Week 8: Globalisation

Week 8 Reading notes:

Diehl, JC & Christiaans, HHCM 2006, Globalization and cross-cultural product design. in D Marjanovic (ed.), Proceedings of the Design 2006 9th international design conference. Design Society, Glasgow, pp. 503-509, Design 2006 - 9th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 15/05/06.

Under the trend of globalization, globalisation confronts companies to decide between ‘global’ or ‘local’ featured design of products. And many companies have realized that if they want to have a broad market, they must understand and learn about cultural diversity. Look into the culture of the region or country where you want to expand to understand the culture of the immigrant population and their preferences and so on. This article lists some research methods and results on how to understand cultural diversity. What impressed me most was that a study into differences between the South-Korean and Dutch Kitchen. In this study, a focus group method was chosen In combination with cultural probes (Gaver et al. 1999). The purpose of this study was to understand the difference between Korean and Dutch requirements for the appearance and equipment of the kitchen. The study was divided into three groups: (1) native Koreans, (2) native Dutch, and (3) Koreans living in the Netherlands.

As a result, The Dutch Koreans are more "Korean" in their opinion than The Korean Focus Group. They are more active in decorating their kitchen to create a Korean look. One of the reasons for this difference is the minority position of the Koreans in the Netherlands. The effect is very common, The Korean Focus Group is more similar to The Dutch Focus Group with respect to a simple and orderly kitchen interior. Korean dream of the kitchen is to let a person feel relaxed and cheerful. The author explains the reasons for the two different requirements in this way. First, the Dutch are influenced by their tradition and cultural philosophy. Second, Koreans see food as medicine to keep them healthy. Designers who want to design for other cultures should be aware that these changes can lead to radically different product styles. Understanding the requirements, tasks, and environment of product design objects is the key to cross-cultural product design(J.C. Diehl and H.H.C.M. Christiaans.2006).

Combined with my feelings after watching The documentary 'The Economics of Happiness', The trend of globalization is irreversible. While trying to understand and learn cultural diversity, The company should also pay more attention to local culture, design products suitable for local people, and design its own local cultural products.Only in this way can the company maintain sustainable business development.

Week 8 Lecture notes:

The Economics of Happiness

Globalisation at its core is an economic process. It’s about freeing up big business to enter small markets with the focus on profit not people. This leads to increased competition and division among the communities it reaches.

It began 500 years ago and is now a rapid expansion of Europeans conquering and colonising much of the world dismantling stable, self-reliant economies and forcing their population to work. The mid-20th century brought debt to smaller economies forcing them into more poverty allowing corporations to take more control grow larger and eventually start to influence governments.

The documentary covers 8 inconvenient truths about globalisation.

1)      It make us unhappy. Levels of happiness have declined in the US since the mid 50’s, it makes us lonely and breaks up our community creating unhappy people.

2)      It breeds Insecurity. Corporations are driving our choices, pitching to children, influencing them and turning them away from their heritage. People’s sense of self was shaped through the community and their relationships. Whereas now due to globalisation they are following an unrealistic expectation of themselves.

3)      Wastes natural resources. Encouraging consuming burdens the natural environment around us, we are now at the end of nature’s supply chain. Urban dwellers consume non-renewable resources at a much higher rate than their rural counterparts. And with more and more people moving into urban areas this puts further strain on limited resources.

4)      Globalisation accelerates climate change. The Global supply chain has become a system that could not be more wasteful. Identical quantities of goods are exported and imported every day of the year. This crisscrossing of the planet helps to raise the Co2 levels of the planet at a time when they threaten our very survival.

5)      Globalisation threatens our livelihood. By removing people from land you force them into poverty. Now these people are displaced and disposable.

6)      Globalisation increases conflict. Driving fear into differences between people who are forced to live together who used to tolerate each other and now fight for employment causing friction among the community.

7)      Globalisation is built on hand-outs to big business. It’s a system that criminalises the small business while deregulating big business. Government subsidies are creating a ‘free market’ to continue business as usual during current times and crisis’

8)      Globalisation is based on false accounting. The magic wand of GPD that is used to solve problems and we are not measuring growth properly as a whole. Governments only consider profits and not the social and environmental costs of GDP but we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet.

In contrast the GPI Genuine Progress Index is a better way to look at GDP and is used to count things more accurately more holistically by taking the wealth of social, community, economic and environmental benefits into account when calculating cost of goods. To aid in this we need economic localisation to offset the impact of globalisation. A systemic far reaching alternative to combat the current method where global business generates wealth for the few, whereas local business generates wealth for the community. To do this the banking sector needs to be broken up and re-regulated. We need an economy of global cooperation not globalisation to solve many problems in the world. Taking food as an example, if you shorten the distance between you and your food you cut out the food miles, the dependency on oil and emissions and put money straight back into the local community. Achieving food self-reliance is extremely important to eliminating global poverty. By localising farming, food production becomes more efficient in two ways, by creating local jobs and by producing more food per acre because they are less mechanised. The same can be said for energy production as when it becomes localised the community benefits directly from it rather than the labour and the money generated moving away from the community it serves.

The global consumer culture is failing us and we are told that there is no other way. But there are possibilities to rediscover our connection to the land and to one another. Bringing the local economy home is not about sacrifice and moving ‘backwards’ it’s about enriching our lives and increasing our own wellbeing.

Week 8 Tutorial notes:

Globalisation results in a structure of hierarchy in the society where people at the bottom will never reach the top, and those small percentage of global citizens are the ones who benefit from this structure. The whole point of it is for the big companies to make more profit, but the negative impact is that people become more unhappy. Bhutan measures the successfulness of the country by GPI, which is the Happiness Index, and cares about the people’s wellbeing. It should be adopted in more countries.

Globalisation results in a consumer’s society. Marketing has a huge role in shaping the decisions and behaviours of consumers. People’s decisions are affected by the fear of missing out the latest trend, or the branding of products that increases the status quo of a person owning the product.

Globalisation also results in over reliance on external manufacturing because of the low labour cost and less regulation in developed countries. Interestingly with the pause of offshore manufacturing due to Covid, there is a shift from global networks to local markets, such as Port Lincoln tuna that is normally shipped offshore to be made into cans are now available for fresh at local supermarkets. Local economies are more accountable because the people are closer to us, and can be made into a closed loop system which is more sustainable.

Due to globalisation, small businesses struggle to compete with large global companies that have huge marketing budgets, lower price products and more convenient and better user experience. Even though we all know that eating food from farmer markets is better than food that sits in distribution centers for weeks before hitting the supermarket shelves, it requires more effort so it depends on the individual value of healthy eating or supporting local businesses.

In this week’s readings, a generalisation of people’s preference of products in different cultures like: "Asian people prefer buying rice cookers made in Europe" because they have better quality, even though Europeans do not eat rice and we (fellow Asians in the class) would prefer Japanese or Korean kitchen appliances, but it is true that European made products are generally perceived as higher-end products and are more expensive, while China made products are of low quality. Consumer’s decisions are affected by perception of brands (German cars made in South Africa are more reliable), culture (Italians who buy less but better quality products), family culture (loyalty to brands that are once Australian made but not anymore), and personal experience (childhood memory of parent’s car).

Group Reflection and Discussion:

We like things about globalisation (eg. education overseas) but understand that there are many bad things that come with it. We are torn as it’s great to get cheap stuff and travel but this all comes at a cost. I think (andew) it is shit that we are now being told as future designers that we have to fix the world and many generations have caused damage in their life but still want to die rich and happy. It’s not fair. You clean up your own mess and let me have my avocado on toast!!!