Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Differences in Culture
3-3
Overview
• What is culture?
• Social Structure
• Religious and Ethical Systems
• Language
• Education
• Cultural Change
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3-4
What is Culture?
Components of Culture
• Values
- cultural bedrock
• Norms
- social rules that
govern interactions
• Society
- a group that shares
common values
and norms
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3-6
Folkways Mores
• Routine conventions of • Norms that are central to
everyday life. the functioning of
- Social conventions such as society and its social life
dress codes, social - Greater significance than
manners, and neighborly folkways
behavior - Actions may be either illegal
- Demonstrate social (or (theft, adultery) or taboo
cross-cultural) competence (incest, cannibalism)
- Violations generally do not - Violators are considered
invite moral judgment (i.e. evil; violations bring serious
of good and evil) retribution
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3-7
• Distinctions
- Culture: A system of values shared by a group
- Society (ethnie): A group bound by a common culture
- Nation: A self-defined cultural and social community (an
“imagined” community, Benedict Anderson)
- State: A political association with effective sovereignty over a
geographic area
• Issues
- Societies, nations and states do not always correspond
- Subcultures (often hidden) are found in many nation-states
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3-8
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3-9
Social Structure
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 10
Return
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 11
Social Stratification
Return
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 12
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
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McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 14
Economic Implications
of Christianity
Economic Implications
of Islam
Language
• Spoken
- Verbal cues
- Language structures perception of world
• Unspoken
- Body language
- Personal space
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 17
Education
Cultural Change
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 19
Cultural Change
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 20
Managerial Implications
• Cross-cultural literacy
- The danger of ethnocentrism
• Culture and competitive advantage
- Value systems and norms influence the cost of doing
business in a country (transaction costs)
• How determinative is culture for economic success?
• How important is culture in shaping the foreign
investment decisions of MNCs?
• Culture and business ethics
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
3 - 21
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
International Business, 6/e © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.