1. Introduction 1.1 Definitions of Culture Culture can be simply considered as "the way we do things around here", said Cartwright (2004, pp.85). A further understanding given by Deresky (2006, pp.83) is that a culture is composed by 'shared values, understandings, assumptions, and goals that are learned from earlier generations, imposed by present members of a society and passed on to succeeding generations'. It can be seen that culture is formed by lifestyle and knowledge acquisition of people from a certain region, and then it stands for a general preference, opinion, and value of them. So that's why people from the same place may have much in common. 1.2 The role of Culture in Management Decisions As culture may impact people's behaviours generation by generation, in other words, the consumer's need of business in some level depends on cultural influence. Cultural influence lies in a variety of forms, from laws, regulations, religions to personal interests. For instance, automobiles in countries like the UK, Australia, India, New Zealand and so on, must run on the right side of the road, while those in the US, China, France, etc., run on the left side. This totally determines which kind of car should be designed and sold to that country. Another example is Starbucks' logo problem in Saudi Arabia. Due to the country's Islamic convictions, Starbucks' green mermaid logo was thought to be inappropriate and immoral and forced to remove the mermaid with only its brand's name left. (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2004; Fox, 2011) As a result, culture plays a vital role in expanding international business with its impacts from general strategic direction to details like logo. 2. Four Dimensions of National Culture 2.1 Po... ... middle of paper ... ...-national work settings: Incidence and outcomes. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35(4), pp.440-451. Starbucks, 2012. Our heritage. [online] Available at: < http://www.starbucks.com/about-us/our-heritage> [Accessed 22 April 2012] Svensson, G., 2001. 'Globalization' of Business Activities: A 'Global Strategy' Approach, Management Decision, 39(1), pp.6-18. Thomas, D. C., and Ravlin, E. C.,1995. Responses of employees to cultural adaptation by a foreign manager. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(1),pp.133–146. Wanasika, I., Howell, J.P., Littrell,R., Dorfman, P., 2011. Managerial Leadership and Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of World Business, 46(2), pp.234-241. West, J., and Graham, J. L., 2004. A linguistic-based measure of cultural distance and its relationship to managerial values. Management International Review, 44(3), pp.239-261.
Impact of culture on marketing strategies can be is explained by taking an example of Disneyland, launched Euro Disney and maintained its standard tried and tested formula with the assumption that customers would seek the authentic Disney experience. But shortly into the launch, Euro Disney was declared a failure. Of the many reasons that were attributed to Euro Disney’s failure, the one that stood out clearly was Euro Disney’s lack of localizing the brand experience. Euro Disney followed the brand policies to the word – English-only instructions, no wine consumption on park grounds, high ticket prices, and standardized merchandise and food items. This resulted in wide spread dissatisfaction among the customers. But Euro Disney was just following the golden rule of branding – consistency in its brand elements.
Culture is a very broad concept, including the beliefs, values, and lifestyles of people. It is an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior. It is also the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.
Hofstede’s model has widely been used in the past two decades to explore meaningful differences between cultures. This culture-based model was established based on data collected from 117,000 IBM employees in 20 different languages within 53 countries and regions. The survey instruments were divided into 4 subsections of questions that were relevant to work satisfaction, personal goals and beliefs, and perceptions. Using this data, Hofstede was able to create a fundamental blueprint of four basic dimensions in which employees of different backgrounds could be meaningfully compared. However, like most pioneer models, the model of cultural-dimensions has inherent methodological flaws as it fails to account for extraneous variables and assumes that occupational and national cultures are not independent of each other.
Value systems across cultures can help to explain the differences in behaviour amongst people from different countries (McCort and Malhotra, 1993), which tend to stay with people over time. There are many different cultures and in order for an organisation to be successful, they need to take many different into account to ensure that they are successful in different countries and cultures. Cultural values appear to have considerable effects on management decision making processes (Clark, 1990; Ken, 1985; Picken, 1987; Shane, 1988; Swierczek, 1991). Culture is defined as “the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (Unesco, 2002).
In the last century, globalization has become a very tangible part of how business is conducted. Technological advancement allows international trade and commerce to happen rapidly and easily while the advancement in how goods are transported and how people communicate have had a drastic effect on the globalization of business. Management practices and culture also has a bearing on how international enterprise has is conducted. Managers have to adapt to different management practices, adjust to a new culture, and sometimes face ethical issues in a foreign field. Management is an important role in finance and enterprise that has far reaching consequences on the globalization of business.
A major challenge of doing business internationally is to adapt effectively to different culture. Such adaptation requires an understanding of cultural diversity, perceptions, stereotypes, and values (Hodgett &Luthans, 2005). Doing business overseas has its challenges as well as it rewards.
Culture is “a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organisation and guides the behaviour of its members” (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). It plays an important role in any organisation. For instance, in Woolworths we can se...
Gallant, M. (2013, September 6). The Business of Culture: How Culture Affects Management Around the World. [Web log]. Retrieved from http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/the-business-of-culture-how-culture-affects-management-around-the-world
It is said that people are the greatest assets to an organization and it is their beliefs, customs, perspectives, attitudes, and values that constitute to the culture that prevails in an organization. Culture, a very common word in today’s world, plays a very vital role in organizations and it not only affects an employee’s professional development but also their personal harmony. Culture gives a sense of belonging to people, a sense of who they are and how productive they are at their work place. It helps in interacting with each other at a work place.
In recent decades, the process of globalization has accelerated and the world economy has become increasingly interdependent. The rise in the number of businesses that extensively operate in more than one foreign country, which is known as multinational corporations, plays an important role in the ongoing procedure of globalization. The United Nations has reported that multinational corporations hold one-third of world’s productive assets and control 70 percent of world trade (Schermerhorn et al., 2014). As there is a considerable growth in international businesses, worldwide economy is becoming more highly competitive. The global economy not only offers great opportunities for multinational enterprises but also on the other hand, creates many difficulties for them. Therefore, success in the large-scale economy requires a number of elements. One of the major determinants is dependent on global managers. In the operation of organizations, managers may encounter different international management challenges that restrict their business development. These challenges often include issues associated with the host countries, the global workforce diversity management, management across cultures, difficulties in competitive global business environment as well as in the process of global planning and controlling. This essay is going to discuss the above international management challenges in a broad sense and giving illustration in aspects of each challenge.
Culture is shared. Culture is shared by a firmly large group of human beings living in organized societies and works as a linking force. Generally, common religion and language are the critical elements that largely help people share values, customs, norms and experiences.
Understand and heed cultural differences - cultural variables in transacting international business. (1991, January 28). Business America. FindArticles.com., Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1052/is_n2_v112/ai_10412261/pg_4?tag=content;col1
ESSAY TOPIC (1) :A joint venture is affected by the cultural distance between two partners. In what ways are joint ventures and types of international collaboration affected by cultural differences?
Miroshnik, V. (2002). Culture and international management: a review' The Journal of Management Development 21(7): 521-544
Stonehouse, G., Campbell, D., Hamill, J. & Purdie, T. (2004). Global and Transnational Business (2nd ed.). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.