Strat+L_ship.+Managing+Cultural+Differ.FEB+2010.ppt_2_.pptVIP

What is Culture? Culture: a society’s (group’s) system of shared, learned values and norms; these are the society’s (group’s) 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 Customs; dress code; table manners; timeliness Mores: norms central to functioning of social life bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery, alcohol Key Points Societies’ differ along cultural dimensions Culture changes over time. Social structure, religion, language, economic development influence cultural differences High-medium-low context cultures are important frameworks as generalizations Cultural differences affect the workplace and have important implications for business managers (cultural literacy) Face-to-face negotiations are culturally-loaded Cultural understanding paramount in relationship building Culture and the workplace All major studies of national culture (Hofstede, Trompenaars, GLOBE project) find 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) Cultural Distance Geographic and cultural (or psychic) distance among countries may not be the same Key concept which can affect IB strategy and conduct Cultural Dimensions Hofstede Dimensions Trompenaars Dimensions High vs Low Context Framework Power Distance Degree of hierarchical social inequality considered normal by people Distance between individuals at different levels of a societal hierarchy Scale: from equal (small power distance) to extremely unequal (large power distance) Uncertainty Avoidance Degree of need to avoid