KC: Culture
Mead: Culture is a body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and successively learned by people who enter society.
Hofstede: Culture is the collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.
Javidan and House: Shared motives, values, beliefs, identities and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives and are transmitted across generations.
Convergence model
- As a product of globalisation
- As a result of the transfer of productive technology
- As a result of the activities of multinational companies through the creation of global product markets, the transfer of technology, know-how and best practice
Diversity model
- Resulting from different paths of historical development. This is sometimes referred to as path dependency
- As a product of different national cultures
- As a product of different legal or financial institutional frameworks
KC: Convergence
The concept of convergence has been applied to nation states as well as to business practices. Those who believe that globalization is taking place argue that there is evidence that the countries of the world are coming together economically, politically and culturally. In business there is a belief that firms in the same sector in all countries are converging on similar types of technology, strategies, products and forms of business organization. The primary drivers of convergence are technology transfer and the activities of multinational firms.
KC: Culture
Culture represents all human activity that is socially, as opposed to genetically, transmitted. It includes norms, values and beliefs that manifest themselves in behaviour, practices and institutions. Culture pervades all areas of business life. Interest in culture and business has developed with the growth of cross border trade and invest-ment and with the expansion of multinationals and the need to deal with a multicultural work force. A particular interest is the extent to which we can learn from the business experiences of other cultures and transplant ideas developed by one culture and use them in a different cultural setting.
High context cultures (Edward Hall)
The main features are:
* information is seen as an extension of the person
* the content of the message is less important than the long term relationships of those communicating with one another
* agreements are based on trust and as a result negotiations tend to proceed at a relatively slow pace
* language and messages may carry implicit ( unstated) meaning.
Low context cultures (Edward Hall)
The main features are:
* the message content is all important and expertise and performance are more important than relationships
* negotiations take place in defined time frames and tend to be relatively quick
* agreements are based on legally binding contracts
* messages tend to be more verbose and have clear unambiguous meaning, so nothing is implied beyond the words.
Dimensions of Hofstede
1 - Power distance
2 - Individualism versus collectivism
3 - Uncertainty avoidance
4 - Masculinity versus femininity
5 - Long versus short term orientation
6 - Indulgence versus restraint
Critique of Hofstede
- Re-interpreted and generalised
- 50 years old
- Other cultures
- Limited number of variables
- Narrow sample from a single company
- Overstated similarities
Contribution of Fons Trompenaars
- universalism versus particularism
- specific versus diffuse cultures
- achievement versus ascription cultures
- individualism versus communitarianism
- affective versus neutral cultures
- time as sequence versus time as synchronisation
- inner-directed versus outer directed
Contribution of GLOBE project
- Power distance
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Collectivism as a function of practices and institutions operating in society, which encourage collective action and collective rewards
- in-group collectivism that focuses on how much individuals value being members of a group
- gender egalitarianism relating to the extent of equal treatment between genders and the extent to which roles are different or shared
- assertiveness and a competitive attitude
- future orientation involving the consideration of future actions
- performance orientation with a focus on results and outcomes
- humane orientation with a focus on altruism.
Traditional societies
Importance is placed on religion and on traditional family values, including the rejection of divorce and abortion.
Survival societies
it becomes a key aspect of life and is associated with traditional gender roles, a lack of tolerance to all forms of diversity and less concern for the environment.
Self-expression societies
Economic and physical security are taken for granted and a high value is placed on both individual freedom and freedom of speech.
Implications of cultural diversity for managers
- Cautious in the way ideas are taken form a different cultural setting
- Recognise differences
- Policies of multinationals need to vary in different countries
- Influence of culture on products, services and marketing
Difficulties in culture variable
- Generalised
- Highly selective
- Isolated examples
- perspective of one culture
- stereotypes
- perceptions can become dated
- overstating the issue
The national business systems model of Whitley
Comprises economic actors and mechanisms for integration. The actors identified by Whitley are as follows:
* providers and users of capital, e.g. banks and firms
* customers and suppliers
* competitors
* firms in other sectors, i.e. those not in direct competition
* employees.
KC: The Anglo-Saxon capitalism
Anglo-Saxon capitalism is a liberal market political economy found in the USA and the UK, but also in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is founded on a belief in the free market and a belief in individualism and the sanctity of private property. Markets are highly competitive and shareholders are seen as the main stakeholder of a business. As a consequence, stock markets have a tendency to frequent and significant changes and labour is often treated as a flexible commodity. Some believe that this system is developing as the predominant model of capitalism, although its utility was questioned by the banking crisis and credit crunch of 2008–09.
The social market model
A social market economy refers to an economic system where environmental protection is integrated into markets, prices, and competition, aiming to ensure sustainable use of natural resources and minimize environmental pollution.
