A Comparative Case Study of Global Marketing and Ethnocentrism ...

concept in an article via the Journal of Business Ethics wherein they apply it to
marketing relations. Lee and Sirgy talk of individuals and groups, in their
ethnocentricity, viewing other societies as necessarily “abnormal” and therefore
“inferior” (78). From a marketing standpoint this statement is especially important.
Ethnocentric marketers are likely to believe that what is good for consumers of their
own country is also good for consumers in foreign markets. Thus they may not see a
need to enhance consumers’ well being in foreign markets with different marketing
approaches (Lee and Sirgy 79). This cultural insensitivity in marketing is discussed in
more depth in the section on global marketing and ethnocentrism.
Stephen Mailloux ponders the question, “Are cross-cultural comparisons
transcendentally absolute or sociohistorically relative?” He argues that Western
intellectual history has continually re-staged this conflict between relativism and
absolutism, and mere opinion and true knowledge (Mailloux 114-115). The relativist
says the text is measured by communal standards, while the absolutist says there is a
standard of value that transcends any historical community. In short, Mailloux is
posing a question and asking "who is right?", "who is wrong?", "what is better", and
"what is worse?" He goes on to say that any comparison of cultural productions from
different communities inevitably faces these questions, and comparing two demands a
third measure to which they are compared as a standard (115). He says right and wrong
depends on the situation at hand. He uses Richard Rorty’s notion of ethnocentrism as a
basis for his work, calling ethnocentrism an “inescapable condition”. He relates that
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