Cultural obstacles and a lack of understanding of foreign markets are the most important challenges for corporate PR pros to conquer as business - and public relations - go
global. More than 90 percent of respondents to a survey at this month's Arthur W. Page Society Spring Seminar, "Globalization: Stop or Go?" cited lack of cultural understanding
and navigating different cultures as the biggest problems for conducting global PR.
The key to overcoming those hurdles, according to speakers from companies like GM, Boeing and Nike, is education, whether it's more emphasis on languages and other cultures in
our elementary education system, or month-long overseas programs for employees entering the ranks of senior management.
With a better understanding of global issues, Americans as a whole will be able to stop viewing the rest of the world as "underdeveloped future Americans," joked Clotaire
Rapaille, an international expert on "archetype discovery" (decoding the archetypes underlying various cultures) and author of Creative Communications, a French communications
bible.
Rapaille cited the differences among an American culture driven by a desire for action, a French culture where it is illegal to work more than 35 hours per week, and a Japanese
culture where slow, deliberate thought and study goes into any initiative before taking action, as ample evidence that different cultures require dramatically different PR
approaches.
Speakers also emphasized that American companies need to pay careful attention to communicating what they can offer as corporate citizens as they move into any international
locale. Potentially hostile communities can be won over by companies communicating "a full [corporate repsonsibility] agenda," said Kirk Stewart, VP of corporate communications
for Nike. Stewart helped restore the international community's faith in Nike after the athletic apparel company developed a disastrous reputation for labor abuses in Asia in the
'90s. The company recently published its first annual corporate responsibility report, a full-blown, beautifully-designed annual report on the company's social responsibilities,
including information on environmental practices, labor practices, Nike people, community affairs and Nike stakeholders.
The report is representative of what Jeffrey Garten, dean and William S. Beinecke professor in the practice of international trade and finance at the Yale School of Management,
identified as a new benchmark for the communications industry: Garten sees corporate America being required to engage in triple-bottom-line (financial, environmental and social)
reporting in the very near future. "It's here and quite urgent. Within three to four years, everyone will do 'social auditing.'"
For more coverage of the Arthur Page Spring Seminar, stay tuned to upcoming issues of PR NEWS. For information on the Page Society, contact Paul Basista, executive director,
212/387-4238, [email protected].