Culture and Strategy

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Strategy for Tourism

• Unit 3
• Culture and Strategy

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Reading
Book Ch
Tribe, J, (2010) Strategy for Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers, Oxford. 3
Capon, C. (2008) Understanding Strategic Management, Prentice Hall Hemel Hempstead. 5
Tribe, J. (2005) The Economics of Recreation, Leisure and Tourism, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford. -
Johnson, G., Scholes, K., and Whittington, R. (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy, Prentice Hall Hemel Hempstead. 5
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Objectives

• After studying this chapter and related materials
  you should be able to understand
• Culture, difference and reproduction
• Organisational culture
• Cultural web
• The cultural environment
• and critically evaluate, explain and apply the
  above concepts.

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Case Study 3 The Walt Disney Company

• Larry Lynch of the Disney Institute, Walt Disney
  World, Florida, explains the role of the WDC
  university in inducting new staff
• it all begins the day new Cast Members arrive
  for orientation at Disney University, the
  company's internal training operation. The timing
  couldn't be better to show them how our company
  thinks, to offer concrete examples of how
  creativity and innovation have helped us grow,
  and to emphasize how our ongoing traditions have
  been the steady hand that guides us. Those
  traditions are pointed out again when new Cast
  Members are introduced to their assigned
  workplaces. As they learn the culture of the
  company, they recognize the traditions in the
  standard operating procedures and established
  norms of their work areas

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Culture

• a set of shared values, attitudes, goals, and
  practices that characterise a group of people.

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Organisational Culture

• Organisational culture refers to organisational
  beliefs, values and attitudes (Schein, 1985
  Martin and Siehl, 1983).
• It describes out the way things are done in a
  particular organisation and forms the basis for
  the rules of acceptable and unacceptable
  behaviour. Organisational culture is thus the
  arbiter of organisational norms and it therefore
  acts as a powerful force in encouraging or
  frustrating the emergence of new missions and
  strategies. This is particularly so where culture
  is deeply embedded.
• The term cultural web (Johnson and Scholes 1993)
  is a useful device for highlighting the different
  strands of an organisation's culture - symbols,
  rituals, stories and power, which add up to a
  paradigm - an agreed way of going about things.

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Mission and Culture

• Cultural variance between countries in which
  tourism organisations operate can be understood
  by reference to differences in
• attitudes to authority
• attitudes to work and leisure
• beliefs including religion and materialism
• traditions
• pursuit of individual or community goals
• definitions of good and bad, worthy and unworthy
  (the moral and ethical system)
• sources of status
• Cultural norms are transmitted by and changed by
• the family
• education
• mass media
• the arts
• government

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Hofstede

• The relationship between national cultures and
  organizational cultures has been analysed by
  Hofstede Hofstede (1991) and Hofstede (2001)
  and these studies uncovered national and regional
  cultural groupings that affect the behaviour of
  societies and organizations that work within
  them.
• Hofstede found five dimensions of culture in his
  study of national work related values
• Low vs. high power distance (PDI)
• Individualism vs. collectivism (IDV)
• Masculinity vs. femininity (MAS)
• Low vs. high uncertainty avoidance (UAI)
• Long vs. short term orientation (LTO)

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Country Scores for Hofstedes Cultural Dimensions
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Reproduction and Path Dependency

• Cultural reproduction (Bourdieu, 1973) refers to
  the way in which culture (including values,
  attitudes, goals, and practices) is maintained
  over time and transmitted from one generation to
  the next.
• Acculturation refers to the process by which new
  members are inducted into the value systems of a
  culture.
• Path dependency occurs when certain decisions and
  events create paths or routes into the future and
  exert long term effects on subsequent decisions
  and events.

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The Cultural Web

• A cultural web (Johnson et al., 2008) is a useful
  device for highlighting the different strands of
  an organisation's culture. These include
• symbols
• rituals and routines
• stories
• power structures and organisational structures
• control systems

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Cultural Web
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Etihad Airways Different Culture?
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Cultural Types
Miles and Snow (1978) distinguish between
defender types, and prospector types of cultures
in organisations.

• Prospectors
• outward-looking
• responsive to environment
• daring
• opportunistic
• flexible
• adaptive
• proactive

• Defenders
• Conservative
• seek security
• Cautious
• avoid change
• Inflexible
• set in their ways
• reactive

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The Cultural Environment

• The broad political system within which entities
  operate should also be considered as an important
  aspect of the cultural environment. Competing
  ideologies include
• Communism
• Democratic Socialism
• Neoliberalism and
• Third Way politics

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Review of Key Terms

• Culture a set of shared values, attitudes,
  goals, and practices that characterise a group of
  people.
• Hofstede studied the relationship between
  national cultures and organizational cultures.
• Ideology a system of beliefs that directs the
  policies and activities of its adherents.
• Cultural reproduction the way in which culture
  is maintained over time and transmitted from one
  generation to the next.
• Path dependency when certain decisions and
  events create paths or routes into the future and
  exert long term effects on subsequent decisions
  and events.
• Organisational culture organisational beliefs,
  values and attitudes.
• Cultural web the different strands of an
  organisation's culture

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Discussion Questions

1. Analyse the cultural issues that relate to The
   Walt Disney Company in relation to its strategy.
2. Construct a cultural web for a tourism entity of
   your choice giving examples of the components.
3. Explain the uses of Hofstedes dimensions of
   culture for understanding the culture of a
   tourism entity.
4. What causes reproduction and path dependency?
   Explain why these are problems for tourism
   entities that you are familiar with.
5. Explain the interrelationship between socialism,
   modernization, and traditional culture in China
   and its relevance for the study of the culture of
   tourism entities.

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Exercise Cultural Difference

• Prepare short notes giving
• Advice for tourists coming to country x from
  country UK on cultural differences
• Advice for hotel in UK for understanding
  cultural differences in visitors from country x
• Advice for UK employees who get a job in the
  travel trade in country x

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Case Study New Zealand

• Examine the New Zealand Tourism Strategy for 2015
• Evaluate the appropriateness of the mission and
  aims
• Identify the key stakeholders who influence the
  mission
• Analyse the sources of stakeholder power
• What is the relationship between culture and
  mission?

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NZ Tourism Strategy

• Details of the Tourism Strategy for New Zealand
  can be found at
• http//www.nztourismstrategy.com/files/NZTS20152
  0final.pdf
• For lecturer use only
• nz tourism strategy 2015.pdf

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Strategy for Tourism

• Unit 3
• Culture and Strategy
• The End