Module 3: Sociocultural Forces

The first step is to accept that other cultures are different, and the next step is to learn the characteristics of those cultures in order to adapt to them. The anthropologist E. T. Hall claims managers can do this in only two ways:

(1) spend a lifetime in a culture (2) undergo an extensive training program that covers the main characteristics of a culture, including the language.

Achievement vs. Ascription

-Ascription cultures consider who a person is in terms of his or her family lineage, age, or other attributes. You are valued for who you are. -Achievement cultures are meritocracies that reward what you do.

HOFSTEDE'S SIX DIMENSIONS

-later added to it and modified it. He is concerned primarily with work values, and he presently identifies five dimensions to help managers understand how national-level cultural differences affect organizations and management methods. His dimensions are empirically derived and have received significant attention from both managers (because they apply easily) and scholars (because they raise methodological issues). -two dimensions, one that measures indulgence vs. restraint and another that measures pragmatism vs. normative behavior. You can see the latest version of his work on the Hofstede Center website.

The manager who can figure out the basic pattern of the culture will be increasingly effective interacting with foreign clients and colleagues. The following six rules of thumb are helpful:

1. Be prepared. Approach a foreign market having done your homework. A mentor is most desirable, complemented by lots of reading on social and business eti¬ quette, history and folklore, current affairs (including relations between the coun¬ tries), the culture's values, geography, sources of pride (artists, musicians, sports), religion, political structure, and practical matters such as currency and hours of business. Read local newspapers. 2. Slow down. In many countries, U.S. business people are seen to be in a rush—in other words, unfriendly, arrogant, and untrustworthy. In other countries, the Japanese and Germans are considered somewhat time-obsessed. 3. Establish trust. Often, U.S.-style crisp business relationships will get you nowhere. Product quality, pricing, and clear contracts compete with the personal relationship and trust that are developed carefully and sincerely over time. The manager must establish himself or herself as simpatico, worthy of the business and dependable in the long run. 4. Understand the importance of language. Obviously, translations must be done by a professional who speaks both languages fluently, who has a vocabulary sensi¬ tive to nuance and connotation, and who has a talent for the idioms and imagery of each culture. Having an interpreter is critical, even when one of the parties speaks the other's language. 5. Respect the culture. Manners are important. The traveling representative is a guest in the country and must respect the host's rules. As a Saudi Arabian official states in one of the Going International films, "Americans in foreign countries have a tendency to treat the natives as foreigners; they forget that actually it is they who are the foreigners." 6. Understand the components of culture. Any region's culture is a sort of iceberg with two components: surface culture (fads, styles, food) and deep culture (attitudes, beliefs, values). Less than 15 percent of culture is visible, so strangers must look below the surface.

We encourage you to think of culture in the way that seems the most useful to you, given a particular situation. Most anthropologists also agree that:

1. Culture is learned; we are not born with a culture. 2. The various aspects of culture are interrelated. 3. Culture is shared, patterned, and mutually constructed through social interaction. 4. Culture defines the boundaries of different groups.

ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE

A culture's accounting controls directly relate to its assumptions about people's basic nature. -International treasurers or comptrollers confront the strength of cultural forces when, armed with excellent balance sheets, they approach local banks in a foreign culture country only to find that the banks attach far more importance to who the treasurer is than to how strong the companies look on paper. -some cultures financial statements are notoriously unreliable, because local norms allow creative accounting in order to keep the tax collector away.

communitarianism

Belief that the group is the beneficiary of actions

PREFERRED LEADERSHIP STYLES

Desired leadership traits vary by culture as well. -usual relationship between leader and followers hierarchical or lateral? -Is the leadership model paternalistic? Heroic? -Does the ideal leader come up through the ranks? -is someone placed in the leadership position due to family or status? - purpose and function, does leadership integrate a group of people, or does it provide direction for a collection of individuals?

TROMPENAARS'S SEVEN DIMENSIONS

Dutch economist Fons Trompenaars's seven-dimension framework for understanding culture is derived from the social sciences, and his initial data are from 47 countries, later greatly expanded -dimensions describe the behavior that results from an underlying cultural value. -first five dimensions address the culture's patterns for relationships among people, and the final two have to do with the way we understand time and nature.

Knowledge of the basic tenets of the religions of your markets will be useful as you build your understanding of these cultures._________________

Each religion has its forms and traditions and expresses its beliefs through particular kinds of worship and prayer, rituals, dietary rules, and modes of dress. Religion is also an area of personal belief in which ethnocentric tendencies can be quite strong.

Recently a new kind of free association has emerged on

Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks in the form of groups with their own sets of unwritten cultural rules. Such organizations, in which messages can go global with one finger stroke, have greatly influenced the way business is conducted.

SPECIAL FOCUS: GIFT GIVING IN BUSINESS

Gift giving in the business context is an important and often confusing aspect of every international manager's life. Everywhere, some sort of entertainment outside office hours that includes the exchange of gifts is part of the process of getting better acquainted. -In all cultures, exchanging gifts follows a set of rules members of the culture have internalized and, in our native culture, we may not be aware of these rules because they represent our accustomed way of doing things. In cultures that tolerate high levels of social inequality and are hierarchical, gift-giving etiquette is markedly different from that in other cultures where power is more equally distributed.

monochronic

Having to do with linear time, tangible, and divisible into blocks, consistent with an eco¬ nomic understanding of time, that it is a scarce resource to be measured, saved, and spent.20 A monochronic approach to time emphasizes planning and schedules. -Hall's work also suggests that LC cultures tend to be monochronic,

polychronic

Having to do with simultaneous activities, multitasking -two or more activities are carried out within the same clock block; switching among activities can be both desirable and productive. We think of this as multitasking. -HE cultures tend to be polychronic.

Culture Frameworks

International managers can quickly build a general sense of what to expect in a culture by using analytical frameworks developed by researchers. -frameworks, remember two things: first, your own culture functions as an implicit refer¬ ence point for comparison; and second, this is just the beginning, the very tip of the ice¬ berg, of understanding the complexity of other cultures.

specific vs. diffuse

Life divided into public and private spheres contrasted with life undifferentiated ex: -specific cultures such as the United States, people make distinctions between their work relation¬ ships and other relationships, so that work relationships do not carry over beyond work. -diffuse cultures such as those of East Asia, the work relationships carry over to other areas of life and influence them.

ethnocentricity

The belief that your own culture is superior to other cultures

Universalism vs. Particularism (Rules vs. Relationships)

The dimension of universalism vs. particularism addresses whether rules or relationships regulate behaviors.

neutral vs. affective

The withholding of emotion contrasted with its expression -while people in affective cultures are much more expressive. You can imagine that this dimension would come into play in communication patterns. Someone from an affective culture might be seeking responses that would not be normal for another person from a neutral culture to give.

Pragmatic vs. Normative

This dimension is a measure of how people deal with the unexplainable in their lives.

Attitudes toward Time

Trompenaars's time dimension has two aspects. 1st identifies where the culture's primary focus is, whether it uses the past, the present, or the future as a lens to view the present. EX: East Asia, traditional values are important, as are ancestors. History often plays an active role to help understand the present. 2nd aspect of the time dimension describes whether actions are sequential (monochronic) or synchronous (polychronic). Linear actions follow one another. The controlling image of time is a river or stream. Scheduling is done in discreet units with no overlap. In polychronic cultures, many actions can occur at more or less the same time. For example, several meetings may take place at the same time, in the same space, overlapping one another. Middle Eastern cultures tend to be polychronic.

Material culture or artifacts

are all the human-made objects of a culture; people who study material culture are concerned with how people make things (technology) and who makes what and why (economics). Every culture prides itself on certain parts of its mate¬ rial culture.

The ritual of gift giving in international business is important _______________________________________________

because it creates a social bond that requires you to be a giver, a receiver, and a holder of an obligation to the other person in the exchange. This series of roles and reciprocal obligations creates solidarity, which can lead to trust.

Judaism

began about 1900 bce in Israel, then known as Canaan, and shares with Christianity the belief that God acts in human history, especially in times of struggle and oppression

Hinduism

began in India around 2500 bce. Hindus believe in one Supreme Reality, called Brahman -seek to be in harmony with Brahman by living an ethically good life through self-discipline sharing of wealth, and adherence to the teachings of the Scriptures (Vedas). Like Buddhists, they believe in reincarnation and hope to escape it to achieve union with God.

Strong uncertainty avoidance cultures resist change, including ___________________________________

career change and organizational change; they expect clear procedures and preserve the status quo.

High Context

communication is conveyed by the context. HE cultures include Japan, China, many other Asian cultures, and Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African cultures. -Less verbally explicit communication; 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 a central authority person

context

context plays in the culture's communication patterns. Think of a communication's context as the total relevant environment beyond the words, including, for instance, the participants' body language, their places in the room, and the order in which they speak.

KLUCKHOHN AND STRODTBECK'S CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS FRAMEWORK

cultural values based on universal problems to which all cultures offer solutions. The five problems are: 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?

universalist

cultures apply rules across the board, to all people, in all situations. -Universalist cultures tend to be rule-based,

particularist

cultures consider the context before they apply the rule. -particularist cultures tend to be relationship-based.

culture

definitional differences depend mostly on the scientists' approach to the field, their level of analysis, whether they are looking at whole populations as groups or the individuals within these groups. -also can be understood from the individual level as the "individual worldviews, social rules, and interpersonal dynamics character¬ izing a group of people set in a particular time and place."2

Uncertainty avoidance

describes a society's level of comfort with uncertainty. Hofstede points out that this dimension "ultimately refers to man's search for Truth" because it describes the extent to which a culture programs its mem¬ hers to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. -Cultures that avoid uncertainty try to minimize the possibility of unstructured situations by "strict laws and rules, safety and security measures."

masculinity-femininity

dimension describes the distribution of roles between the sexes. Hofstede's data indicate that "women's roles across cultures differ less than 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."

dimension of individualism vs. communitarianism

has to do with whether people plan their actions with reference to individual benefits or group benefits.

Weak uncertainty avoidance cultures see conflict as_________________________________________________________________

having positive aspects, expect innovation, encourage risk taking, and reward career change.

SOCIETAL ORGANIZATION

important aspect of culture, the way social groups are constructed. Sociologists define two kinds of social groups or institutions: kinship and free association. -The family is the basic unit of institutions based on kinship. Unlike the U.S. family -extended family can be a source of employees and business connections and also of potential problems. The trust people place in their relatives may motivate them to buy from a supplier owned by their cousin's cousin, even though the price may be higher. Local human resource managers may fill the best jobs with family members regardless of qualifications.

global mind-set

includes an openness to diversity along with an ability to pull ideas together across boundaries created by that diversity.30 This ability to synthesize across diversity requires a willingness to deal with complexity and can be enhanced through experiences in different cultures.

Indulgence vs. Restraint

is about happiness and describes a culture's tendency either to allow relatively free gratification of human desires or suppress human drives though strict social norms.

Aesthetics

is the area of philosophy that deals with beauty, so a culture's aesthetics describes its sense of beauty and taste. The word's origin is the Greek aisthetikos, meaning perceptible by the senses. A culture's aesthetics is expressed in many areas, most directly and intentionally in art, drama, music, folklore, and dance. Art, including color and form, can convey a lot about culture to international managers it contains symbolic meanings that are clues to values.

Power distance

is the extent to which members of a society expect power to be distributed unequally and accept that it is. Power distance is similar to inequality, but defined from below, not from above, and suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by followers as well as by leaders.

language

it the key importance -Nonverbal communication, or the unspoken language, can often tell businesspeople something the spoken language does not if they can understand it. In cultures known as high context (HE), meaning is conveyed through the context rather than the words them¬ selves. In these HE cultures, the unspoken language is used intensively to convey signifi¬ cant, intentional meaning. -use contextual clues like gestures, eye contact, posture, and subtle facial expressions to communicate or receive meaning, perhaps without any special awareness that they are doing

To understand a specific group, be it an organization or a society, an ethnic group or a social group, we need to understand ___________________________________________

its culture. Yet we cannot directly observe it, so we have to learn about culture by observing how it manifests itself: in the character of the social world in which it exists.

relatively

less effort invested in control and structure. In contrast, in restraining cultures, much more energy is dedicated to establishing order and structure and individuals are not "indulged." For example, in restraining cultures, the police-to-citizen ratio is higher than in indulging cultures.

masculine culture

male roles are more likely to be task-focused and female roles relationship-focused, achievements are emphasized, economic growth is central, people live in order to work, and business performance is the primary goal.

individualism-collectivism dimension .

measures the degree to which people in the culture are integrated into groups -People in highly "collectivistic" cultures belong to strong, cohesive in-groups that look after them in exchange for loyalty. -people in highly "individualistic" cultures are more loosely connected and look after themselves and their immediate family.

pragmatic

orientation suggests a people who are not concerned with understanding 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. There is a strong inclination to save and persevere.

internal-direction cultures

people believe they control nature.

small-power-distance environments, a consultative style of leadership is ______________________________________

predominates, informality tends to be the norm, and there is or there is thought to be equal distance among people.

feminine culture

relatively less variation between male and female roles, which suggests that leadership and decision-making roles are equally open to men and women. - quality of work life is important; ppl work in order to live, and environmental issues matter from a business perspective.

largepower-distance societies,_____________ are important

seniority, age, rank, and title - People will want direction, and formality is emphasized.

(HR) contexts relate to our attitudes toward social status. Is social status

something we earn through achievements—what we do—or is it a result of our family's social position—who we are? U.S. employees, for example, expect to be promoted based on their accomplishments; they are often surprised to learn of the significant roles family background and schooling in the "right" institutions play in careers in Great Britain.

Indulgence

tends to be strong in the Americas and western Europe, while restraint is strong in eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. -cultures, people believe they have personal control over their lives; leisure is valued, as is freedom of speech; and people tend to be active in sports.

wide variation in cultural attitudes and values across markets requires that many firms develop a variety of marketing mixes to reach _________________________________

their consumers. To build effective marketing campaigns, the marketer has to understand the foreign market beyond its surface. The more she or he 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.

normative societies

there is a strong desire to explain and to know the absolute Truth. Concern for personal stability is high. There is respect for tradition, a low propensity to save, and a focus on quick results.

external-direction cultures

they believe the natural world controls them and they need to work with their environment. -where people tend to be responsive to external forces, a motivational approach that draws on self-directed leadership might be a costly misstep. Of course, training could change that. But a motivational approach that provides external resources such as rewards and regular feedback would be more in line with the cultural dimension of external direction.

Buddhism

was founded between the 6th and 4th centuries bce in northeastern India. -teachings of Siddhartha Gautama - In general, Buddhists believe earthly life cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation is the cause of human suffering.

Islam

whose name comes from an Arabic word meaning "submitting," began in the 7th century ce belief in one God, Allah.