Module 3
Aesthetics
A culture's sense of beauty and good taste Expressed in many areas—art, drama, music, folklore, dance Applies to bodies as well (weight, tattoos, etc.) Examples: The Use of Color The color of mourning in the United States and Mexico is black, while it is black and white in East Asia, red in South Africa, and purple in Brazil and Thailand.
Accounting
Accounting controls the rest of assumptions about people's basic nature. -Tight controls suggest lack of trust. -Loose controls suggest people will act honestly when not closely monitored.
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Universalism vs. Particularism (Rules vs. Relationships)
Addresses whether rules or relationships regulate behaviors. People in universalist cultures apply rules across the board, to all people, in all situations. People in particularist cultures consider the context before they apply the rule.
Religion
Along with its spiritual aspect, religion is an important component of culture and responsible for many attitudes and beliefs that influence human behavior. Knowledge of the basic tenets of the religions of your markets will be useful as you build your under- standing of these cultures.
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Achievement vs. Ascription
Ascription cultures consider who a person is in terms of his or her family lineage, age, or other attributes. Achievement cultures are meritocracies that reward what you do.
Why Culture Is Important
Companies can develop a strategic advantage by understanding and appreciating cultures and their differences. "Our way is not the only way or even the best way." Mishandling or ignoring cultural differences can result in lost sales, departure of competent employees, and low productivity.
Cultural paradox
Contradictions in a culture's value
The Manifestation of Culture
Culture manifests in everything: Aesthetics Religion Material Culture Language and Communication Social organization Gift Giving
Power Distance
Extent to which members of a society expect power to be distributed unequally and accept that it 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.
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Individualism vs. Communitarianism
Has to do with whether people plan their actions with reference to individual benefits or group benefits.
Hall's High and Low Context
High Context Much of the communication is conveyed by the context. Japan, China, and many other Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and African cultures. Social ties are long-standing and close, communication tends to be implicit and indirect. Low Context Most of the communication is carried in words. U.S., Canada, other Anglo cultures, Germany, Scandinavian cultures. Social ties are of shorter duration, communication is explicit.
Free association
May be formed by other commonalities—such as age, gender, shared interests. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other social networks have resulted in new kinds of free associations with their own sets of unwritten rules.
Hofstede's Dimensions- Individualism-Collectivism
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. Examples: Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama, Indonesia, Pakistan, Taiwan, China, Japan, and West and East African countries. -People in highly individualistic cultures are more loosely connected and look after themselves and their immediate family. -Example: United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, France, and Germany.
Hall's High and Low Context -Monochronic
Monochronic cultures characterize time as linear, tangible, and divisible into blocks. Consistent with an economic understanding of time, that it is a scarce resource to be measured, saved, and spent.
Language
Most obvious and distancing cultural distinction is language Nonverbal communication also reveals a lot about social interactions and values Gestures and their meanings vary between cultures. Spatial relationships may differ greatly
Production and Procurement
Production managers have found that cultural values around attitudes toward change can seriously influence the acceptance of new production methods. Plant layout is also influenced by culture: -The assembly line - devised by minds socialized in a sequential, linear culture, in which the task receives primary focus, not the social relationship. -The Uddevalla approach - found in some Volvo plants in Sweden in the 1980s, where small, autonomous teams working in a circle assembled an entire car in several hours. Cultural norms and rules structure the way the firm acquires resources, as well. -In much of Asia, procurement often exists in a web of social relationships and friendships. -In the United States, transparency and price frequently drive the process.
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Neutral vs. Affective (Unemotional vs. Emotional)
Withholding of emotion contrasted with its expression People in neutral cultures tend to withhold emotional expression; People in affective cultures are much more expressive.
Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's Cultural Orientations Framework
classification system for cultures based on five universal problems: -What relationship should people have to nature? That is, how should they think about their activities with regard to nature? -What sorts of relationships should exist among individuals? -What are the preferred forms or modes of human activity? -What is the best way to think about time? -What is the basic nature of humans?
Rules of Thumb for Managers Doing Business Across Cultures
-Be prepared when you approach a foreign market. -Slow down. -Establish trust. -Understand the importance of language. -Respect the culture. -Understand the components of culture, surface and deep.
Culture Frameworks
-Hall -Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck -Hofstede -Trompenaars
How do international business managers learn to live, work, and meet business goals in other cultures?
-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:
-spend a lifetime in a culture; or -Undergo an extensive training program that covers the main characteristics of a culture, including the language.
Material Culture or Artifacts
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 material culture. -France - Food, cooking, and wine -Japan - Woodblock prints and pottery in Japan -Greece - Worry beads and classical theater -Switzerland - Artisan chocolates in Switzerland. Some awareness of these objects and the meanings they have can communicate your interest in the culture and help you understand more about it
Human Resources
Cultural values play key roles in motivating and evaluating employees: -In some cultures, individual effort is rewarded. -In others, group effort is more highly valued. Other values that come into play are 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. -U.S. employees are often surprised to learn of the significant roles family background and schooling in the "right" institutions play in careers in Great Britain. Different attitudes toward authority arise in human resource contexts. -Is the manager expected to be the patron, an authoritarian figure responsible for the employees' welfare? -Or is the manager the first among equals?
Kinship
Definition and closeness varies by culture, with the extended family important is some cultures, less so in others. The family
Hofstede's Dimensions- Indulgence vs. Restraint
Describes a culture's tendency either to allow relatively free gratification of human desires or suppress human drives though strict social norms -In indulgent cultures, people believe they have personal control over their lives -In restraining cultures, much more energy is dedicated to establishing order and structure and individuals are not "indulged."
Hofstede's Dimensions- Uncertainty Avoidance
Describes a society's level of comfort with uncertainty. "Search for Truth" Strong uncertainty avoidance cultures resist change, including career change and organizational change; they expect clear procedures and preserve the status quo. Examples: Greece, Portugal, Guatemala, Uruguay, Japan, France, Spain, and South Korea. Weak uncertainty avoidance cultures see conflict as having positive aspects, expect innovation, encourage risk taking, and reward career change. Examples: Singapore, Jamaica, Denmark, Sweden, Hong Kong, United States, Canada, Norway, and Australia.
Preferred Leadership Styles
Desired leadership traits vary by culture as well. Is the usual relationship between leader and followers hierarchical or lateral? Is the leadership model paternalistic? Or heroic? -In Japan, which tends toward a paternalistic understanding of leadership, the firm's director often is asked to vet a company member's prospective bride or groom. -In the United States, leaders of successful companies often are seen as heroes.
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Specific vs. Diffuse
Distinguishes among cultures based on their differentiation between private life and public or work life.
Hofstede's Dimensions- Masculinity-Femininity
Feminine Culture In a feminine culture, there is relatively less variation between male and female roles, which suggests that leadership and decision-making roles are equally open to men and women. Also in a feminine culture, quality of work life is important; people work in order to live, and environmental issues matter from a business perspective. Masculine Culture In a 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. 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."
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Attitudes Toward the Environment
In internal-direction cultures, people believe they control nature. In external-direction cultures, they believe the natural world controls them and they need to work with their environment.
Global Mindset
Involves an openness to diversity along with an ability to synthesize across diversity
Music and Folklore
Music can also communicate a culture's aesthetics, and a culture's folklore can disclose much about a society's way of life. Used correctly, music and folklore can help companies connect with potential customers -A commercial that used a ballad in the United States might be better received in Mexico if accompanied by a bolero, or in Brazil a samba. Incorrect use of folklore in marketing can offend the target market. -Smirnoff's use of the famous Ernesto "Che" Guevara's image in an advertisement for spicy vodka in Cuba sparked controversy there, because Guevara is a national hero. -Procter and Gamble's Pampers introduction into Asia used images of the stork's arrival with the baby to signal product need, but most Asian cultures don't have babies brought by storks. In Japan, for example, babies are brought by large peaches.
Ethnocentricity
The belief that your own culture is superior to other cultures. Which countries or companies are guilty of ethnocentricity? Virtually are countries are on some level: -The "American way" -The "Germany way" -The "British way" -The "China way"
Societal Organization
The institutionalized structures of social relationships
Most anthropologists define culture as:
The sum total of the beliefs, rules, techniques, institutions, and artifacts that characterize human populations.
Trompenaars's Seven Dimensions- Attitudes Toward Time
Trompenaars's time dimension has two aspects. The first 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. The second aspect of the time dimension describes whether actions are: Sequential (monochronic); or Synchronous (polychronic).
Hall's High and Low Context -Polychronic
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.
Marketing
Variations in attitudes and values across markets often require different marketing mixes to reach potential customers. Examples of marketing blunders: -A U.S. company tried to sell a cranberry liqueur called Bogs in the UK, where bog is slang for outhouse. -Another example is selling the soap Irish Mist and the Rolls-Royce Silver Mist in Germany, where mist means dung/manure. -Pepsodent tried to sell whitening toothpaste in Southeast Asia where people chew betel nut purposely to darken their teeth. -In Japan, where kitchens often don't have ovens, international marketers tried to sell a cake mix.
Gift Giving in Business
is a way to acknowledge interrelationships and social obligations. The exchange of gifts creates a social bond that requires you to be a giver, receiver, and holder of an obligation. Managers should learn the patterns of the relevant cultures. Example: -In Japan, people never give an unwrapped gift or visit a home empty-handed. -A gift is presented with the comment that it is only a trifle, which implies that the humble social position of the giver does not permit giving a gift in keeping with the high status of the recipient. -The recipient, in turn, will not open the gift in front of the giver, in order to spare him or her any embarrassment. -The intention of gift giving in Japan is to convey the giver's thoughtfulness and consideration for the receiver, who, over time, builds up trust in the giver.
Hofstede's Dimensions- Pragmatic vs. Normative
measure of how people deal with the unexplainable in their lives. In normative societies there is a strong desire to explain and to know the absolute Truth. There is respect for tradition, a low propensity to save, and a focus on quick results. In contrast, a pragmatic orientation suggests a people who are not concerned with understanding so much because life as a complex process is a given.
