CULTURE

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

• The accumulation of shared meanings, rituals, norms, and

traditions among the members of an organization or
society.
– A “Society’s Personality”

• A set of values and predispositions that are common to a

group of people and that affect individuals’ perceptions and
responses to their environment
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

• Learned
– Culture is not genetically inherited or biologically based
– Acquired by learning and experience

• Shared
– People as a member of a group/organization/society share a culture

• Trans-generational
– Passed from one generation to the next
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

• Symbolic
– Based on human capacity to symbolize or use one thing to
represent another

• Patterned
– Integrated and interconnected structure
– Change in one part will lead to alterations in other part

• Adaptive
– Based on human capacity to change and adapt
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

• A learned behavior.
– Enculturation is learning one’s own culture
– Acculturation is learning a new culture
• Adaptive, i.e. it changes as a society faces new problems
and opportunities...
• Satisfies needs by providing norms (rules of behavior)
• Provides values which delineate what is right, good, and
important to a society
 CULTURE INCLUDES

• Traditions & customs

• Supernatural beliefs & religion
• Language (high & low context languages)
• Values
• Norms
• Aesthetics (Art, literature and music)
• Attitude
• Non Verbal Communications (Symbols , colors)
• The Way We Dress, Think, Eat, and Spend Our Leisure Time
 LANGUAGE

• High context languages

– Indirect and implicit language
– Communication have multiple meanings that can be interpreted
only by reading/knowing the situation
– Arabic, Hebrew and other Asian languages

• Low context languages

– Stated directly and explicitly
– No need to interpret the situation
– German, English and Scandinavian languages
 LANGUAGE & INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

• Provides a clear understanding of a given situation

• Establishes one of the most effective and flattering bridges
to the local people
• Language, properly learned and practiced provides one of
the most practical means of understanding another culture
• Language enables one to understand the nuances, hidden &
implied meanings of a given culture
 CULTURE AS AN ICEBERG

TANGIBLE
ARTIFACTS
OVERT BEHAVIOR

VALUES COVERT BEHAVIOR

INTANGIBLE
ASSUMPTIONS
 CULTURE AS AN ICEBERG

• Artifacts
– The tangible aspects of the culture
– Language
– The Way We Dress, Think, Eat, and Spend Our Leisure Time

• Values and Assumptions

– Enduring Beliefs that guide behavior across situations and over time
– They are so ingrained that most of us are not really consciously
aware of them
– Covert and invisible
 CULTURAL PREDISPOSITIONS

• Ethnocentric orientation
– Belief that ones own culture is superior to all others

– Evaluating foreigners’ behavior by the standards of ones own

culture
– “Home country oriented” – Executives hold the assumption that
practices those work in the headquarters/home country must
necessarily work else where
 CULTURAL PREDISPOSITIONS

• Polycentric orientation
– Tolerance to beliefs and values of other societies

– “Host country oriented” – Executives believe that the part of the

organization located in a given host country should be staffed by
local individuals to the fullest extent to suit local needs and
customization
 CULTURAL PREDISPOSITIONS

• Regiocentric orientation
– “Region oriented” – Executives believe that geographic regions
have commonalities that make a regional focus advantageous
– Company problems related to a specific region are generally best
solved by individuals from that region
 CULTURAL PREDISPOSITIONS

• Geocentric orientation
– “World oriented” – Executives applies the belief that a global view
is needed in both the headquarters of parent company and it’s
various subsidiaries
– Best individuals, either from host or home country should be
utilized in overcoming any problems faced by company in any part
of the world