What cultural and national characteristics affect product acceptance?
IMS has found that every country it visits is proud of its local production in one way or another. Generational attitudes color this pride further. For example, in Eastern Europe, leaders of top industrial firms are slightly less open to imports of foreign machinery, components or other items than the typically younger leaders of new distribution or e-commerce companies. Many cultural reasons arising from the recent past (and beyond the scope of this discussion) underpin this difference. The situation is reversed in North America, where distribution is better established. Distributors tend to view imports more conservatively and skeptically; in contrast, many manufacturers are eager to find inexpensive foreign sources of components and materials that will lower the prices of their finished products and making them more competitive. Other regions of the world possess their particular variations in attitude and culture that divide the on the basis of age, nationality/race, caste, class,
