International business chapter 2

1
ISG BBA PROGRAM Spring semester
BUS 470 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Lecture 2 Chapter 2 Culture differences
Tuesday, January 24th 2007
Guillaume Sarrat de Tramezaigues
www.gstblog.com
2
What is Culture?

• Culture
• The sum total of beliefs, rules, techniques,
  institutions, and artifacts that characterize
  human populations.
• Consists of learned patterns of behavior common
  to the members of a given society.
• The unique lifestyle of a particular group of
  people.
• Ethnocentricity
• Considering your culture superior to all others

3
Sociocultural Components

• Components of Culture
• Aesthetics
• Attitudes and beliefs
• Religion
• Material Culture
• Education
• Language
• Societal organization
• Legal characteristics
• Political structures

4
Religion

• Responsible for many of the attitudes and beliefs
  affecting human behavior.
• Work Ethic
• Protestant work ethic
• Europeans and Americans generally view work as a
  moral virtue and look unfavorably on the idle.
• Confucian work ethic
• In Asian countries, this is the same as
  Protestant ethic.

5
Asian Religions

• Hinduism
• Caste system is basis of the social division of
  labor.
• Buddhism
• Jainism
• Sikhism (Indian)
• Confucianism
• Inseparable from Chinese culture
• Taoism
• Shintoism (Japan)

6
Islam

• About 1.3 billion followers
• This youngest faith is the second largest after
  Christianity (2 billion adherents).
• Founder of Islam is Muhammad
• Muhammad was not only the prophet of God but also
  the head of state.
• In Muslim nations, there is no separation of
  church and state.
• Holy Book Koran

• Five Pillars of Faith
• Confession of faith
• Five daily prayers
• Giving charity
• Ramadan fast
• Pilgrimage to Mecca
• Jihad holy war
• Two divisions
• Sunni and Shiites
• Conflict gives rise to violent clashes

7
Material Culture

• Refers to all human-made objects
• Concerned with how people make things and who
  makes what and why.
• Technology
• Mix of usable knowledge that society applies and
  directs toward attainment of cultural and
  economic objectives

8
Education

• Equips a person to take his or her place in adult
  society
• Yardsticks
• Literacy rate
• Must verify definition used
• Kinds, quality and enrollment of schools
• Amount per capita spent on education
• Vocationally trained groups
• Study trends

9
Education

• Brain Drain
• The emigration of highly educated professionals
  to industrialized nations
• Reverse Brain Drain
• The return of highly educated professionals to
  their home countries.
• Korea and Taiwan are luring home engineers and
  scientists

• Womens Education
• Fall in illiteracy rate
• Most governments now provide education for both
  genders
• Educated women have fewer, healthier, and better
  educated children
• Educated women achieve higher labor force
  participation and wages

10
Spoken Language

• Language is the key to culture, and without it,
  people find themselves locked out of all but a
  cultures perimeter
• Spoken languages demarcate cultures
• Switzerland four separate cultures
• Many languages can exist in a single country, but
  one usually serves as communication vehicle
• Lingua franca or link language
• English primary language of business

11
Unspoken Language

• Nonverbal communication, such as gestures and
  body language.
• Gestures vary tremendously from one region to
  another
• Closed doors convey different meanings
• Office size different in various cultures
• Conversational distance small in East
• Gift giving has specific etiquette in each
  culture
• Gift or bribe?

12
Societal Organization

• Kinship
• Extended family
• Includes blood relatives and relatives by
  marriage.
• This is a source of employees and business
  connections.
• Members responsibility
• Although the extended family is large, each
  members feeling of responsibility to it is
  strong.

• Associations
• Social units based on age, gender, or common
  interest, not on kinship.
• Age
• Manufacturers of consumer goods are well aware of
  the importance of segmenting a market by age
  groups.
• This segmentation often cuts across cultures.

13
Understanding National Culture

• Hofstedes Dimensions of Culture
• Individualism versus Collectivism
• Large versus Small Power Distance
• Strong versus Weak Uncertainty Avoidance
• Masculinity versus Femininity