1
MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
FOR GLOBAL BRAND MANAGEMENT
IN MULTINATIONAL CONSUMER
BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES
Gehan D. Shanmuganathan, DBAAdjunct Professor of Business and Management,
School of Management, Metropolitan College of New York, USA
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Introduction
• Globalization and branding
• Importance of brand customization
• Consideration of multicultural
factors of immigrant employees of
multinational consumer banks
operating in the United States
3
Study focus
• Whether leaders in multinational consumer
banks operating in the United States
consider cultural factors (values, beliefs,
colors, religion, taste, rituals, and symbols) of
their immigrant employees in developing
their global brand strategy when going global
in order to reap above-average profits
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Conceptualization
Effective Global Brand Management as
Organizational Core Competency
Effective Leadership and Application of
Multicultural Perspectives of Immigrant Employees
in Global Brand Management
Above Average Profits for Corporate Growth
Independent Variable
Mediator Variable
Dependent Variable
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Research Question
• “What multicultural factors (values, beliefs,
attitudes, education, religion, myths, colors, taste,
and rituals) are considered when designing global
brand strategy by multinational consumer banks
where there immigrant employees are employed
AND the magnitude of the consideration of each
cultural factor in comparison to indigenous banks
with their implications to the industry”?
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Research Hypotheses
• Hypothesis 01 – effective leaders
consider cultural factors such as values,
beliefs, education, religious values,
symbols, and myths of immigrant
employees of multinational consumer banks
operating in the United States in their
global brand strategy development.
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Research Hypotheses
• Hypothesis 02 – Multinational consumer
banks operating in the United States utilize
multicultural perspectives such as values,
beliefs, education, religious values, symbols,
and myths of immigrant employees in their
global brand management compared to
indigenous consumer banks operating in the
United States.
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Research Hypotheses
• Hypothesis 03 – Charismatic
leadership style is the most effective
management style when considering
cultural factors such as values, beliefs,
education, religious values, symbols, and
myths of immigrant employees in their
global brand management.
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Summary of Literature Review
• Adams (2008), Asser (2009), and Gaal (2009)
contended that multinational organizations
significantly use multicultural perspectives
in their international business
• Franken (2009), Bolten E, Liza (2010), and
Shitaro (2010), argue that multicultural
perspectives of immigrant employees in
multinational organizations affect
leadership in global brand management
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Summary of Literature Review
• Vadivelu, M. (2008), Whiteaker (2006), and Small,
(2008) argue multinational organizations use
values and attitudes as most critical cultural
factors used in global brand management
compared to indigenous organizations
• Niranjan, Michael, and Grasse (2008, 2009, and
2009) argue that charismatic leadership style
is the most effective leadership style when
conducting international business
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Summary of Literature Review
• Javidan, 2006; Kelly, 1988; Lewis, 1999; Morhart, 2009,
have concluded that there is no specific leadership
style that could be applied in managing global
brands in organizations, and it depends on market
size, potential, competition, potential market share,
industry mechanism, demand, cultural aspects to
demand, marketing capability of the organization, team
dynamics, organizational structure, strategy, shared
values, systems, and skills of the employees managing
global brands
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Identified Gaps in Literature Review
• There were certain areas that were
not available for survey in the
literature and these areas are,
– Application of cultural factors in
financial industry
– The importance of immigrant
employees in organizations
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Methodology
• A mixed, non-experimental, correlation
(explanatory) and causal-comparative
(exploratory) cross-sectional survey
research design was used to examine the
explanatory variables (global brand
management, cultural factors of immigrant
employees, and effective leadership)
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Methodology cont… • Sample size is 60 consumer banks branches (30 local
banks and 30 multinational banks)
• Online Questionnaire was used to gather data
• Sample units were drawn under quota sampling
method from three strata and they are senior
managers (senior level), immigrant employees
(operational Level), and brand managers (functional
level) employed in multinational and indigenous
consumer banks operating in the United States
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Methodology (statistical aspect)
• ANOVA - indigenous and
multinational banks
• Regression analysis -Y=a+bx
• Correlation- r
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Results • Total number of participants were
175
• Total valid responses were 160
(complete responses) used for
analysis
• Response rate was 91.43%
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How culturally diverse is the organization in terms of
employees on 1-10 Scale?
Answer Options Response Percent Response Count IB MNCB Total
1 4.50% 7 2 5 7
2 4.50% 7 3 4 7
3 6.50% 10 8 2 10
4 8.40% 13 1 12 13
5 11.70% 18 4 14 18
6 8.40% 13 2 11 13
7 13.60% 21 1 20 21
8 21.40% 33 0 33 33
9 5.20% 8 2 6 8
10 15.60% 24 1 23 24
answered question 154 24 130 skipped question 24
N=154
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Cultural Diversity of Employees in Indigenous and Multinational Consumer Banks
Operating in the United States on a 1-10 Scale
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
23
8
1
4
21
0
21
54
2
12
14
11
20
33
6
23
IB MNCB
19
Consideration of Cultural Factors When Developing Global Brand Strategy
IB MNCB0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
12
75
23
40 YesNo
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Cultural Factors and Degree of Usage when Developing Global
Branding Strategy
Values Beliefs Attitudes Colors Taste Symbols Rituals MythsValues Beliefs Attitudes Colors Taste Symbols Rituals Myths
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
21
14
25
1
63
73
9289
92
86
93
8891
IBMNCB
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Correlation between Charismatic Leadership and Cultural Factor
Consideration Correlation between Charismatic Leadership and Cultural Factor Consideration
Charismatic Leadership (V1) Cultural Factor Consideration (V3)
VAR00001
Pearson Correlation 1 0.607
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.393
Sum of Squares and Cross-products 148448.55 1960229
Covariance 7813.082 653409.667
N 20 4
VAR00003
Pearson Correlation 0.607 1
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.393
Sum of Squares and Cross-products 1960229 2.66E+08
Covariance 653409.667 8.86E+07
N 4 4
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Multi Regression Analysis
Effective Global Brand Management (V4)
Charismatic Leadership (V1)
Cultural Factor Consideration (V3)
Types of Commonly Used Leadership (V2)
Pearson Correlation
VAR-4 1 0.415 0.152 -0.478
VAR-1 0.415 1 0.607 0.118
VAR-3 0.152 0.607 1 -0.501
VAR-2 -0.478 0.118 -0.501 1
Sig. (1-tailed)
VAR-4 . 0.293 0.424 0.261
VAR-1 0.293 . 0.196 0.441
VAR-3 0.424 0.196 . 0.25
VAR-2 0.261 0.441 0.25 .
N
VAR-4 4 4 4 4
VAR-1 4 4 4 4
VAR-3 4 4 4 4
VAR-2 4 4 4 4
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Discussion • Compared to indigenous consumer banks,
multinational consumer banks operating in the
United States reported a higher cultural diversity
• The consideration of the cultural factors such as
values, beliefs, attitudes, education, religion, myths,
colors, taste, and rituals when developing global
brands is significant in multinational consumer
banks compared to indigenous consumer banks
operating in the United States.
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Discussion • Despite the degree of consideration of
cultural perspectives of immigrant
employees in multinational consumer
banks, most critical cultural factors
are not considered with a significant
magnitude when developing global
branding strategy-Zheng (2009), Tyler
(2009), Snow (2005), and Sebenius (2002)
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Discussion • Mostly used cultural factors with a high
significance by the multinational
consumer banks are beliefs, colors,
symbols, and myths compared to other
cultural factors such as values, attitudes,
taste, and rituals that constituted a higher
degree of cultural importance for global
branding
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Discussion • Multinational consumer banks do not consider the
most critical cultural factors such as values and
attitudes that play a critical role in global brand
strategy development, compared to indigenous
consumer banks
• Contradicts with study conducted by Vadivelu, M. 2008;
Whiteaker, 2006; and Small, 2008 (argument -
multinational organizations use values and attitudes
as most critical cultural factors used in global brand
management compared to indigenous organizations)
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Discussion • Data suggest commonly used leadership style is
situational leadership (delegating leadership
style with the recorded response rate of
29.13% followed by coaching 25.59%, directing
22.89%, and facilitating 22.38%)
• Delegation with the ample authority of the
leader induces the commitment level of the
followers, especially in succeeding global brand
management in multinational consumer banks.
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Limitations
• Lack of literature and previously
conducted seminal work on key
variables
– Cultural factors for branding
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Implications and Relevance to Business Industry
• Efficient local and global brand
management
• Use of cultural factors that serves as
secondary data for other decision
making (human resources)
• To increase stakeholder value
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Recommendations
• Leaders of multinational and indigenous
consumer banks both must maintain a
human resources data base to collect,
analyze, and retrieve information for their
brand management either locally or
globally in order to manage their
respective brands effectively in achieving
above average profits