Understanding Cultural Differences in International Business

Posted on Sep 1, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

Chapter II: What is Culture?

Culture is a way of life of a group of people. A cultured society appreciates fine art, dance, drama, and intellectual discourse and develops institutions that support them, such as museums, theaters, and schools. Although culture as used here does not exclude the arts, its meaning is much broader.

Defining Culture

Tylor proposed one of the earliest definitions of culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

Levels of Culture

Manifest Culture

Manifest culture contains easily observable elements such as behaviors, language, music, food, and technology. The manifest culture represents the first contact with a new culture, for example, people’s speech, dress, interactions with each other, and possessions.

The Expressed Values Level

This level represents how people in the culture explain the manifest level. It is culture’s own explanation of itself.

Basic Assumptions

These are the foundation of the culture: shared ideas and beliefs about the world and society as a whole that guide people’s thoughts and actions.

How is Culture Learned?

Enculturation

Enculturation is a non-intentional process that includes all of the learning available as a result of what the environment has to offer.

Primary Socialization

Primary socialization, which is a more intentional learning process than enculturation, occurs in the family and local community. We learn appropriate age, gender, ethnic, and social class behavior from our families, friends, schools, and religious institutions, as well as from advertising and television. Parents try to teach their children what is right, but they rarely consider that correct behavior is culturally determined or that they are intentionally reproducing their culture. Culture is so much a part of everyday life that trying to identify our own culture is often difficult.

Secondary Socialization

Secondary socialization occurs after primary socialization and usually equips people with the knowledge, skills, and behavior to enact adult roles successfully, particularly family and occupational roles.

Frameworks for Examining Cultures

Understanding a culture’s basic assumptions is important for understanding the culture itself. Several frameworks have been developed to help us understand these assumptions.

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Variations in Values Orientations

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck developed a framework of six dimensions to describe the values orientation of a culture.

  1. Relation to Nature: This dimension varies among subjugation, harmony, or mastery. For example, the Inuit demonstrate a Subjugation Orientation, believing that whatever happens to them is inevitable; they accept nature as it is rather than try to change it. Cultures focused on Harmony with nature, such as the Chinese, attempt to orient behavior to coexist with nature. Mastery Cultures, like North America and Western Europe, attempt to change aspects of the environment through technology when necessary or desirable. Canadian society demonstrates an almost equal preference for harmony and mastery in relation to nature.
  2. Time Orientation: This dimension is a society’s focus on the past, present, or future. A Past Orientation emphasizes tradition and using time-honored approaches, such as in Italy. Present Oriented cultures, like the U.S., generally focus on the short term. A Future Oriented society, like Japan, emphasizes the long term.
  3. Basic Human Nature: This dimension assesses a culture’s belief in people as good, evil, or neutral/mixed. Cultures that believe people are basically Good are trusting, such as Japan. Cultures that believe people are Evil have a lack of trust, such as New York. A Mixed or Neutral Orientation believes people are basically good, but in some situations, they behave in an evil manner, such as in Canada.
  4. Activity Orientation: This dimension is either doing, being, or containing/controlling. A Doing emphasis is on action, achievement, and working, such as in the U.S. Being emphasizes enjoying life and working for the moment; people work to live rather than live to work, such as in Mexico. Containing/Controlling emphasizes rationality and logic, such as in France.
  5. Relationship Among People: This dimension can be individualistic, group, or hierarchical. Individualistic societies, like the U.S., define themselves through personal characteristics and achievements. In a Group oriented society, a positive relationship to the collective is important. Emphasis is on harmony, unity, and loyalty, such as in Japan. Hierarchical societies, like India, also value group relationships but emphasize the relative ranking of groups within an organization or society as a whole, making them more class conscious than group societies.
  6. Space Orientation: This dimension indicates how people relate to the ownership of space. In cultures that value Public space, it belongs to everyone, such as in Japan. In cultures that value Privacy, it is important to have their own space, such as in the U.S. Mixed views on space fall somewhere in the middle, and there is a combination of public and private spaces, such as in Hong Kong.

Geert Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Values

Hofstede’s classic study of dimensions of cultural values focuses specifically on work-related values.

  1. Individualism/Collectivism: In Individualistic countries, people have concern for themselves and their families, rather than others, such as in the UK. Collectivistic cultures, such as Mexico, value the overall good of the group because the expectation is that people should subordinate their individual interests and needs for the benefit of the group. An Ingroup is someone with whom a person has an affective relationship. An Outgroup member is a person with whom there is no recognized relationship, often a stranger.
  2. Power Distance: This dimension, which ranges from small to large, is the extent to which less powerful members of an organization accept the unequal distribution of power. A Small Power Distance society is less comfortable with power differences, such as class distinction or organizational ranking, than a large power distance culture.
  3. Uncertainty Avoidance: This dimension, which ranges from strong to weak, indicates the preferred amount of structure. A Weak Uncertainty Avoidance culture is more flexible, people are more easygoing, and a wide range of behaviors is acceptable.
  4. Masculinity/Femininity: In a Masculine society, tough values, including success, money, assertiveness, and competition, are dominant. Feminine cultures place importance on tender values such as personal relationships, care for others, the quality of life, and service.
  5. Long-Term/Short-Term Orientation: This dimension was added later to reflect values related to Confucianism. In a long-term oriented country such as Japan, companies take a farsighted view of investments, and it is not necessary to show profits every year, but rather, progress toward a future goal is most important.

Trompenaars’s Dimensions of Cultural Values

  1. Embedded vs. Autonomous: In Embedded societies, people view others as inherently part of collectives. Autonomy cultures see individuals as autonomous, bounded entities who find meaning in their uniqueness.
  2. Hierarchy vs. Egalitarianism: Hierarchy uses a social system with clearly defined roles to make sure people behave responsibly. In Egalitarianism, people generally think of each other as moral equals sharing basic human interests.
  3. Mastery vs. Harmony: Mastery encourages its members to master, change, and exploit the natural and societal environment for personal or group goals. Harmony emphasizes understanding and fitting in with the environment, rather than trying to change it.
  4. Individualism vs. Communitarianism: In Individualistic cultures, the focus is on self, personal freedom, and competitiveness. Communitarian cultures emphasize group membership, social responsibility, harmonious relationships, and cooperation.
  5. High-Context vs. Low-Context Communication: High-Context communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message, such as in Saudi Arabia. Low-context communication is just the opposite: the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code, such as in Switzerland.

Other Cultural Concepts

The World Values Survey

The World Values Survey is a long-term, large-scale study of sociocultural and political change that is investigating basic values and beliefs of people in more than 65 societies on all six inhabited continents, containing almost 80% of the world’s population.

Cultural Metaphors

Outsiders can describe and understand the features of a society by understanding its metaphors. One example is the metaphor of American football for the U.S.

Brown’s List of Human Universals

Brown’s list of human universals challenges but does not eliminate the role of culture as an explanation of behavior in societies and organizations.

Cultural Dimensions and Individual Behavior

The U.S. is considered highly individualistic in all three frameworks, giving more confidence in this classification. However, France varies from individualistic in the Hofstede model to collectivistic on Trompenaars’s dimension to hierarchical in the Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck framework.

Because of individual differences, it is possible that a person from a country with strong uncertainty avoidance could have a lower score than someone from a weak uncertainty avoidance country. Cultural dimensions can also explain differences in individual people’s behavior within the same country.

Forces of Convergence and Divergence

Forces of Convergence

Technology increases communication. Products are sold worldwide and, in some cases, marketed in the same way everywhere.

Forces for Divergence

Cultures usually attach different meanings to what appear to be the same behaviors.

Implications for Managers

Understanding diverse cultures as they affect organizational behavior is a critical management skill.

cal management skill.