international management

In Chapter 4, Differences in Culture, the authors explore how the distinctions between countries, their cultures and their societies, effect the multinational operations of businesses no matter what size. The Chapter opens with a case describing the BRIC countries and their anticipated success based on the economic potential each country had together. The issue that came up was the actual cultural differences that interfered with the ability for all of them to reach that potential. Cultural differences, while they are what makes certain areas and groups unique and functional in their environments, in terms of global business must be heavily considered. As stated in the text regarding Brazil, Russia, India, and China, "cultural differences hindered their ability to do business…"When bringing attention to the culture of society, we consider both the definition of culture and the definition of society. Culture is "a system of values and norms that are shared among a group of people and that when taken together constitute a design for living." (p.90) Society is defined as a group of people who share a common set of values and norms." (p.90) So when connecting the commonalities in the definition, we can explain the culture of society to be what that shared set of values and norms is among a society. A society is essentially a group with a common culture.

Clarifying that there is are existing differences between cultures and society, then allows us to question the forces that lead to these differences in social culture. It is noted within the text that cultures evolve over time and this happens based on "prevailing political and economic philosophies [which shape the values within a society], the social structure of a society, and the dominant religion, language, and education." (p. 93) The social structure is studied from individuals versus groups and social stratification and a caste system. A group is "an association of two or more individuals who have a shared sense of identity and who interact with each other in structured ways on the basis of a common set of expectational about each other's behavior." (p. 94) The text describes the individual as the "building block of social organization." (p. 94) Individuals contribute to the groups and groups have evolved in variety from technology and time. Depending on the society and in the bigger scheme, culture and country, the groups and the individuals will differ vastly. Individuals contribute their uniqueness of personality, skill, interest, etc. to the group that they are a part of. Groups can represent a collective of commonalities and similar identities. From a managerial standpoint, individualism may not benefit a company as much as the group would simply because as a group with the company in mind working towards a common goal is different than an individual working for that company that may have ulterior motives in their managing/operating within the company.

Social strata or the "hierarchal social categories often based on family background, occupation and income," applies to the societies and includes the system of casting, which is placing an individual into a group based on what family they were born in, etc. and classing which is placing people into a classed based on what family an individual may have been born into and can also be attribute to by self-accomplishments and socioeconomic achievements (p. 96) This kind of a breakdown follows the other contributing factors of religious and ethical systems (religion being set of shared beliefs and rituals with sacred value and ethics based on morals and principle). Each religion has economic implications of business as well as both spoken and unspoken language and education is calculated by the "national competitive advantages," of course depending on the company and the education, from a global business perspective. In fact, education contributes much to society and culture as much of a countries culture is also taught in school. I can remember attending Catholic school for much of my grade school experience and it was there that both Spanish and French language and catholic religion were both classes included in the school's curriculum. We attended mass and the school was a closed off facility connected to the church, which for many different countries is a similar structure tailored to the culture and society of that country. Hill and Hult state that "the general education level of a country is also a good index of the kind of products that might sell in a country and the type of promotional material that should be used." (p.109) Culture and business was also observed from another dimension by Hofstede who defined power distance (there exists an inequality within society of intellect and wealth; high power societies let those inequalities exist and grow over time; low power societies try to “downplay them as much as possible.”); individualism versus collectivism (individualism societies value the accomplishments of the individualism whereas collectivist societies value the “family unit” like structure and functioning of supporting one another’s interests.); uncertainty avoidance (“extent to which cultures socialize members to accept ambiguous situations and tolerate uncertainty.” (p. 110)); masculinity versus femininity (the gender roles in work; masculine culture differentiate between “traditional masculine roles” and vice versa for females; feminine cultures, there is no differentiation between male and female roles and nothing of one role is emphasized over another.); long-term versus short-term ( delay of instant gratification of material things in a society). Overall, cultural differences, while important and unique to those countries, they are not the entirety of the factors to consider that make up the similarities and contrasts in multinational business.

Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability explores the importance of these three areas of business from the global marketing context. Opening with the example of Natura and its companies in operation of sustainability as a passion and top focus of the company since its beginning, this case allows us to get an idea ethics and corporate responsibility as well. As with all arenas we’ve read and discussed so far, there are some issues faced by international businesses as well. Hill and Hult bring us into the content of chapter five by stating that we must keep in mind that because we are looking globally, we have to also consider the fact that just as the differences in culture and national political legal and economic systems, there are differences across countries in how they conduct themselves in business and what they consider to be ethical v. non-ethical, the legality of certain actions, policies, or methods, etc. “What is considered a normal practice in one nation, may be considered unethical in another.” (p.126) I always remember a scene in a movie where these women were in Abu Daube and one of them had her arms out because she was having hot flashes, then bumped into someone and spilled a bunch of condoms out of her purse running through the market. Immediately the men in the market began to curse her and crowd around yelling at her because in American culture it is normal for women to be promiscuous, show skin and such however it is highly unethical and offensive in their culture. The same goes for business and miscommunications or misunderstandings such as these in international business can be a roadblock or potentially lead to loss in some way. Moreover, the most common issues are Employment practices, Human rights, Environmental regulations, Corruption, and Moral obligations. With that, dilemmas that may arise are experiencing ethical situations in which a decision may not be easy to make. For example, the text uses child labor and the laws that still allow it to happen. Although not ethical to maybe the American company trading with the country that allows child labor, it is legal in that country, so it comes down to the morals and preference of that American company. Also, depending on the personal ethics, decision making processes, organizational culture, unrealistic performance goals, leadership, and societal culture. When discussing the philosophical approaches to ethics, there are theories such as “Straw men” which is an approach that says if the law is not being broken, profits need to be made. There are also the approaches Utilitarian (“… hold that the moral worth of actions or practices is determined by their consequences.”) and Kantian (“belief that people should be treated as ends and never as means to the ends of others.”) as well as rights theories that discuss basic human right from these angles. (p. 137)

To ensure that ethics is considered in the decision making process by managers internationally, they can hire and promote people with well-grounded sense of personal ethics, build organizational culture that places high value on ethical behavior, place ethical officers in organization, develop moral courage, make corporate social responsibility cornerstone of enterprise policy, and pursue sustainable strategies.

References

Hill, C. W. L., & Hult, G. T. M. (2020). Global Business Today (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.

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