Transcript (Textbook) Behavior in Organizations, 8ed (A. B. Shani)

Chapter 3
Differences
in Culture
3-3
Differences in Culture
• Societies’ differ along cultural dimensions
• What is culture?
• How/why do social structure, religion, language influence
cultural differences?
• What are differences between culture and values in the
workplace (corporate culture)?
• Culture changes over time. What are some reasons behind
this?
• Implications for business managers
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3-4
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
- dress code; table manners; timeliness
• Mores: norms central to functioning of social life
- bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery, alcohol
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What is Culture?
“the collective programming of the mind which
distinguishes the members of one human group
over another…
Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values;
and values are among the building blocks of
culture”
Geert Hofstede
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3-6
National Culture
“Nation” is a useful:
- Definition of society
• similarity among people a cause -- and effect -- of national
boundaries
- Way to bound and measure culture for conduct of
business
• culture is a key characteristic of society
• can differ significantly across national borders
- also within national borders
• laws are established along national lines
• Culture is both a cause and an effect of economic and
political factors that vary across national borders
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Social Structure and Culture
• Unit of social organization: individual or group?
• Society may be stratified into classes or castes
- High-low stratification
- High-low mobility between strata
• The individual: building block of many Western societies
- Entrepreneurship
- Social, geographical and inter-organizational mobility
• The group:
- Two or more associated individuals with a shared
identity
- Interact with each-other in specific ways on the basis of a
common set of expectations.
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Individual vs Group
Societal Characteristics
• Individual
- Managerial mobility
between companies
- Economic dynamism,
innovation
- Good general skills
- Team work difficult,
non-collaborative
• Exposure to different ways of
doing business
- e.g., U.S. companies
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• Group
- Loyalty and commitment to
company
- In-depth knowledge of
company
- Specialist skills
- Easy to build teams,
collaboration
- Emotional identification with
group or company
- e.g., Japanese companies
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3-9
Religion, Ethics and Culture
• Religion: system of shared beliefs about the sacred
• Ethical systems: moral principles or values that shape
and guide behavior; often products of religion
• Major religious groups and some economic
implications
- Christianity
- Islam
- Hinduism
stratified
- Buddhism
- Confucianism
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protestant work ethic
Islamic economic principles
anti-materialistic, socially
anti-materialistic, social equality
hierarchy, loyalty, honesty
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3 - 10
Language: Culture Bound
• Language, spoken
- “private” does not exist as a word in many
languages
- Eskimos: 24 words for snow
- Words which describe moral concepts can be
unique to countries or areas
- Spoken language precision important in lowcontext cultures
• Language, unspoken
- Context... more important than spoken word in
high context cultures
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High/Low Context Cultures
High-Context
Low-Context
Crucial t o Comm unications:
explicit inf ormation, blunt communicativ e
ext ernal env ironment , situat ion, non-verbal behav ior
sty le
Relationships:
short duration, heterogeneous populations
long last ing, deep personal mut ual inv olv ement
Communication:
explicit messages, low reliance on non
economical, f ast because of shared "code"
v erbal
Aut hority person:
responsible f or act ions of subordinat es, loy alt y at dif
a f used t hrough bureaucrat ic syst em,
personal responsibilit y tough t o pin down
premium
Agreements:
writ ten, f inal and binding, litigious, more
spoken, f lexible and changeable
lawy ers
Insiders v s outsiders:v ery distinguishable
dif f icult to ident if y , f oreigners can adjust
Cultural patt ern change: slow
f aster
See E.T. Hall & M.R. Hall, Understanding cultural differences, 1990, Intercultural Press
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Education and Culture
• Education
- Medium through which people are acculturated
- Language, “myths,” values, norms taught
- Teaches personal achievement and competition
- Critical to national competitive advantage
• Education system may be a cultural outcome
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Culture and the workplace (Hofstede)
• Hofstede finds 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)
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Power Distance -- (Hofstede)
• Degree of social inequality considered
normal by people
• Distance between individuals at different
levels of a hierarchy
• Scale: from equal (small power distance) to
extremely unequal (large power distance)
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Individualism Vs. Collectivism
(Hofstede)
• Degree to which people in a country
prefer to act as individuals rather
than in groups
• Describes the relations between the
individual and his/her fellows
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Uncertainty Avoidance (Hofstede)
• Degree of need to avoid uncertainty about the
future
• Degree of preference for structured versus
unstructured situations
- Structured situations: have tight rules may or
may not be written down
• High uncertainty avoidance: people with more
nervous energy (vs easy-going), rigid society,
"what is different is dangerous."
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Masculinity Vs. Femininity (Hofstede)
• Division of roles and values in a society
• Masculine values prevail:
- assertiveness, success, competition
• Feminine values prevail:
- quality of life, maintenance of warm
personal relationships, service, care for
the weak, solidarity
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Confucian Dynamism (Hofstede)
• Attitudes towards
- Time
- Persistence
- Status in society
- “Face”
- Respect for tradition
- Gifts and favors
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Cultural Change Over Time
• Change is slow and often painful
• Shifts away from “traditional values”
towards “secular values”
• Changes with shift from “survival
values” to “self-expression values”
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Cultural Distance
• Geographic and cultural (or psychic)
distance among countries may not be
the same
• Key concept which can affect IB
strategy and conduct
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Managerial Implications
• Ethnocentrism vs Polycentrism
• Must a company adapt to local
cultures or can corporate -- often
home-country dominated -- culture
prevail?
• Cross-cultural literacy essential
• Do some cultures offer a national
competitive advantage over others?
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