Chief Culture Officer - Book Review And Analysis Essay.

Students have to write an individual assignment based on the book of Grant Mc Cracken :  Chief Culture Officer ( NYC, 2009).  The book is available in the IBS Library or can be bought online.

The basic task is to read the book and describe, analyze, and evaluate by giving personal views  concerning the author’s arguments on the role and context of culture as such and different cultural aspects and also to illustrate understanding through own examples and their analysis. A crucial part of the assignment is to choose and critically analyze a brand’s activity in the student’s home country from a cultural perspective (environment, bonds, traditions etc.) and relate it to any of the McCracken culture typologies.

Chief culture officer is a book written by a Canadian authors and anthropologist named Grant McCracken. The book covers all the theories with examples about how modern business structure can connect with culture in order to prosper in the market. This paper is based on the theories of grant McCracken described in his book about how an organisation is impacted positively with the understanding of culture. The author has presented a new c level model which can be very useful for the organisation in order to understand the culture of a particular region where the organisation is doing its business (GUANG, 2016.). This essay includes a short description of the book, a critical study of all the theories and McCracken’s approach to cultural understanding and then the people also describe and analyse the essence of marketing communication through the understanding of different typologies of culture.

In his book of chief culture officer, the author grant McCracken has presented a theory with which he has argued regarding the impact of cultural understanding and how it has become the true essence in order to prosper in the market and those organisations that don't consider the effect of cultural understanding in the business operation might fail in future. In order to prove his point, the author has presented some of the most influential examples of the business world like Steve jobs from Apple, Mary minnick from coke and Joffrey Frost from Motorola. All these influential business persons have considered the essence of culture and made it happen. But according to the author all business organisations do not have such individuals and that is why he has presented a position called chief culture officer in the organisation who will have the job to monitor the cultural trends of the society. The main job of chief cultural officer is to identify the cultural behaviour of a society, gather information and opportunities and to take decision based on those information and opportunities. The author has proposed this new position inside business organisation as an organisation can prosper in the market only by following the cultural trends of the society and a culture is something that is continuously changing and very hard to predict. In order to find out the complex nature of cultural trends the author has described some typologies of cultural for example fast culture, slow culture. Fast culture is continuously changing and can bring a lot of possibilities and opportunities to a business organisation and that is why the author has argued that chief culture officer is that new position which will be able to manage all the complexities of cultural trends in order to prosper in the market (Deresky, 2017). slow culture is something that changes very slowly and sometimes it remains unnoticed to business organisations and it is the job of the CCO to identify those changes and make something out of it. dispersive culture is something that originates from different ideas, different point of views different way of living etc. Thor the author has also mentioned are the two kinds of cultural trends that exists in society for example cool culture and status culture. The author has elaborated all these typologies of culture only to prove his point of hiring CCO inside the business organisation. From the last couple of centuries, the idea and the relationship between the producers and the consumers has changed so drastically which has also impacted the behaviour of the customers influenced by the cultural trends. Chief culture officer will be able to understand all those complexities of culture that exist in a society and make something out of it in order to prosper in the market.

Critical thinking

When I first read the book of the author and the anthropologist Grant McCracken, it seemed to me an amazing concept about how a person inside the organisation can impact the overall business operation by closely monitoring the cultural changes in the society through gathering information and opportunities. I believe the author has managed to convincingly put his point of view about how cultural understanding can positively impact the business operation of the Organisation by showing various relevant examples. The denim case and the Motorola case where Joffrey Frost has saved Motorola were really influential in order to understand how cultural Trend has an effect on the business operation of an organisation and thus on the behaviour of the consumers. Many scholars have supported the idea presented by grant McCracken but the main problem with the new c level position theory is when an organisation tries to execute it because the theory may look great on the book but it has some severe difficulties that an organisation will face. Chief culture officer presented by Mr McCracken is the person who brings out the true picture of cultural trends and changes in a society, and the task is too difficult to do it properly every time. But if we take a closer look at the position, it will be much easier for CCO to make a cultural brand without adapting to a cultural Trend. The job of a CCO will be more productive and valuable to the organisation if that person managers to build a culture with an innovative idea rather than considering an existing culture while making a business decision. This point of view can be proved with the case of Nike in 1970, when the company has managed to change the overall Idea regarding the fitness sports creativity with their influential marketing campaign and tagline ‘just do it’ (Davis, 2016.). Now there are some multinational brands like Netflix, uber which ate changing the concept of existing TV culture in our society and travelling respectively. The approach proposed by grant McCracken may have some flaws but it is also very much fundamental to ensure as consumer buying decision is largely influenced by the existing culture of the society. The role of chief culture officer is also important for those company who want to go global.

The author has described the fast culture in his book bringing the reference of the book named ‘future shock’ by Alvin toffler in 1970 where he pointed out the fact that the society is changing drastically and so does the culture. Since 1970 we have seen that the world is continuously changing and has become more complicated and complex. Due to the drastic change of the society and the cultural trends the behaviour of the consumer and the behaviour of business organisations have become more restructured, competitive and global. The main reason behind the change in the cultural trends is the technological advancement which has also diversified the culture of a society (Pieterse, 2015).  And the chaotic and the complex nature of culture is most of the time designed by the actors which is visible and rapidly changing continuously. Fast culture is continuously changing and can bring a lot of possibilities and opportunities to a business organisation and that is why the author has argued that chief culture officer is that new position which will be able to manage all the complexities of cultural trends in order to prosper in the market. And this is the reason grant McCracken has proposed a new c level position that is called CCO or chief culture officer who will be able to manage all the cultural trends in the society by closely monitoring and through gathering information, he or she will be able to make innovative business decisions that will help the organisation to prosper in the market.

First culture

Our society has become a part of fast culture now a days and it is visible in every industry of different parts of the world and Turkey is no exception. The business culture of Turkey has been changed drastically over the last few years. the business world of Turkey has seen some incredible changes in technology and cultural trends in the society. People in there have become more tech savvy and been using mobile phones and other technological devices. The behaviour of the consumers, their preferences taste has changed rapidly and the business community of turkey is taking into consideration all these social factors and incorporating them to move faster. Another characteristic of fast culture is the engagement of people and in order to attract customers the companies are involving influential personalities into the marketing process of the brand which will ultimately help them to get stay ahead of the competition.

During 15th or 16th century status and standard of living was one of the most complex and complicated issues that existed in the society. People used to determine a person's status or standard of living considering the level of income the caste, creed, sex etc. But in 21st century Concept of status has been changed as people nowadays are not at all bothered about other people's lifestyle as they have become so much self-centred. Now it has become so much difficult to identify the different social status and classes nowadays in the society but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in the society. It's a part of a social structure but nowadays it is not visible as much as it did before. The concept of individualism is taking control over us and people are trying to become more unique now a days (Amabile and Pratt, 2016). According to the author, the job of CCO will be to monitor the nature of status culture.

The status culture is still visible in 21st century and we can only see this typology of culture when we see people buying luxury items. People have started following the celebrities and some influential personalities and want to become like them and being unique just to become a part of the higher class and have a good social status in our society. For example, most of the people in Turkey belong to the poor class and still they are trying to become like the people of western culture. they are following the trains of buying luxury items like iPhone iPad and expensive clothes in order to gain a social status in the society. Another characteristic of status culture is education. People are trying to get a good education in order to get a good job and earn money and improve their lifestyle which also reduces the class structure in our society. Over the last few years, we have seen some rapid improvement in the literacy level which is one of the biggest opportunities for the business organisations in Turkey.

After the World war 2, there have been some unique changes in our society and through which cool culture has appeared in our society. The nature of this typology of culture can only be characterized as people nowadays have become so much self-expressive which has created a lot of different culture in different parts of the world. We have seen beat culture, punk culture, hippie culture in this process. cool culture is all about breaking the codes of the society making something unique by bringing changes in the concept of art and aesthetics (Murphie and Potts, 2017). Before World war 2 we have seen so many changes that has caused cultural revolution industrial revolution in 17th and 18th century. the concept and the idea of art movies and music is continuously changing in our society and people are trying to do something different and when the audience access their point of view and the style of expressing themselves, it becomes a trend, a change in culture. The concept of cool culture is all about personal freedom; more like becoming and making something unique. The concept of cool culture is integrated in the personality of general people, and this typology of culture cannot be considered as a mainstream anymore. Turkey has seen a lot of cultural changes and revolution in the society lately and people in there are trying to make something unique but also it represents the tradition of the country. We have seen some good films musical bands of the country which has created an unique culture. Business organisations of the country trying together and monitor always aspects of school culture of Turkey in the business operation and are trying to make something out of it.

Conclusion

This paper is based on the theories of grant McCracken described in his book about how an organisation is impacted positively with the understanding of culture. The author has presented a new c level model which can be very useful for the organisation in order to understand the culture of a particular region where the organisation is doing its business. The author grant McCracken has presented a theory with which he has argued regarding the impact of cultural understanding and how it has become the true essence in order to prosper in the market and those organisations that don't consider the effect of cultural understanding in the business operation might fail in future. The author has proposed this new position inside business organisation as an organisation can prosper in the market only by following the cultural trends of the society and a culture is something that is continuously changing and very hard to predict and he argued that the main job of chief cultural officer is to identify the cultural behaviour of a society, gather information and opportunities and to take decision based on those information and opportunities. The approach presented by the author has some flaws and very difficult to execute but an organisation can be benefited if the concept of this new position is executed and introduced properly.

References

GUANG, T., 2016. Business Anthropology in China. Handbook of Anthropology in Business.

Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson Education India.

Davis, R.E., 2016. Word of foot marketing: Nike's marketing efforts prior to the" Just Do It" campaign (Doctoral dissertation, Wichita State University).

Pieterse, J.N., 2015. Globalization and culture: Global mélange. Rowman & Littlefield.

Amabile, T.M. and Pratt, M.G., 2016. The dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation in organizations: Making progress, making meaning. Research in Organizational Behavior, 36, pp.157-183.

Murphie, A. and Potts, J., 2017. Culture and technology. Macmillan International Higher Education.