Bollywood & Hollywood
The New York Times reports that many Hollywood film studios, like Warner Brothers, Disney and 20th Century Fox, have had local-language movie production operations in India since 1999. While many Bollywood films fare poorly in India (1:9 “hit-flop” ratio), films produced by Hollywood firms for the enormous Indian audience fare even worse. Critical cultural elements are usually missed by foreign film studios, which often lead to failure. The Times states that “the Hindi film industry and its consumers have their own peculiar dynamic. Though the industry has become more corporate and organized over the last 15 years, it is still very much about relationships and family.”
This “peculiarity” is a culturally-rooted business framework. Indians are very interpersonal in their working relationships, as they find time invested in personal conversations builds trusting relationships that can facilitate a smooth, productive work experience. Hollywood is transactional, which means that relationships don’t need to be developed on a personal level in order to work with others, as they expect to be hired based on their relevant experience and competence.
Hierarchy, another strong cultural dimension in India, is something Hollywood studios aren’t used to. Decisions are made by the leadership in Bollywood firms, and by the leadership alone (Egalitarian cultures would interpret this as an inefficiency, Indians recognize that senior officials have the experience to make the best decisions). Hollywood acknowledges the cultural disparity: “…We want to be there, and we will adjust our ways to be in line with theirs and not the other way around.” Butting heads with mega-stars like Shah Rukh Khan, i.e. releasing a movie on the same day one of his movies comes out, is not conducive to capturing an audience. It’s laudable that successful American movie-producing giants understand the value of adapting to new cultural paradigms.
