Challenges in the Era of Globalization - iaabd

Challenges in the Era of Globalization
Edited by Emmanuel Obuah
according to Edward Tylor (1891), can be referred to as `that learned complex of knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’.
Culture, in the same vein, influences most of the activities of our daily lives including our dispositions,
decisions and even our attitudes. This study sought to investigate some of the socio-cultural factors that
influence insurance patronage among Lagosians. Such factors act as agents of socialization through which
people get the norms and values that inform their attitudes and behaviour.
Surprisingly, there have not been many studies on the impact of culture on this present scorecard of
insurance patronage. In addition, meanings attached to modern insurance concepts such as ‘accident’,
‘risk’, ‘disasters’ might be culturally-constructed and assimilated. Perhaps the essence of planning ahead
to insure unforeseen risks that might face one’s properties, ships, personal accident, life and property as
well as liabilities might have linguistic interpretation not contemplated by marketers of insurance.
Although several articles have addressed this area in general, differences along specific, cultural
dimensions have not been directly examined. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine the sociocultural
factors influencing insurance service patronage in the study location.
Significance of Study/Expected Benefits
It is indisputable that cultural ethos should not be swept under carpet. The material and non-material
aspects of culture when properly explored theoretically and empirically may illuminate some of the
cultural inhibitions of low insurance patronage in Lagos State in particular and Nigeria in general. The
findings would open flood gates of opportunities that insurance marketers have ignored or paid little or
limited attention to thus leading them to smiling to their banks with increase in market share of insurance
services in the study location. Students of insurance, marketing, economics and sociology among others
will find the findings useful while insurance theorists, academics, insurance and marketing practitioners,
insurance brokers and regulators will be given further insights into the respondents’ cultural perception of
risks and insurance services.
Brief Literature Review
The insurance marketing literature documents several evidences of the inter-connectedness between
insurance and culture. If the business of insurance is to protect people against the financial consequences
of unforeseen risks, the marketing side of that business depends on dramatizing risk in the minds of
potential customers (Alborn, 2004).
Platteau (2007) queried whether culture was an obstacle to African economic development. Borrowing
from Guiso’s et al (2006) definition of culture as “those customary beliefs and values that ethnic,
religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation”, Platteau argued
that SSA’s bad performance on the level of its institutional environment must be somehow traceable to
factors specific to the region that do not lie in the sphere of geography. He concluded that religion, which
often becomes the escape route from ethnic restrictions could be made to be “instilling values and norms
that violate customs with adverse effects on capital accumulation and entrepreneurship.
Chui and Kwok (2008) examined the way national culture affects consumption patterns of life insurance
across countries. Life insurance is a service that is abstract, complex, and focused on unsure future
benefits. Because of the uncertainty and ambiguity inherent in the life insurance product, consumers are
more likely to respond according to their cultural prescriptions. Their findings show that individualism
indeed has a significant, positive effect on life insurance consumption, whereas power distance and
masculinity/femininity have significant, negative effects. The results are robust, even after controlling for
economic, institutional and demographic determinants.
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