Introduction
Unilever is one of the largest multinational companies in the world with numerous facilities and subsidiaries across the globe. Unilever produces various products under numerous brands: Dove, Axe, Lipton, Lipton Ice Tea, Sealtest to name a few (Wilshaw, Unger, Quynh & Thu, 2013).
Van Beek and Grachev (2010) state that the company is one of the most successful organisations that manage to develop efficient cross-cultural policies and promote brands in different countries and regions. Unilever also claims to be a company that promotes sustainable growth and corporate social responsibility. Nonetheless, the company is not as sustainable as it claims to be. Unilever negatively affects the environment as well as cultural and economic development of communities.
Arguments against the Organisation
Deteriorating Communities’ Cultural Development
In the first place, it is necessary to note that Unilever promotes messages that have been developed in the western world. Of course, the company is trying to take into account cultural peculiarities of the region and it adjusts its products to specific taste of consumers (Bhattacharyya, 2010). However, as far as messages are concerned, the company is far from being culturally sensitive.
For instance, the messages associated with such brands as Dove and Axe promote a western view on beauty and gender roles (Kurtzleben, 2013). Interestingly, the company contradicts itself as it claims to empower women but it promotes an image of vulnerable females who have no power to resist a man in Axe advertisements. It is difficult to call such messages culturally sensitive as they differ and sometimes undermine values of eastern cultures.
Promotion of Consumerism and Negative Financial Effects for Communities
Apart from certain cultural issues, Unilever contributes to impoverishment of communities while trying to persuade everyone that they try to eradicate poverty in the world. Garrette and Karnani (2010) mention the company’s product Fair & Lovely (a whitening cream) that has become more affordable for poor women and note that the product’s benefits for the community are significantly overestimated.
Thus, instead of empowering women, the product and the company’s messages force women to make wrong choices and become a part of the consumerist society irrespective of their limited resources. Hence, instead of buying a truly necessary product (food, clothing, sanitary products), women will buy a whitening cream that has a debatable value.
Negative Environmental Effects
Of course, as any other multinational, Unilever is one of the largest consumers of natural resources. The company argues that they are trying to reduce negative environmental effects and that they have achieved significant results in this respect (Rees, 2014). Hall and Lobina (2012) report about significant (and unsustainable) use of water in Asia and Africa.
The researchers stress that Unilever uses too much drinking water exhausting water resources that become unavailable to the locals. Notably, the drinks produced by the company cannot replace water as they contain too much sugar and other ingredients that cause thirst rather than ease it. Hence, it is possible to state that Unilever undermines development of communities in impoverished regions, as locals are unable to get affordable resources (water) and have to spend more money to get basic things.
Weakness of Counter-Arguments
Of course, supporters of the organisation can focus on Unilever’s effort to become a more culturally diverse organisation where employees come up with ideas that benefit the development of the company as well as communities. Thus, Seymen (2006) notes that the company has opened a college where its employees obtain the necessary skills to operate in a diverse workforce. However, the benefits of this education and training are still modest as there is a significant turnover, which is partially associated with cultural issues (Linh & Chung, 2012).
More so, most messages delivered by the company are not culturally sustainable, as Unilever seems to put profit rather than cultural peculiarities first. It is often quite effective to impose some globalised values instead of trying to adopt to quite specific peculiarities of the region (De Mooij & Hofstede, 2011). Thus, when considering the messages delivered by such brands as Dove and Axe, it is clear that the company continues spreading universal gender prejudice and promoting western values and ways.
Conclusion
To sum up, it is possible to note that Unilever is one of the largest multinationals that has numerous effects on development of communities. Of course, the company has made certain effort to be socially, culturally and environmentally responsible. Nonetheless, these attempts are insufficient. The company has considerable resources but it seems to focus on profit rather than sustainable development. For instance, it promotes western values and often ignores certain cultural peculiarities in some regions.
The organisation contributes to the development of the consumerist society and entices poor people from buying truly necessary products. The company consumes significant amounts of natural resources and local people become even more impoverished. Therefore, it is clear that the organisation fails to develop in a sustainable way and it may soon face numerous challenges associated with cultural issues as potential consumers may become more culturally sensitive.
Reference List
Bhattacharyya, D.K. (2010). Cross-cultural management: Texts and Cases. New Delhi, India: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.
De Mooij, M., & Hofstede, G. (2011). Cross-cultural consumer behaviour: A review of research findings. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 23, 181-192.
Garrette, B., & Karnani, A. (2010). Challenges in marketing socially useful goods to the poor. California Management Review, 52(4), 1-19.
Hall, D., & Lobina, E. (2012). Conflicts, companies, human rights and water. A critical review of local corporate practices and global corporate initiatives. Web.
Kurtzleben, D. (2013). Do Dove and Axe sell the same message? US News.
Linh, N.L., & Chung, N.T.K. (2012). Cultural adaptation of Unilever in Vietnam. Web.
Rees, E. (2014). Unilever and the case for sustainable business. Chinadialogue. Web.
Seymen, O.A. (2006). The cultural diversity phenomenon in organisations and different approaches for effective cultural diversity management: A literary review. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 13(4), 296-315.
Van Beek, M., & Grachev, M. (2010). Building strategic leadership competencies: The case of Unilever. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 5(3), 317-332.
Wilshaw, R., Unger, L., Quynh, C.D., & Thu, T.P. (2013). Labour rights in Unilever’s supply chain: From compliance to good pracitce. An Oxfam study of labour issues in Unilever’s Vietnam operations and supply chain. Oxford, UK: Oxfam.