Differences in Culture

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• Differences in Culture

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Differences in Culture

• Societies differ along cultural dimensions
• What is culture?
• How/why do social structure, religion, language
  influence cultural differences?
• What are differences between culture and values
  in the workplace (corporate culture)?
• Culture changes over time. What are some reasons
  behind this?
• Implications for business managers

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Cultural Appreciation
Values
Customs
Aspects of culture
Symbols
Language
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What is Culture?

• Culture a societys (groups) system of shared,
  learned values and norms these are the societys
  (groups) design for living
• Values abstract ideas about the good, the
  right, the desirable
• Norms social rules and guidelines guide
  appropriate behavior for specific situations
• Folkways norms of little moral significance
• dress code table manners timeliness
• Mores norms central to functioning of social
  life
• bring serious retribution thievery, adultery,
  alcohol

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Basic U.S. Business Values
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Cultural Diversity

• Values represent personal or socially preferable
  modes of conduct or states of existence that are
  enduring.
• Why doesnt McDonalds sell hamburgers in India?

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Cultural Diversity

• Customs are norms and expectations about the way
  people do things in a specific country.
• Why were 3M executives perplexed concerning
  lukewarm sales of Scotch-Brite floor cleaner in
  the Philippines?

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What is Culture?

• the collective programming of the mind which
  distinguishes the members of one human group over
  another Culture, in this sense, includes
  systems of values and values are among the
  building blocks of culture
• Geert Hofstede

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National Culture

• Nation is a useful
• Definition of society
• similarity among people a cause -- and effect --
  of national boundaries
• Way to bound and measure culture for conduct of
  business
• culture is a key characteristic of societ
• can differ significantly across national borders
• also within national borders
• laws are established along national lines
• Culture is both a cause and an effect of economic
  and political factors that vary across national
  borders

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Social Structure and Culture

• Unit of social organization individual or group?
• Society may be stratified into classes or castes
• High-low stratification
• High-low mobility between strata
• The individual building block of many Western
  societies
• Entrepreneurship
• Social, geographical and inter-organizational
  mobility
• The group
• Two or more associated individuals with a shared
  identity
• Interact with each-other in specific ways on the
  basis of a common set of expectations.

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Individual vs Group Societal Characteristics

• Individual
• Managerial mobility between companies
• Economic dynamism, innovation
• Good general skills
• Team work difficult, non-collaborative
• Exposure to different ways of doing business
• e.g., U.S. companies

• Group
• Loyalty and commitment to company
• In-depth knowledge of company
• Specialist skills
• Easy to build teams, collaboration
• Emotional identification with group or company
• e.g., Japanese companies

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Religion, Ethics and Culture

• Religion system of shared beliefs about the
  sacred
• Ethical systems moral principles or values that
  shape and guide behavior often products of
  religion
• Major religious groups and some economic
  implications
• Christianity protestant work ethic
• Islam Islamic economic principles
• Hinduism anti-materialistic, socially stratified
• Buddhism anti-materialistic, social equality
• Confucianism hierarchy, loyalty, honesty

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Language Culture Bound

• Language, spoken
• private does not exist as a word in many
  languages
• Eskimos 24 words for snow
• Words which describe moral concepts can be unique
  to countries or areas
• Spoken language precision important in
  low-context cultures
• Language, unspoken
• Context... more important than spoken word in
  high context cultures

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Non-Verbal Gestures
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Non-Verbal Gestures
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Non-Verbal Gestures
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Non-Verbal Gestures
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Cultural Diversity Chevy Nova Award

• Dairy Associations huge success with the
  campaign Got Milk? prompted them to expand
  advertising to Mexico
• It was brought to their attention the Spanish
  translation read, Are you lactating?

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Cultural Diversity Chevy Nova Award

• Clairol introduced the Mist Stick, a curling
  iron into Germany
• Only to find out that mist is German slang for
  manure.

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Cultural Diversity Chevy Nova Award

• When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa,
  they used US packaging with the smiling baby on
  the label.
• In Africa, companies routinely put pictures on
  labels of whats inside, since many people cant
  read.

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Cultural Diversity Chevy Nova Award

• Pepsis Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation
  in Chinese translated into
• Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the
  Grave
•               

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Cultural Diversity Chevy Nova Award

• Coca-Colas name in China was first read as
  Kekoukela, meaning Bite the wax tadpole or
  female horse stuffed with wax, depending on the
  dialect.
• Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find
  a phonetic equivalent kokou kole, translating
  into happiness in the mouth.

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Cultural Stereotypes

• Cultural stereotypes values and behaviors
  considered typical of a culture
•        
• Are they valuable?
• Yes, if they reduce uncertainty about what
  expatriate can expect.
• No, if used to label an individual unlike
  the stereotype

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High/Low Context Cultures
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Education and Culture

• Education
• Medium through which people are acculturated
• Language, myths, values, norms taught
• Teaches personal achievement and competition
• Critical to national competitive advantage
• Education system may be a cultural outcome

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Culture and the workplace (Hofstede)

• Finds national culture dimensions meaningful to
  business
• Basis
• Work related values not universal
• National values may persist over MNC efforts to
  create corporate culture
• Home country values often used to determine HQ
  policies
• MNC may create morale problems with uniform moral
  norms
• Purpose understanding of business situations
  across-cultures
• MUST understand own culture AND other culture(s)

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Culture and the workplace

• Geert Hofstede sampled 100,000 IBM employees
  1963-1973
• Compared employee attitudes and values across 40
  countries
• Isolated 4 dimensions summarizing culture
• Power distance
• Individualism vs. collectivism
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Masculinity vs. feminity

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Power Distance -- (Hofstede)

• Degree of social inequality considered normal by
  people
• Distance between individuals at different levels
  of a hierarchy
• Scale from equal (small power distance) to
  extremely unequal (large power distance)

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Individualism Vs. Collectivism (Hofstede)

• Degree to which people in a country prefer to act
  as individuals rather than in groups
• Describes the relations between the individual
  and his/her fellows

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Uncertainty Avoidance (Hofstede)

• Degree of need to avoid uncertainty about the
  future
• Degree of preference for structured versus
  unstructured situations
• Structured situations have tight rules may or
  may not be written down
• High uncertainty avoidance people with more
  nervous energy (vs easy-going), rigid society,
  "what is different is dangerous."

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Masculinity Vs. Femininity (Hofstede)

• Division of roles and values in a society
• Masculine values prevail
• assertiveness, success, competition
• Feminine values prevail
• quality of life, maintenance of warm personal
  relationships, service, care for the weak,
  solidarity

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Confucian Dynamism (Hofstede)

• Attitudes towards
• Time
• Persistence
• Status in society
• Face
• Respect for tradition
• Gifts and favors

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Cultural Change Over Time

• Change is slow and often painful
• Shifts away from traditional values towards
  secular values
• Changes with shift from survival values to
  self-expression values

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Cultural Distance

• Geographic and cultural (or pshychic) distance
  among countries may not be the same
• Key concept which can affect IB strategy and
  conduct

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Managerial Implications

• Ethnocentrism vs Polycentrism
• Must a company adapt to local cultures or can
  corporate -- often home-country dominated --
  culture prevail?
• Cross-cultural literacy essential
• Do some cultures offer a national competitive
  advantage over others?

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Applying Cultural Analysis

• 1.   Describe culture using Hofstedes Model
• 2.    Estimate cultural impact on management  
•   Strategic planning Futile? How much
  information needed?
•   Employee motivation Security or money
  reward? Immediate or long-term rewards?
•   Employee monitoring and control Rules
  or trust?
•   Decision making overcoming problems or
  seizing opportunities?