Chapter 6

Culture
 THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
CULTURE IS THE SET OF VALUES,
ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, BEHAVIOURS
AND CUSTOMS THAT DISTINGUISH
A SOCIETY
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
CULTURE

• CULTURE REFLECTS LEARNED

BEHAVIOUR
• ELEMENTS OF CULTURE ARE
INTERRELATED
• AS CULTURE IS LEARNED
BEHAVIOUR, IT IS ADAPTIVE
• CULTURE DEFINES THE
MEMBERSHIP OF A SOCIETY
• CULTURE SATISFIES NEEDS
• CULTURE IS SHARED, AND IS
DYNAMIC
 THE SEL-REFERENCE
CRITERION
• IT IS THE UNCONSCIOUS USE OF ONE’S OWN
CULTURE TO HELP ASSESS AND UNDERSTAND
NEW SURROUNDINGS

Colleen Fong, the founder of Zheling International,

signed a contract with the Singapore hotel resort
chain, Sedona Hotels International, to supply guests
with her Putri line of bathroom products. This took
many hours of telephone discussions, meetings in
Singapore with senior executives and government
officials and ten months of negotiations. Fong believes
that her real challenge was to adjust to the Asian
concept of a businesswoman and a woman’s place in
Asian culture.
 ACCULTURATION
IT IS THE PROCESS THROUGH
WHICH A PERSON NOT ONLY
UNDERSTANDS A FOREIGN
CULTURE, BUT ALSO MODIFIES
AND ADAPTS THEIR OWN
BEHAVIOUR TO MAKE
THEMSELVES COMPATIBLE WITH
THAT CULTURE.
 CROSS-CULTURAL LITERACY
IT IS AN UNDERSTANDING OF ANOTHER
CULTURE THROUGH STUDY OR
EXPERIENCE. IT IS THE FIRST STEP IN
ACCULTURATION.

OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONS

RUN SEMINARS ON CULTURAL AND
BUSINESS ISSSUES ASSOCIATED WITH
FOREIGN COUNTRIES EG., AUSTRADE
(THE OFFICIAL AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
TRADE ORGANISATION)
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE

LANGUAGE

COMMUN
IC
ATION
SOCIAL
STRUCTURE
CULTURE

VALUES
RELIGION
AND
ATTITUDES
 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE

• SOCIAL STRUCTURE
• LANGUAGE
• COMMUNICATION
• RELIGION
• VALUES AND ATTITUDES
 SOCIAL STRUCTURE
IT PROVIDES THE OVERALL FRAMEWORK WHICH
DETERMINES THE ROLES OF INDIVIDUALS WITHIN
SOCIETY, THE STRATIFICATION OF THAT SOCIETY,
AND THE MOBILITY OF INDIVIDUALS

• INDIVIDUALS,
FAMILIES,GROUPS(NEPOTISM)
• SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
• SOCIAL MOBILITY
 LANGUAGE
IT STRUCTURES PERCEPTION, IMAGINATION AND SPEECH

• GIVES CLUES ABOUT CULTURAL VALUES AND

AIDS ACCULTURATION
• MANY LANGUAGES SIGNIFY DIVERSITY
• BUSINESS MANAGERS CAN ADAPT THEIR
BUSINESS AND MARKETING PRACTICES ALONG
LINGUISTIC LINES
• SAME LANGUAGE, SAME CULTURE ?
• LANGUAGE AS A COMPETITIVE WEAPON
• LINGUA FRANCA
• TRANSLATION
• SAYING ‘NO’
IN AMERICAN ENGLISH, TABLING AN
ITEM ON A BUSINESS AGENDA
MEANS THE GROUP CHOOSES TO
DELAY TAKING ACTION, OFTEN
BECAUSE ITS MEMBERS WERE
UNABLE TO TAKE A DECISION.

IN BRITISH ENGLISH, TABLING AN

ITEM MEANS THAT THE ITEM WAS
DISCUSSED AND SOME DECISION
WAS TAKEN ON IT AT THE MEETING
In an experiment in Hong Kong, 1153
undergraduate students, bilingual in
English and Chinese, were divided
into two groups each with a class
assignment one written in English and
the other in Chinese. The answers
given by the two groups differed
significantly, indicating that the
original language of the assignment
influenced the way the task was
understood.
In Canada, Proctor and Gamble’s
English-language advertisements
for Irish spring soap stress the
soap’s deodorant value. The
French-language advertisements
focus on the soap’s pleasant
aroma. This is because, English
Canadians favour soaps that
promise cleanliness, while French
Canadians prefer pleasant or
sweet smelling soaps.
FIRMS IN HONG KONG PREFER TO
HIRE HONG KONG FIRMS TO ACT AS
INTERMEDIARIES IN DEALING WITH
CHINA RATHER THAN DEALING WITH
THAT COUNTRY THEMSELVES

DETERGENT AND SOLIED CLOTHES IN

ARABIA
 COMMUNICATION
A CONTRACT BETWEEN BOEING AND A
JAPANESEE SUPPLIER CALLED FOR THE
DELIVERY OF FUSELAGE PANELS FOR
BOEING’S 767 AIRCRAFT TO HAVE A
‘MIRROR FINISH’. LABOUR COSTS FOR THE
PRODUCT WERE HIGHER THAN EXPECTED
BECAUSE THE JAPNESE SUPPLIER
POLISHED AND POLISHED THE PANELS TO
ACHIEVE WG\HAT HE BELIEVED TO BE THE
DESIRED FINISH, WHEN ALL BOEING
WANTED WAS A SHINY SURFACE
 COMMUNICATION

• NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

• GIFT-GIVING AND HOSPITALITY
• NEGOTIATION
 RELIGION
IT AFFECTS THE WAY IN WHICH MEMBERS OF A SOCIETY
RELATE TO EACH OTHER AND TO OUTSIDERS

• RELIGION SHAPES ATTITUDES IT

ADHERENTS HAVE TOWARDS WORK,
RESPONSIBILITY, PLANNING NAD
CONSUMPTION
• RELIGION IMPOSES RESTRICTIONS
• SEASONAL PATTERNS OF
CONSUMPTION
DURING THE 1994 SOCCER
WORLD CUP, AS A PART OF ITS
BRITISH MARKETING CAMPAIGN,
McDONALD’S PRINTED THE
FLAGS OF THE 24 PARTICIPATING
TEAMS ON ITS TAKEAWAY BAGS.
SAUDI ARABIA WAS OUTRAGED
THAT THEIR FLAG WOULD BE
THROWN INTO GARBAGE BINS.
 VALUES AND ATTITUDES

• TIME
• AUTHORITY
• AGE
• EDUCATION
• STATUS
• REWARD SYSTEMS
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND
ETHICS

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES CAN CREATE

ETHICAL PROBLEMS. ACCEPTABLE
BEHAVIOUR IN ONE CULTURE MAY BE
VIEWED AS IMMORAL IN ANOTHER
 CULTURAL CLUSTERS

A CULTURAL CLUSTER INCLUDES

MANY COUNTRIES THAT SHARE
MANY CULTURAL SIMILARITIES.
ALTHOUGH DIFFERENCES DO
REMAIN
 Chapter Outline
• Culture and Its Characteristics
• Influence of Culture on Consumption
• Influence of Culture on Thinking
Processes
• Influence of Culture on Communication
Processes
 Chapter Outline
• Cultural Universals
• Cultural Similarities: An Illusion
• Communication Through Verbal Language
• Communication Through Nonverbal
Language
• Subculture
 Functions of Culture
• prescriptive
• facilitating communication
 Characteristics of Culture
• socially shared
• learned
• subjective
• enduring
• cumulative
• dynamic
 Context of Culture:
Low-Context Culture
• Low-Context Culture
- explicit messages
- words conveying main part of information
- words and meanings being independent of
context
- e.g., Germany, North America
- compatible with "lecture" advertising
strategy
 Context of Culture:
High-Context Culture
• High-Context Culture
- indirect communication
- message not understood without context
- environment changing meanings of words
- e.g., Japan, France, Asia, Middle East
- compatible with "drama" advertising
strategy
 Communication through
Verbal Language
• Language Acquisition
- "Use It or Lose It" hypothesis
• Translation
• The World's Best Language
- English
- Chinese
- Spanish
- Esperanto
• Marketing and Languages
 Communication through
Nonverbal Language
• Language of Time
- linear-separable time
- circular-traditional time
- procedural-traditional time
• Language of Space
• Language of Agreement
• Language of Friendship
 Communication through
Nonverbal Language
• Language of Negotiation
• Language of Religion
• Language of Superstition
• Language of Color
• Language of Gifts
THEORIES OF CULTURE
 Cultural analysis includes:

• Definition of problems or goals in the

home culture context
• Definition of problems or goals in the
foreign culture context
• Analysis of differences, if any
• Redefining the problem or goal in light of
the preceding step.
 HOFSTEDE has developed a
model for cultural analysis.
• As a part of his job as a psychologist
working for IBM, Hofstede collected data
on employee attitudes and values for over
1,16,000 individuals from 1967 to 1973.
This data enabled him to compare
dimensions of culture across 40 countries.
Hofstede used five orientations
• Social orientation
• Power orientation
• Uncertainty orientation
• Goal orientation
• Time orientation
• Social orientation is a person’s beliefs
about the relative importance of the
individual and the groups to which that
person belongs.
• The two extremes of social orientation are
individualism and collectivism.
 Individualism
• is the cultural belief that the person comes
first. People who hold this belief tend to put
their own interests and those of their
individual families ahead of those of others.
• In individualistic societies a person’s career
path involves switching employers in a
search for higher pay and more challenging
jobs, so that the person can prove his or her
capabilities in new and changing
circumstances.
 Collectivism
• is the belief that the group comes first. Societies that
tend to be collectivistic are usually characterised by
well-defined social networks, including extended
families, tribes and co-workers. People are expected
to put the good of the group ahead of their own
personal freedom, interests or success.
• In collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, a person’s
job changing reflects disloyalty to the collective good
(the firm) and may brand the person as unworthy of
trust
 Power orientation
• refers to the beliefs about the
appropriateness of power and
authority differences in
hierarchies such as business
organizations.
 Power respect
• means people in a culture tend to accept
the power and authority of their superiors
simply on the basis of the superior’s
positions in the hierarchy and respect the
superior’s right to that power
• In cultures characterized by power
tolerance, people attach less significance
to a person’s position in the hierarchy and
are more willing to question a decision or
direction from someone at a higher level or
perhaps even refuse to accept it. They are
willing to follow a leader when that leader
is perceived to be right or when it seems
to be in their own self interest to do so, but
not because of the leader’s intangible right
to issue orders
 Uncertainty orientation
• is the feeling people have given uncertain
and ambiguous situations.
• People in cultures characterized by
uncertainty acceptance are stimulated by
change and thrive on new opportunities.
Ambiguity is seen as a context within which
an individual can grow, develop and carve
out new opportunities. In these cultures,
certainty carries with it a sense of
monotony, routine ness and overbearing
structure.
• People in cultures characterized by
uncertainty avoidance dislike and will
avoid ambiguity whenever possible. These
people tend to prefer a structured and
routine, even bureaucratic, way of doing
things
• Uncertainty-accepting cultures are more
tolerant of flexible hierarchies, rules and
procedures. Risk taking is highly valued in
uncertainty-accepting countries
• Goal orientation is the manner in which
people are motivated to work toward
different kinds of goals. One extreme on
the goal orientation continuum is
aggressive goal behaviour.
• People who exhibit aggressive goal
behaviour tend to place a high premium on
material possessions, money and
assertiveness. People who adopt passive
goal behaviour place a higher value on
social relationships, quality of life and
concern for others.
• Time orientation is the extent to which
members of a culture adopt a long-term
versus a short-term outlook on work, life
and other aspects of society.
• MNC s facilitate this process of cultural
convergence through their
advertisements that define appropriate
lifestyles, attitudes and goals and by
bringing new management techniques,
technologies and cultural values to the
countries in which they operate.
• For effectively managing diversity, a
multicultural organization, one that
reflects the contributions and interests of
diverse cultural and social groups in its
mission, operations, and product or service;
acts on a commitment to eradicate social
oppression in all forms in the organization;
includes the members of diverse cultural
and social groups as full participants,
especially in decisions that shape the
organizations; and follows through on
border external responsibilities, including
support of other institutional efforts to
eliminate all forms of social oppression.
• Cross-cultural training is helpful in
bringing down the failure rate of
expatriates. Companies have been
offering formal programs for employees
relocating abroad. The services include:
foreign language (53%), pre-visit
orientation (60%), career-path counseling
(7%), meeting with a former expatriate to
that country (57%), culture, history and
background of country (79%) and other
programs (15%).
• A Dutch researcher, Fons
Trompenaars looks at a five-
relationship orientation
(universalism vs. particularism,
individualism vs. communitarianism,
neutral vs. emotional, specific vs.
diffuse, achievement vs. ascription)
along with attitudes towards both,
time and the environment
• . It
lends itself to cultural patterns
or clusters, such that managers
can recognize cultural differences
and get guidelines for conducting
international business effectively