 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.
o Values are abstract ideas about what a group
believes to be good, right, and desirable
o Norms are the social rules and guidelines that
prescribe appropriate behavior in particular situations
Society refers to a group of people who share a common
set of values and norms
o Folkways - the routine conventions of everyday life
o Mores - norms that are seen as central to the
functioning of a society and to its social life
 The relationship between a society and a nation state
is not strictly one-to-one
 Nation-states are political creations
o can contain one or more cultures
 A culture can embrace several
nations
 Religion

Social Political
Structure Philosophy

Culture
norms and
values
system
Economic
Language
Philosophy

Education
 Social structure refers to a society’s basic social
organization
Social stratification means the
stratification of societies on
hierarchical basis into social
categories or social strata.
Social Mobility: - The extent to which
individuals can move out of the strata into
which they are born

 Caste System
 Class System
 Religion:
o Christianity
o Islam
o Hinduism
o Buddhism

 Ethical systems:
 Hofstede’s work has been criticized
because
o One-to-one relationship between culture and the
nation-state

o study may have been culturally bound

o Used IBM as sole source of information

o Culture is not static – it evolves

 It is important to develop cross-cultural literacy

 There is a connection between culture and national

competitive advantage
 A group is an association of two or more people who
have a shared sense of identity and who interact with
each other in structured ways on the basis of a common
set of expectations about each other’s behavior
Individualism: This kind of people are emphasis own
their achievement.
 In Western societies, there is a focus on
hte individual
o individual achievement is common
o dynamism of the U.S. economy
o high level of entrepreneurship

>But creates a lack of company loyalty and

failure to gain company specific knowledge
 In many Asian societies, the group is the primary
unit of social organization
o discourages job switching between firms
o encourages lifetime employment systems

 But might also suppress individual creativity

intitative
 Formal education is the medium through which
individuals learn many of the language, conceptual, and
mathematical skills that are indispensable in a modern
society
 Management processes and practices must be
adapted to culturally-determined work-related values
 Geert Hofstede identified four dimensions of culture
1. Power distance - how a society deals with
the fact that people are unequal in physical and
intellectual capabilities
2. Individualism versus collectivism - the relationship
between the individual and his fellows
3. Uncertainty avoidance - the extent to which
different cultures socialize their members into
accepting ambiguous situations and tolerating
ambiguity
4. Masculinity versus femininity -the relationship
between gender and work roles