Mindset culture is how the citizens of a particular nation or individuals of a given state boundary respond towards certain products within their locality. This paper will focus on how South Africa has shown her reactions with culture mindset in terms of her geography, history technology, changes in economics, politically and other aspects worth noting. South Africa is one of the best performing countries in the world and among the top in Africa. The state offers its marketers special challenges due to her apparently cut stratification in numerous cultures (Mobley et al. 115). It also has broad and well established cross-cultural currents than how the other countries externally perceive it.
Heterogenization versus homogenization as a purposeful strategy occasionally becomes a significant choice. Geographically, the majority of this culture’s inhabitants are the black Africans with a few percentages of the whites. The vast economically represented are the Bantus as opposed to the other category who are the non Bantu speakers. Its market management which is consumer oriented handles the nation’s rapid development and self-improvement of its population’s life. In fact, the continuous performance of trade among these diverse communities has narrowed the gap in racial segregation between these whites and blacks (Dweck 56).
Globalization in regard to culture-mindset is the process in which the daily human experience, marked by ideas and commodities diffusion can foster cultural expressions’ standardization around the world. Economically, it may also refer to the ability and freedom for both the firms and individuals to initiate free economic transactions with other country’s residents. It also entails the integration of various economies, knowledge transmission, and transfer of policies across borders and the foundation of the global market free of political or social control (Mobley et al. 110).
The corporate mind-set’s globalization had been seen as the critical factors in building up competitive advantage. Its significance to the international business firms include:
Their ambiguity, unfamiliarity, and complexity of their r domestic environment.
They are perceived as cognitive schema natured and stimulated through experiences of history which embeds in a way that it gets easier to filter new and unfamiliar information (Mobley et al. 110).
Historically, the politics of South Africa for a long period of time was centered on the apartheid policy. South Africa rejoined the international economy scene in the early 1990s, the time when globalization had started spreading. By this time, the state had already got into vibrant multi-party system as opposed to the previous political atmosphere. Some of the reasons why it considered re-joining include adjusting to the forces that were brought about by globalization as well as coping with its economic status as one of the emerging markets at that time. The policies implemented on globalization encouraged competition among national and international markets, and South Africa was not an exception. This participation in the global markets contributed to the tremendous growth of its economy between this period of rejoining globalization and the year 2000.
Its economic output had been dominated by the foreign companies prior to entering the stagnation period at the time of mid-eighties. Globalization has brought a significant contribution to its export-import trading activities as well as its net FDI inflows and portfolio inflows.
Advancement in transport, communication and technology has also brought many contributions towards globalization in South Africa. These improvements helped in conveying information hence bringing individuals together through communication networks. They have also enhanced transfer of cultural ideas from one point to the other using the technologies of satellites and wireless.
Globalization has also improved the aspect of cultural group's intersection in S.A. During this period; several communities came together through trade since the policy guidelines provided for free trade. Through this, the exchange of values was shared between the different subgroups of Bantus and the non Bantu speakers. The interaction between these societies also led to widespread of religions (Kinley 43).
The exchange of cultures also led to sharing of the distinct beliefs of the interacting communities, for instance, the perception of the Bantu speakers that there is a connection between an individual’s spirit, community and their homesteads (Clark 26). Also, they also believe in the incorporeal and living spirits. In as much as the divergent beliefs brought individuals together during this time, it also created differences between the social groups (Kozlowski 65).
Globalization in South Africa significantly enhanced the consumer behavior of the communities who came together to settle in the south. Sharing common beliefs and perceptions had also made accessible the activities of the marketers since same cultural norms were shared across the different consumers (Kozlowski 63).
Through globalization, the level of learning also went up in S.A making the state have a unique reasoning capacity and enhancing attitude change. Some of the benefits that higher education has brought about include:
It encouraged the spread of English as a formal language and also facilitated the spread of research through the communication networks.
It has equally inculcated different styles of learning through the international sharing of knowledge.
In conclusion, it is not logical defining culture mindset globalization as a single concept. The above discussions give wider perspectives of different views of this dynamic process. It clearly shows how uniquely the process impacts differently on the social, political and economic spheres. The apartheid policy had blocked South Africa from participating in international activities for some time up to the time when policies were revised, and it rejoined. The general discussion, therefore, gives only the prelude to its progress from the duration it re-joined to take part in active trade relations.
Work Cited
Mobley, William H, Ming Li, and Ying Wang. Advances in Global Leadership: Vol. 7. Bingley, U.K: Emerald, 2012. Internet resource
Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008. Print.
Kozlowski, Jeffrey S. The Mindset Revolution: Awakening the Seven Strands of Future Thought. , 2012. Print.
Kinley, David. Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy. Cambridge [etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Print
Clark, Domini. South Africa. New York: Crabtree Pub. Co, 2009. Print.
Zolo, Danilo. Globalisation: An Overview. Colchester, UK: ECPR Press, 2007. Print
