Analysis Culture and Behavior in Chinese Market

Asian Culture and History

January, 2009

Analysis of Culture and Buyer Behavior in Chinese Market

Yan Luo School of Management Tianjin University #92 Weijin RD, Nankai District, Tianjin 300070, China Email: iamcarolluo@yahoo.com.cn Abstract Culture is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and behavior. Country, like China, who has such a long history, has rich culture background. So it is very critical for international cooperates who want to do business in China to know about Chinese culture and how it works to buyers’ behavior. Starting from Chinese culture in Marketing context, this paper discusses how culture influence buyers’ behavior in Chinese Market. Keywords: Culture, Buyers’ behavior, Chinese market 1. Culture in Marketing Issues 1.1 Definition of culture Culture, originally derived from Latin cultura which means “tending or “maintaining”, has multiple and diverse definitions nowadays. Each of them has its own aspects. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1967) based on these various categories of concept, suggest the following comprehensive definition: “Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action.” 1.2 Levels of culture People define culture through different categories, including origin, history, religion, language, etc (Huntington, 1996). In business and marketing context, there are a great number of other cultural dimensions, such as organizational or professional culture becomes relevant (Schein 1984). The various cultural conceptions can be regarded as different levels of the same basic concept. (Srnka 2004), distinguished four such...