1002495 managemetn in context (2)

An ethnographic study of cultural globalisation in Al Halal supermarket. Module Code: MAN4254M Principal Co-Ordinator: Nancy Harding Date of submission: 24-01-2011. Attendance Mode: Full Time Programme: MSc UB No: 10024495 Module Title: Management in Context I/We certify that this assignment is the result of my/our own work and does not exceed the word count noted below. Number of words ___2179___________ (Excluding appendices/bibliographies, tables and diagrams) Introduction: This main aim of this paper was to use the ethnographic study techniques in understanding the globalisation- a super market. In particular, this study aimed to investigate, the essence of culture in relate to globalisation through a study of Al Halal Supermarket in Bradford. This essay will deliver, a better understanding of globalisation, with an attempt to understand, the importance of culture in relate to globalisation, through the study Al Halal supermarket. Finally, this essay will deliver better perspectives of how global cultures’ are gained importance throughout the world. The Ethnographic study: Al Halal super market is situated in the Woodhead Rd, Bradford BD7 1PD at United Kingdom. I stood nearly ten minutes before the main entrance of the supermarket, watching the people entering and exiting the supermarket. There is free parking facility is available in back side of supermarket. As I entered the super market, I noticed people are busy in buying their house hold needs, majority of them are Muslims. After entering into main area of the supermarket, I found thirty two shelves, placed wide varieties of house hold needs. All the shelves were arranged in five columns, and each column is parallel to each other. All non-vegetarian foods are placed in separate counter. The counter is filled with chicken (bone, boneless, skinless and with skin) and other meat products. The prices of skinless and boneless chicken are comparatively high when compared to chicken pieces with skin and bone. On the right hand side of the non-vegetarian counter, a separate freezer is placed, for yoghurt and milk. On the left hand side, all varieties of masalas were held in separate shelves. Adjacent to this shelf, freezers were placed for ice-creams and for Parotas. The inside decoration used in the super market is warm welcoming and friendly. I moved a furthermore and noticed Indian varieties of shampoos and toilet soaps. When I noticed more clearly, theses shampoos and soaps are having the MRP (Maximum Retail Price) stickers as of in India. The onion bags and potato bags were placed outside the supermarket, and will be hand over to customers, after paying the bill in the billing counter. All the male staff in Al Halal supermarket is having the dress code and the female staff are wearing the normal ‘chudidars’ with name badge on their right-hand side of their chest. The security staffs was wearing, same dress code as of male staff and the people working on the floor cleaning the spilled Sun flower oil. The staff in the non-vegetarian counter, having the separate dress code white shirt and trouser. As it was Christmas period, I made my ethnographic study, I saw customers from all age groups and diverse races among them majority are Muslims, some Indians and Europeans. The European girls were wearing the normal tea shirts, jeans pants and high heel shoes while the boys were T-shirts, jeans pants, over coats and leather boots. The Muslim customers were wearing the ‘Salwar Khameez’ and ‘Burqua’- a long black gown wearing for covering the head to toe as of in Arab world. The Indian customers are preferred in wearing the outfits as Europeans. The Al Halal supermarket seems to be a place, where people from different ethnic backgrounds from Bradford, come and visit to shop for their house hold needs. To know furthermore about the Al Halal supermarket, I interviewed some customers, who were friendly in answering the questions. The Interview information is presented in the table 2 &3, below the conclusion. Globalisation: Globalisation is process where integration of economies, societies, cultures is connected through a common network. It is a process, in which worlds markets and economies are interdependent on each other. The term globalisation is mainly used for trade. Most of the goods and services produced in one part of the world can be available through rest of the globalized world. Definition: There are lot of definitions and meaning for the word globalisation, it differs from one part of the world to another. For example, Karl Marx defined globalisation as extra- territorial capitalism is called ‘globalisation’ Allman (2001). Western countries describe globalisation as ‘process of interconnectedness among the countries most notably in the area of economics, politics and culture’. Rise of internet and powerful telecommunication infrastructure are the major forces in developing globalisation process. In a globalized world, capital, people and products move freely from one part of the world to another part of the world. There are many forms of globalisation, but in present world mainly there are trade globalisation and cultural globalisation. In trade globalisation economies bring down the trade barriers and do business with each other. Due to technological advancements, for the last two decades, globalisation process increased very rapidly and made people to travel, communicate and do business in the all parts of the world i.e. internationally. This made the global markets into one big global market, for example presence of Coco-cola. Globalisation made easier to move firms from one place to another to cut the overall cost, where factors of production, i.e. land, labour and capital are very cheap and having the good quality. Globalisation has different effects in the present world from Industrial, financial, economical, job market, health policies, political, language, cultural, ecological, and technical to ethical. Broadly speaking, globalisation can be cited as global integration or global linkage. When culture is concerned, many researchers proposed theories, that globalisation will have effect on the cultural diversity, but finally globalisations will nourish diversity. Culture: Culture which means ‘cultivate’ has different meanings. The culture has three basic senses, which they were used to describe different situation. Culture is for defining taste in arts and humanities and used to describe shared values, goals and practices of an organisation or group. Finally, culture is used to describe belief and behaviour of the people, of a particular society or region based on their social learning. Culture is good, but not quite. It is an association of ideas, themes and concepts that one proposes and contradicts with each other (Thomas 2005). Culture is s a concept that used to describe or explain seemingly patterned behaviour of a particular social group (Burcik et al., 2007, 2008). Culture is the mental programming in the human mind, which displays behaviour, more or less in similar situation and make distinctive among human groups. System of collectively held values, which is different from one human group to another (Hofstede 1981). Globalisation of culture: Globalisation led to cultural integration, throughout the world. To some extent, globalisation diminished the cultural diversity, but on broader context globalisation fostered the diversity. Technological advancements are the main drivers in the cultural globalisation. Some researchers proposed some examples such as Coca-colonization, Americanization, Mcdonladilization and Cultural imperialism that diminishes the cultural diversity throughout the world. Globalisation is a process that will liberate people from culturally undermining the ideologically conformity to nationalism (Losla 2001). There are lot firms in the present world that operate locally, but to become global company, they have to develop interest cultural scenario of the other parts of the world, where they were doing the business. To sustain in the global business firms has to respect the local culture for example presence of McDonald’s in India. Absence of beef and pork in the menu is the big example how the global companies respecting the local culture. Globalisation leads to mix in cultures by erasing the boundaries in a particular place, for example thirty two percentages of people living in London metropolitan area are different ethnic groups other than native English speaking people. This often termed as ‘pluralisation’. According to (Balko 2003), globalisation process does not pollute the local culture, but enhances it. It is the process, which only relates to the free trade and free market. Analysis on Al Halal supermarket: I watched some people near billing counter, where people uses credit cards and debit cards in paying the bills. As I watched more clearly these cards are from their home countries, this is the certain benefit of the globalisation. Thus it is proved that globalisation process, made the world inter connected in terms of economic, political and cultural relations. This is due to the advancements in the technology which abolished time and distance. The billing counter is equipped with computers and other machines, which made very easy billing process, saving valuable time to the customers and the organization. These machines with the help of computers create automatic bill, when the products were swiped over them. Thus from this it can clearly state that, technology drive the globalisation process. I saw a female customer, who wears a sleeveless shirt and short, which was cultural shock to me; this was unusual where I hale from. All the customers and the staff are speaking one common language ‘English’ irrespective of their ethnic origin. I noticed two of the staff members, who were not local people, speaking English, who are migrated from South Asia or Arab countries. It clearly indicated that, English is the common language used in the globalized world. Although English language is not the official language for many parts of the world, but it interconnects the world into one region. I have seen people from all age groups are using highly sophisticated mobile phones in the supermarket, this I can relate to the globalisation process. The effect of globalisation has trespassed into all segments of the people. Although, use mobile phones is not good for some segments, but people show keen interest in using the mobile phones. In the entrance of the super market, posters were displayed with Asia and European models, drinking the coco-cola. This type of promotions will have huge influence on the customers, which in turn will benefits the organization. This is how the consumer culture was made to existence. Large organizations are tending to increase the consumer culture, which will maximize their products. The better example for the globalisation process is presence of Indian made products in the supermarket. Although, these products were produced in India, they were accepted by different group of people, especially Pakistani’s and Arabs. As these products were accepted by people globally, they can compete with the products from the European nations, which is the main theme for the globalisation process. When I was doing my study in the supermarket, I saw people greet with each other. People from the Europe, greet each other with a formal hug, while Middle East people, and greet each other by saying ‘Salam Malakum’. But majority of the people greet each other by shaking their hands. As I experienced this particular behaviour, people looked like they were following the rules. This type of experiences can be described as ‘behaviour rules’ in the culture. This type of behaviour rules were related to the ethnic culture and completely different from the organizational culture, which I noticed within the staff of the supermarket. Initially, the supermarket served the need of the British people, but with growing number customers from Asia and Africa, they placed more products to suit their tastes. For example, presence of Halal meat and Indian masala and spices. They placed separate stickers and posters about the products, where they mentioned they were serving the type of customers. For attracting the British people, arrangements were made inform of posters quoting ‘British beef and British pork’ separately. Although, posters were separate, meet products suitable for all type customers were placed in single counter. This can clearly indicates that culture is not static in the globalised world. Conclusion: The ethnographic study, I used to observe the Al Halal supermarket is worthwhile, that gave me a clear idea of cultural globalisation. The direct observation I made in the Al Halal super market, gave factual understanding of globalisation and culture. People from all ethnic groups, identified their place to shop for their house hold needs. They come to shopping with their families and making it a good time. All segment of the people ready to shop for their particular needs-opting for Asian type of food varieties or European type of food varieties. Middle aged females buy the basic home needs thinking about the family, young people are buying soft drinks and snack foods, while the children are interested in buying the ice-creams. And everyone has their own option, in shopping at the Al Halal supermarket. On this study I came to conclude that people are more open minded in changing development and accepting the globalisation process. The main drivers of this globalisation process are telecommunication infrastructure, media, internet and movies. With addition to the above, cheap and fastest transportation also made the people to move into a globalised world. In understanding the cultural globalisation, media plays a key role in developing this process. In my field experience, I have noticed clearly how media plays an important role developing the cultural globalisation. People are really interested in moving from one place to another place and developing social relationship with other people. So this is the one of the reason why Bradford city has lot of international students and workers, who migrated to UK from different parts of the world. Table 1: Questions posed for the customers ,[object Object],Table 2: Interview analysis Interviewed 25 customers, and their answers are shown in the graphs? Interview Analysis Graphs Why does u prefer in shopping at Al Halal? Do you shop other than Al Halal?Why type of food usually, do you shop at Al Halal?Did Al Halal meet your preferences?Do you live in Bradford or nearby area?What is your Nationality?Does Al Halal maintain quality in its food products? References: ,[object Object]

Dealing with difficult people Karen Mannering. Mannering, Karen. London : Hodder Education, c2008.

Emotion management in the workplace: management, work and organisation / Sharon C. Bolton, 1960.

Hofstede, G. International Studies of Management & Organization Organizations and Societies (Winter, 1980/1981), Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 15-41

http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/globalization.htm

Joel Robbins, (2004). The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 33, (2004), pp. 117-143.

Introducing Organisational Behaviour and Management by Hugh Wilmot & David Knights (2007).

Stefan Groeschl and Liz Doherty Conceptualising Culture, Cross Cultural Management - An International Journal, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 12-17.

Radley Balko. (2003) McDonald's, globalization and culture. http://rw303.wetpaint.com/page/McDonald's,+globalization+and+culture.

1002495 managemetn in context (2)

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