Cross-Cultural business

• Chapter 02
Why cultural literacy is important for managers today
• Culturally literate managers who understand local needs and desires
bring their companies closer to customers and, therefore, increase
their competitiveness.
• They can become more-effective marketers, negotiators, and
production managers.
• The culturally literate manager understands the complexity of
national workplace attitudes and incorporates this knowledge into
reward systems.
Two students are discussing why they are not studying international business. "
International business doesn't affect me," declares the first student. " I'm going to
stay here, not work in some foreign country." "Yeah, me neither," agrees the second.
"Besides, some cultures are really strange. The sooner other countries start doing
business our way, the better."
What arguments can you present to counter these students' perceptions?
• Values
Ideas, beliefs, and customs to which people are emotionally attached
are called values. Values include concepts such as honesty, freedom,
and responsibility.
• Attitudes
• Positive or negative evaluations feelings, and tendencies that
individuals harbor toward objects or concepts.
• Aesthetics
it includes the art, images, symbols, colors, and so on that a culture
values
• Manners
Appropriate ways of behaving, speaking, and dressing in a culture
• CUSTOMS
Habits or ways of behaving in specific circumstances that are passed
down through generations in a culture.
• Social structure
A culture's fundamental organization, including its groups and
institutions, its system of social positions and their relationships,
and the process by which its resources are distributed.
Family Gender Social Status Cast system Class system
• Education
Countries with poorly educated populations attract the lowest-paying
manufacturing jobs. Nations with excellent programs for basic education
tend to attract relatively good-paying industries.
Brian drain vs reverse brain-drain
• Religion
• Personal Communication
People in every culture have a communication system to convey
thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and information through speech,
writing, and actions.
 Culture in Global workplace
• Perception of Time
• View of Work
• Material Culture
• When COMPANIES CHANGE CULTURES
Big companies outsource jobs to other nations, they are being held
accountable for how these subcontractors treat their employees. In
the process, big companies are exporting the values of the their
workplace.
• WHEN CULTURES CHANGE COMPANIES