It seems so far that often a company makes or breaks it’s entry in new markets by making the right adaption in their product or policy, depending on the different needs in a new environment.
Having read the articles about McDonalds on how they adapt their menu’s in order to suit with local behavior, I’d like point out that it’s not only about the food. It’s also about the ‘fast’, and how this affects social behavior and social rituals.
The introduction of McDonalds in one way changes the whole idea of eating.
Instead of looking at diner as being a social, family or even religious moment, McDo turns it into big volume consumption. Just eating and getting out in a minimum of time. Perfect for a busy economy , but painfully conflicting with several cultural values.
Another downside of globalization is that exported products can easily lose their authenticity.
As Benjamin Barber formulates it: “… we all know the difference between getting crêpes in Dijon and getting them in a New York place called Les Halles”.
For the same reason as before, there has been made a change in the product causing it to be mild duplicate of the original delicacy, and therefore losing its original history and cultural value. In a way that’s OK, it has always happened, and maybe something even better will result out of it, but the fact that this product is still claimed to be typical French, and soled for the same reason, makes it lose its original identity.
And increasing globalization makes these processes occur more than often.
Thomas De Vuyst
link: http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v25n3/globalization.pdf
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