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American Business in Western Culture Essay

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Wal-Mart has very low prices and has a friendly atmosphere in the United States. American’s seem to enjoy the personal attention that the employees of Wal-Mart offer. It is hard to understand why anyone would not like the personal attention. Google and YouTube is very popular in the United States, but has failed in the western world because of their American culture ideas and the unwillingness to broaden their understanding of different cultures. Not being able to adapt to different cultures in the western world has created the downfall of Wal-Mart and Google. Google and YouTube failed in Japan because they did not take into thought the culture and their belief to privacy, while Wal-Mart failed in Germany because of their strict policy of …show more content…

Wal-Mart did not take the time to learn the dominant ideology of Germany with their cultural beliefs and practices. If Wal-Mart would have done extensive research in Germany and their culture before building any Wal-Mart centers in Germany, they would have found that Germany culture is much different from American culture. For example, Germans did not like anyone placing their goods into bags; they wanted to place their own goods in the bags themselves. Wal-Mart would have also found out that the pillowcases in Germany are a different size than in America (Schaefer, 2006, pg. 25-27). Knowing what your customers need and their wants is the first step to success. Google failed to get copyright ownership in Japan when it came to YouTube; the Japanese banded YouTube from their country. Google owns YouTube and is responsible for the copyright and access into other countries. Japan is angry with Google and believes Google failed to obtain copyrights with the video clip-sharing websites which did not protect the rights of their citizens. Japan has elected Yahoo as their internet site. Yahoo Japan is a Japanese company and most of their employees are Japanese. Google is a foreign-owned company and not a part of Japan (YouTube, 2007). Google did not explore the dominant ideology of Japan before allowing YouTube to the Japanese public. YouTube is not a cultural universal technology according to Japan Society for Rights. Google’s vice president David Eun did meet with

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