Nicolás Gómez R.: Module 14: North America (summary)

North America is the third largest continent (after Asia and Africa) but is one of the most important in the world. The continent is composed by Canada, Mexico, some Caribbean countries, Greenland and the U.S. We are going to focus in the United States in this review and we will take a look at the consumist phenomenon occurring there.

It is an alarming situation the fact that they have 5% of the world population but it produces 30% of the waste and consumes 24% of world’s energy. United States is a very c

onsumist country, and this culture has evolved over the years. Nowadays a regular American consumes much more than an average one would have done 50 years ago, and the tendency is not stopping so we can imagine that the future Americans are going to consume even more.

A main player in these high consumption rates is the media advertising. The advertising has a major role in the American consumption because it influences the consumer mind directly. The population is exposed to advertising since they are kids and this exposure to the Medias keep growing with their age building a mass consumer. We can also make a comparison with the Medias today and in the past. Nowadays a regular American is exposed to more advertising

by the Medias in one year than an American in his whole life 50 years ago. Now we can deduce why has been evolving the consumption average.

So this evolution in consumption and advertising has marked the lifestyle of the people in the US, and as a consequence, their management styles have been adapting to these characteristics. Nevertheless, as the USA is the main economy in the world we can notice that these styles (both consuming and management) have been spreading all over the world. The important issue is not to demonize or take as a model none of them, but to know what are the main aspects to take or to reject in order to adapt them in the best way to your own culture.