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#5982 - International Management – The Meanings And Dimensions Of Culture - International Management

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The Meanings and Dimensions of Culture

TERMS

  • Culture – Acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and generate social behaviour. This knowledge forms values, creates attitudes and influences behaviour.

  • Values – Basic convictions that people have regarding what is right and wrong, good and bad, important an unimportant.

  • Power Distance – The extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organisations accept that power is distributed unequally.

  • Uncertainty Avoidance - The extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these.

  • Masculinity – A cultural characteristic in which the dominant values, in society are success, money things.

  • Femininity – A cultural characteristic in which the dominant values in society are caring for others and the quality of life.

  • Universalism – The belief that ideas and practices can be applied everywhere in the world without modification.

  • Particularism – The belief circumstances dictate how ideas and practices should be applied and that something cannot be done the same everywhere.

THE NATURE OF CULTURE

  • The following are characteristics of culture:

    • Learned – Culture is not inherited or biologically based; it is acquired by learning and experience.

    • Shared – People as members of a group, organisation or society chare culture; it is not specific to single individuals.

    • Transgenerational – Culture is cumulative, passed down from one generation to the next.

    • Symbolic – Culture is based on the human capacity to symbolise or use one thing to represent another.

    • Patterned – Culture has structure and is integrated; a change in one part brings change in another.

    • Adaptive – Culture is based on the human capacity to change or adapt.

  • If international managers do not know something about the cultures of the countries they deal with the results can be disastrous.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

  • Culture can affect technology transfer, managerial attitudes, managerial ideology and even business government relationships.

  • Culture affects how people think and behave.

  • The cultural impact on international management is reflected by basic beliefs and behaviours.

  • Culture of society can directly affect management approaches:

    • Centralised vs. decentralised decision making – In some society’s top managers make all important organisational decisions. In others these decisions are diffused throughout the enterprise and middle and lower level managers actively participate and make key decisions.

    • Safety vs. risk – In some societies, organisational decision makers are risk averse and have great difficulty with conditions of uncertainty. In others, risk taking is encouraged and decision making under uncertainty is common.

    • Individual vs. group reward – In some countries personnel who do outstanding work are given individual rewards in the form of bonuses and commission. In others, cultural norms require group rewards and individual rewards are frowned on.

    • Informal vs. formal procedures – In some societies, much is accomplished through informal means. In others formal procedures are set forth and followed rigidly.

    • High vs. low organisational loyalty – In some societies people identify very strongly with the organisation or employer. In others people identify with their occupational groups.

    • Cooperation vs. competition – Some societies encourage cooperation between their people. Others encourage competition.

    • Short term vs. long term horizons – Some cultures focus most heavily on short term horizons such as short range goals of profit and efficiency. Others are more interested in long range goals such as market share and technological development.

    • Stability vs. innovation – The culture of some countries encourages stability and resistance to change. The culture of others outs high value on innovation and change.

VALUES IN CULTURE

  • Values are learned from the culture in which the individual is reared and they help direct the person’s behaviour.

Hofstedes Cultural Dimensions

  • Geert Hostede identified four dimensions, and later a fifth, of culture that help explain how and why people from various cultures behave as they do.

  • His research was based on 116,000 respondents from 70 countries, who all worked for IBM. This is a criticism of the study.

  • Power Distance:

    • Countries in which people blindly obey the orders of their superiors have high power distance.

    • In many societies lower level employees tend to follow orders as a matter of procedure.

    • In societies with high power distance strict obedience is found even at the upper levels.

    • High power distance countries will tend to be centralised and have tall organisational structures. Will have a large proportion of supervisory personnel and the people at the lower level of the structure will have low job qualifications.

    • A high power distance tends to encourage and promote inequality between people at different levels.

    • Lowe power distance organisations tend to be decentralised and have flatter organisation structures. These organisations will have a smaller proportion of supervisory personnel and the lower strata of the workforce will consist of highly qualified people.

  • Uncertainty Avoidance:

    • Countries populated with people who do not like uncertainty tend to have a high need for security and a strong belief in experts and their knowledge.

    • Cultures with low uncertainty avoidance have people who are more willing to accept that risks are associated with the unknown.

    • Countries with high uncertainty avoidance cultures have a great deal of structuring and organisational activities, more written rules, less risk taking by managers, lower labour turnover and less ambitious employees.

    • Low uncertainty avoidance societies have organisation settings with less structuring of activities, fewer written rules, more risk taking by managers, higher labour turnover and more ambitious employees. The organisation encourages employees to use their own initiative and assume responsibility for their actions.

  • Individualism:

    • Hofstede measured this cultural difference based on a bipolar continuum with individualism at one end and collectivism at the other.

    • Hofstede found that wealthy countries have higher individualism scores and poorer countries higher collectivism scores.

    • Countries with high individualism also tend to have greater support for the Protestanct work ethic, greater individual initiative and promotions based on market values.

    • Countries with low individualism tend to have less support for the Protestant ethic, less individual initiative and promotions based on seniority.

  • Masculinity:

    • Hofstede measured this continuum, ranging from masculinity to feminity.

    • Countries with a high masculinity index place great importance on earnings recognition, advancement and challenges. Individuals are encouraged to be independent decision makers and achievement is defined in terms of recognition and wealth.

    • The workplace is often recognised by high job stress and many managers believe that employees dislike their work and must be kept under some degree of control. The school system is geared towards encouraging high performance.

    • Young men expect to have careers and those who do not often view themselves as failures. Historically fewer women hold higher level jobs, although this is changing.

    • Countries with low masculinity index tend to place importance on cooperation a friendly atmosphere and employment security. Individuals are encouraged to be decision makers and achievement is defined in terms of laymen contacts and the living environment.

    • The workplace tends to be characterised by low stress and managers give employees more credit for being responsible and allow them more freedom.

    • Culturally this group prefers small scale enterprises and they place greater importance on the conservation of the environment. The school system is designed to teach social adaptation. Some young men and women want careers, others do not. Many women hold higher level jobs and they do not find it necessary to be assertive.

Trompennars’s Cultural Dimensions

  • Trompennars’s research was conducted over a 10 year period and published in 1994.

  • He administered research questionnaires to over 15,000 managers from 28 countries and received useable responses from at least 500 in each nation.

  • Trompennars derived five relationship orientations that address the ways in which people deal with each other; these can be considered to cultural dimensions that are analogous to Hofstedes dimensions.

  • Trompennars also looked at attitudes toward both time and the environment.

  • Universalism vs. Particularism

    • In cultures with high universalism, the focus is more on formal rules than on relationships, business contracts are adhered to very closely and people believe that ‘a deal is a deal’.

    • In cultures with high particularism the focus is more on relationships and trust than on formal rules. In a particularist culture legal contracts are often modified and as people get to know each other better they often change the ways in which deals are executed.

    • Trompennar recommends that when individuals from particularist cultures do business in universalistic cultures they should be prepared for rational, professional arguments and a ‘let’s get down to business’ attitude.

    • Conversely when individuals from a universalistic culture do business in a particularist environment, they should be prepared for personal meandering or irrelevancies that seem to go nowhere and should not regard personal, get to know attitudes as merely small talk.

  • Individualism vs....

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International Management