalds was not able to gain its market share. The company understood the culture and came again with a variant. They launched the vegetarian variety and removed beef from its menu. It even stopped using oil which contained animal fat. This resulted in the company gaining market share. Consumers started liking the product and McDonalds was able to capture a good chunk of the Indian market. Understanding the culture thus forms a vital part. This leads the company “to manage their finance properly so that they don’t fall into financial crisis”. (Slawomir, 2010) Thus multinational companies need to see that they understand the cultural factors and deciding on the prevalent culture look towards westernization. Instead the trend witnessed has been to endore westernization which is catching many multinationals by surprise as the acceptability is not easy. Another area where the growth in technology is bringing westernization is business. The growth in technology is gaining prominence as borders are disappearing and countries are entering into treaties with each other which favour free trade. This has made companies expand its reach. Companies are benefitting greatly from the global markets as it is giving them a wide market to cater to and at the same time helping to improve the bottom line. (Ellis, 2001) This is making more companies to get acclimatized to the local conditions. Today “businesses which are global are a force for good”. (Ellis, 2001) This is because it gives them ample opportunities to grow. This has made economies adapt to the western culture and look towards the western world for ensring growth in the business. Multinational companies while entering a new country ensures that their subsidiaries understand the typologies develop it based on the western world thereby ensuring westrnization. (Enright & Subramanian, 2008) It helps them to build their strategies and helps in capacity creation and proper utilization of that capacity which will ensure that the western world absorbs the good produced by them and look towards producing goods which the western world prefers. (Enright & Subramanian, 2008) This creates a situation where the country where the enterprise has been set absorbs the western culture and look towards the western world for their business. This becomes more necessary for multinational companies who render services. Since they look to earn by satisfying customers on a regular basis an understanding of the condition such as culture, caste, religion and prevalent customs (Kundu & Merchant, 2008) goes in a long way to build relations. Using the western culture here creates an ill impact as the local economy slowly looses its relevance and with the changes in the demographic over a period of time the economies gets adapted to westernization. The growth in technology has also brought westernization in the field of technology. Internet has caused a growth in technology which has made it easy for economies to shift to westernization. The growth in technology has enabled the countries to adapt to the western culture as technology has enabled the economies to ensure that the integration of western world is easy. This can be identified from the fact that the development of technology enabled the economies to mould their pattern of working as it has become easy for the employees to compare the wage level with the western countries. This is especially the case with unskilled workers. Adapting to the local conditions based on the western countries has brought a change in the wage rate. It is seen that multinational companies prefer countries where the wage rate is low so that they can produce at the cheap rate thereby generating more employment (Klein, 2001) and then look towards integrating the western countrie working patern in the country. It was seen in 1998 that Chinese manufacturers who were producing goods for companies like Ralph Lauren, Nike and Adidas paid wages at 13 cents per hour where as the same labour in the US was paid $10 per hour. (Klein, 2001) thus multinationals companies who are able to understand the local responsiveness better are able to take advantage of it. The growth in technology allowed the employees to compare their wages with those of other western countries and based on it were able to ensure that they get a fair return. The westernization on the front of technology has helped certain economies gain advantage and also brought certain disadvantages with it. The growth on technology has ensured that economies adapt to the western world and integrate those with their mechanism of working. This makes it easy for multinational companies to push their products. It was seen that in eastern countries multinational companies created demand for tobacco products which was not prevalent there. (Kenway & Bullen, 2001) This was done by ensuring that the growth in technology makes it easy for the population to adapt to the western world. The adoption of westernization is more prevalent in economies which have a younger population. Countries whose population is young acts as a better opportunity for westernization as multinationals can sell their products because they are the group of consumer who prefer to spend on new products (Kenway & Bullen, 2001). The growth in technology helps the people to find out the new developments taking place in the western world and adapting to the western world becomes easy. This gets further intensified by migration which has taken place and caused westernization thereby making it more difficult for multinationals to understand the local responsiveness. (Brahm, 2005) Companies need to develop tactics to cope with it. Understanding it helps as a guiding force towards success. The development of technology has aided to the adoption of western culture which has made economies all around the world to look towards the western world for any developments that takes place. Thus, we see that multinationals that have been able to use westernization when they enstre other economies as the development in technology has aided to it. This takes into consideration the cultural differences which arise and the manner in which western culture is having an influence on other culture. Multinationals like McDonalds, Adidas, Nike, Volkswagens, General Motors and many others have been successful because they gave utmost importance to western culture and also identified the different countries where they need to mould themselves thereby ensuring that they were able to garner business. They made strategies which were in line with those there by ensuring that they were able to grow and market well. The growth in the technology thereby fuelled westernization in other countries as other economies to replicate the growth witnessed by the western world started adoting it. This along with the change in culture was accepted by some economies and rejected by others. The growth in technology and looking towards westernization helped the poor countries to ensure that the growth in technology matched their requirements which helped them to shape their manner of working and gain useful insights from the western countries. Thus, the overall effect of westernization due to development had both been positive and negative in the different regions and slowly with the passage of time economies are looking towards adpating towards westernization. References Brahm E, 2005 “Globalization”, 2005, retrieved on March 30, 2011 from Read More