International Business Management-Chapter3-Sociocultural Forces

Hofstede's Six Dimensions (sh4)

"a management technique or philosophy that is appropriate in one national culture is not necessarily appropriate in another" There were originally four dimensions.

Rules of Thumb For Managers Doing Business Across Cultures

1. Be Prepared. DO YOUR HOMEWORK LOL. Mentor, read business papers, history, folklore and current affairs. Understand the culture. 2. Slow down. DONT RUSH IN. Take your time. 3. Establish trust. 4. Understand the importance of language. 5. Respect the culture. (manners are important) 6. Understand the component of culture.

Culture Frameworks (h4)

1. Your own culture functions as in implicit reference point for comparison 2. this is just the beginning, they very tip of the iceberg, of understanding the complexity of other cultures.

Accounting and Finance (sh4)

A culture's accounting controls directly relate to its assumptions about people's basic nature.

Aesthetics (sh1)

A culture's sense of beauty and good taste. Art, drama, music, folklore, and dance.

How can you adapt to a culture?

According to E. T. Hall, you must spend a lifetime in a culture, or undergo an extensive training program that covers the main characteristics of the culture, including the language.

Material Culture (sh3)

All human made objects. People who study material culture are concerned with how people make things (technology) and who makes what and why (economics). France: Food, cooking, and eating. Japan: woodworking, prints, and pottery. Greece: beads and classical theater. Switzerland: Artisan chocolates.

What is Culture and Why is it important? (h1)

Anthropologists, whose focus is to study culture, view it as the sum total of the beliefs, rules, techniques, institutions, and artifacts that characterize human populations. 1. Culture is learned; we are not born with culture 2. The various aspects of culture are interrelated. 3. Culture is hared, patterned, and mutually constructed through social interaction. 4. Culture defines the boundaries of different groups.

Human Resources (sh2)

Cultural values play key roles in moticationg and evaluating employees. In some cultures, individual effort is rewarded, while in others, group effort is more highly valued.

Anthropologists view of culture:

Culture is learned, the various aspects of culture are interrelated, culture is shared, patterned and mutually constructed, culture defines the boundaries of different groups.

How Culture Shows Itself (h3)

Culture manifests everything.

LC

DOING is strong

Cultural frameworks:

Edward Hall's high and low context, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's culture orientation, trompenassrs's seven dimensions, Hofstede's six dimensions.

Culture Affects All Business Functions (h2)

Everything we do is influenced by culture, a fact most of us realize about other cultures, but not always about our own.

Special Forces: Gift Giving In Business (sh6)

Gift giving operated within the society as a way to acknowledge interrelationships and obligations. Japan: to convey the giver's thoughtfulness and consideration for the receiver, who, over time, builds up trust and confidence in the giver.

Hall's High and Low Context (sh1)

Hall classifies cultures based upon their communication styles and, specifically, on the role that context plays in the culture's communication patterns. CONTEXT

Monochronic

Having to do with linear time, sequential activities. Consistent with and economic understanding of time. Planning and schedules. (LC)

Polychronic

Having to do with simultaneous activities, multitasking. (HC)

Attitudes toward the Environment

Internal vs external Internal direction: people believe they control nature. external: the natural world controls them and they need to work with the environment. (bonus pay)

Individualism-Collectivism

Measures the degree to which people in the culture are integrate into groups. High collectivism: strong, cohesive in groups that look after them in exchange for loyalty. Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Indonesia, Pakistan, Taiwan, China, Japan, and West and East African countries. High Individualistic: loosely connected and look after themselves and their immediate family. United States, Canada, UK, Australia, and the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, and New Zealand.

Language (sh4)

Most important when distinguishing one culture or subculture from another. probably the most obvious and distancing culture distinction for newcomers to international business is language, spoken and unspoken. High Context: meaning is conveyed through the context rather than the words themselves. Middle East, and Asian cultures. spatial relationships: open door policy, United States has larger offices the higher up you go. France and China have CEOs in the center of the office space. Conversation distance: the space between people in a conversation, also tends to vary across cultural borders. Middle East: shorter than US, UK, Aus, and Canada.

High-context Culture

Much communication is conveyed by the context. HC cultures include Japan, China, many other Asian cultures, and Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African cultures. Social ties are long standing and close. Communication tends to be implicit and indirect. Knowledge is situational, long term relationships, speakers tend to be indirect. Less verbally explicit, less written/formal information, more internalized understandings of what is communicated, multiple cross cutting ties and intersections with others, long term relationships, strong boundaries-insider/outsider, knowledge is situational, relational, decisions and activities focus around personal face-to-face relationships, often around central authority person.

"Culture is the unconditional architecture of out minds-we see its manifestations, but not the tremendous work it does holding social systems together and helping us to solve shared problems."

Nicholas Athanassiou.

Cultural awareness example.

Not marketing frozen food to South Africa because of the lack of electricity available there.

Production and Procurement (sh3)

Production managers have found that cultural values around attitudes toward change can seriously influence the acceptance of new production methods. Cultural norms and rules structure the way the firm acquires resources, as well.

In which country does transparency and price drive the procurement process?

The United States of America.

Marketing (sh1)

The more you can understand how customers in the target market give meaning to events in their world and how they think their world should be, the better. GO DEEPER THAN THE SURFACE. Companies have made marketing mistakes involving product design, advertising, and pricing.

Preferred Leadership Styles (sh4)

They way we think about the role and function of our leaders varies across cultures.

ET Hall suggests that in order to learn the characteristic of a culture:

UNDERGO AN EXTENSIVE TRAINING PROGRAM, SPEND A LIFETIME IN A CULTURE.

Universalism vs. Particularism

Universalism: condition in which concepts apply to all Particularist: condition in which context determines what concept apply a universaltist culture tend to be rule based. particularist cultures tend to be relationship based.

Universal problems to which all culture offer solutions:

What is the basic nature of humans? What relationships should people have with nature? What are the preferred forms of human activity? What sorts of relationships should exist among individuals?

Attitudes towards time

Where does a culture focus its time? Past? Present? Future? Future oriented cultures plan, anticipate, and see a better world evolving. second aspect of time is whether it is sequential (MONOCHRONIC), or synchronous (POLYCHRONIC). Synchronous have multiple meets in one room.

Cultural paradoxes

contradictions in a culture's values between a culture's values you expect to see based on your use of the frameworks and your growing experience, and what you actually observe. EX: US is described as individualiastic according to many frameworks, yet the united stats has the highest rate of charitable giving. Costa Rica is considered HIGH context, but they prefer automated tellers be cause they are kinder. Keep in mind MEAN VALUE of s countries dimension. These are just generalizations.

Indulgence vs. Restraint

is about happiness and describes culture's tendency either to allow relatively free gratification of human desires or suppress human drives through strict social norms. Indulgence: Leisure is valued, people believe they have personal control over their lives, freedom of speech is valued. Strong in America and EU, Asia, and the Middle East. Personal control over their lives; leisure is valued, as if freedom of speech; and people tend to be active in sports. Restraint: suggests that society extends much energy establishing order and structure.

Specific vs. Diffuse

life divided into public and private spheres contrasted with life undifferentiated. Specific: United states, people make distinctions between their work relationships and other relationships, so that work relationships do not carry over beyond work. Diffuse: Asia, the work relationships carry over to other areas of lie and influence them.

artifacts

the human-made objects associated with a culture.

Neutral vs. Affective

the withholding of emotion contrasted with its expression. Affective culture might be seeking responses that would not be normal for another person from a neutral culture to give. more EMOTIONAL and more EXPRESSIVE.

Achievement vs. Ascription

what a person does contrasted with who a person is Achievement: that reward WHAT you do. Ascription: based off of your family

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's Cultural Orientations Framework (sh2)

1. What relationship should people have to nature? That is, how should they think about their activities with regard to nature? 2. What sorts of relationships should exist among individuals? 3. What are the preferred forms or modes of human activity? 4. What is the best way to think about time? 5. What is the basic nature of humans? Relationship to nature describes the culture's understanding of how to live in the natural world. North America: There is a predominant sense of mastery over nature, although with the rise of the environmental movement and awareness of climate change, a more harmonious orientation to nature may be growing. Relationship to nature, orientation of human activity, evaluation of human nature, relationships among people.

Religion (sh2)

Along with its spiritual aspect, religion is an important component of culture and responsible for many attitudes and beliefs that influence human behavior. Religion is an area of personal belief in which ethnocentric tendencies can be quite strong. Christiananity: Many denominations, there is one God. Islam: Name comes from the Arabic word meaning "submitting", One God. Buddhism: Based on he teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. Earthly life, a continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth called reincarnation, is the cause of human suffering. Hinduism: The oldest of the major world religions. One supreme reality, Brahman. Scriptures (Vedas). Believe in reincarnation and hope to escape it to achieve union with God. Judaism: Also known as Canaan, share a lot with Christianity.

Natalie planned to purchase Belgian chocolate during her visit to Brussels since it was well-known how delicious it was

Artifact.

HC

BEING is strong.

Feminine cultures

Environmental issues matter, less variation between male and female roles, quality of work life is important.

Societal Organization (sh5)

Every society structures its social relationships, and these patterned arrangements define an important aspect of cultures, they way social groups are constructed. KINSHIP AND FREE ASSOCIATION. The family is the basic unit of institutions based on kinship. US kinship is typically immediate family, whereas in other cultures, it can go out to blood relatives, such as cousins. Extended family. Free associations are the second class of social institution. Groups may be formed by AGE, SEX, AND COMMON INTEREST. The internet has expanded free associations. Social media has the power to change products and influence politics. Firms will have more social network influence in the future.

Ethnocentricity

The belief that your own culture is superior to other cultures. When outsiders attempt to introduce their home culture's approach in a business environment, the stubborn resistance they are likely to meet is a sign of this ethnocentricity.

Low-context Culture

Words contain most communication, and the context is relatively less significant. UK, Britian, Canada, U.S., Australia, Germany, Scandinavia, Relationships are of shorter duration with minimal shared history, so more of the communication has to be explicit for meaning to be conveyed. Rule oriented, people play by external rules, more knowledge is codified, public, external, and accessible, sequencing, separation of time, of space, of activities, of relationships, more interpersonal connections of shorter duration, knowledge is more often transferable, task centered; decisions and activities focus around what needs to be done; division of responsibilities. MONOCHRONIC, they characterize time as linear, tangible, and divisible into blocks.

Pragmatic vs Normative

a measure of how people deal with the explainable in their lives. Normative: strong desire to explain and to know the absolute Truth. Concern for personal stability is high. Respect for tradition, a low propensity to save, and focus on quick results. Pragmatic: not concerned with understand so much because life as a complex process is a given. The challenge here is to live a virtuous life, and truth depends on context, time, and situation. Strong inclination to save and persevere. This was an earlier dimension called "Confucian dynamism:

masculine cultures

achievements, economic growth is central, people live in order to work, business performance is the primary goal.

Uncertainty avoidance

describes a society's level of comfort with uncertainty. "Ultimately refers to man's search for Truth" because it describes the extent to which a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Cultures avoid uncertainty by "strict laws and rules, safety and security measures." Strong uncertainty avoidance: resist change, including career change and organizational change; they expect clear procedures and preserve the status quo. Japan, Greece, France, Spain, South Korea. Weak uncertainty avoidance: see conflict as having positive aspects, expect innovation, encourage risk taking, and reward career change. US, Hong Kong, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Canada, Australia.

Masculinity-Femininity

describes the roles between the sexes. "Women's roles across cultures differ less do men's, and that men's values among countries vary considerably, from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other." Masculine: Assertive Feminine: Caring

Klcuk and Strondt

evaluation of human nature ranges from GOOD (THEORY Y) TO EVIL (THEORY X). relationship with nature ranges from MASTERY to SUBJUGATION.

Jensen was surprised to learn that the company she was applying to only accepted graduates from Ivy League schools. This demonstrates how culture can impact _______ in business

human resources

Individualism vs. Communitarianism

individualism is belief in the individual. Indicates that people plan their actions with reference to individual benefits. communitarianism: belief that the group is the beneficiary of actions.

Global mind-set

involved an openness to diversity along with an ability to synthesize across diversity.

Power Distance

is the extent to which members of a society expect power to be distributed unequally and accept that it is. Large power distance: Seniority, age, rank, and title are important. Direction and formality is emphasized. Malaysia, Guatemala, Panama, Arab countries, India, West African, Singapore. Small power distance: consultative style of leadership predominates, informality tends to be the norm, and there is or there is thought to be equal distance among people. United States. Israel, Austria, Denmark, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, and Germany.

MAP BRIDGE INTERGRATE model (MBI)

map cultural differences, then bridge them through communication, and finally integrate them through participation.