Abstract:

In focusing on the need for a new mental model, we cite two issues of central concern to transnational business firms. These two issues are 1) recognizing the influence of national culture on the normal life of customers and the ways culture affects marketing plans and product development for that market and 2) recognizing the impact of global influences such as worldwide television culture on the environment of customers in foreign markets and how global TV culture influences values, lifestyles and the very perceptions of the firm's customers, and the firm's reputation in foreign markets. These customer-oriented issues have been neglected in the business literature or inadequately realized because of the absence of a conceptual model for dealing with the rapid, almost unconscious, influence of information on the perceptions of the customers