business

Values And Norms

Folkways are the routines conventions of everyday life, but generally have little moral significance.

Examples would be dress, eating habits, and social graces. An outsider can easily be forgiven for being ignorant of a folkway.

Timeliness is a good example.

(One way to reinforce the understanding of this concept is to ask individuals in the class what time they would choose to arrive at a party if the party invitation specified that the party starts at 8pm. It is not uncommon for different individuals in the class to have widely varying positions on the “right” time to arrive for an 8pm party. )

Mores are serious standards of behavior.

The term comes from the Latin mos (customs), and although mores are fewer in number than folkways, they are more coercive.

Negative mores are taboos, usually supported by religious or philosophical sanctions. Whereas folkways guide human conduct in the more mundane areas of life, mores tend to control those aspects connected with sex, the family, or religion.

Mores can vary greatly between countries: what in one country may be viewed as an innocent flirt in another may constitute a serious affront to someone's dignity or even harassment. While it is acceptable, and even expected, to consume alcohol with business associates in Japan, where evening business contacts often border on drunkenness, such actions would be disallowed in the United Arab Emirates.

Culture, Society, And The Nation-state

· There is not a strict one-to-one relationship between a society and a nation state

· Nation-states are political creations that can contain one or more cultures

· Similarly, a culture can embrace several nations

The Determinants Of Culture

· The values and norms of a culture are the evolutionary product of a number of factors at work in a society including religion, political and economic philosophies, education, language, and social structure

Social Structure

· Social structure refers to a society’s basic social organization

Two dimensions to consider:

· the degree to which the basic unit of social organization is the individual, as opposed to the group

· the degree to which a society is stratified into classes or castes

Language

· Language refers to the spoken and unspoken means of communication

· Language is one of the defining characteristics of culture

Spoken Language

· Countries with more than one language often have more than one culture

· The most widely spoken language in the world, but Chinese is the mother tongue of the largest number of people

· English is also becoming the language of international business, but knowledge of the local language is beneficial, and in some cases, critical for business success

Unspoken Language

· Unspoken language refers to nonverbal communication such as facial expressions, personal space, and hand gestures

· Failing to understand the nonverbal cues of another culture can lead to communication failure

Education

· Formal education is the medium through which individuals learn many of the language, conceptual, and mathematical skills that are indispensable in a modern society

· Education is important in determining a nation’s competitive advantage

· General education levels can also be a good index for the kinds of products that might sell in a country

Culture And The Workplace

· It is important for companies to understand how a society’s culture affects workplace values

· Management processes and practices must be adapted to culturally-determined work-related values

· Geert Hofstede identified four dimensions of culture: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity :

· Power distance focuses on how a society deals with the fact that people are unequal in physical and intellectual capabilities

· Individualism versus collectivism focuses on the relationship between the individual and his or her fellows

· Uncertainty avoidance measures the extent to which different cultures socialize their members into accepting ambiguous situations and tolerating ambiguity

· Masculinity versus femininity looks at the relationship between gender and work roles

· Hofstede later expanded his study to include a fifth dimension called Confucian dynamism which captures attitudes toward time, persistence, ordering by status, protection of face, respect for tradition, and reciprocation of gifts and favors

Cultural Change

· Culture evolves over time, although changes in value systems can be slow and painful for a society

· Social turmoil is an inevitable outcome of cultural change

· As countries become economically stronger, cultural change is particularly common

For example, economic advancement is often accompanied by a shift away from collectivism towards individualism.

Implications For Managers

· Societies differ because their cultures vary

· Cultures vary because of profound differences in social structure, religion, language, education, economic philosophy, and political philosophy

There are three important implications that flow from these differences:

1. There is a need to develop cross-cultural literacy

2. There is a connection between culture and national competitive advantage

3. There is a connection between culture and ethics in decision making