Transcript What is culture?

Section 9
CULTURE
Blunders in International Marketing
Hallmark cards failed when they were introduced in France. The French dislike
syrupy sentiment and prefer writing their own cards.
Philips began to earn a profit in Japan only after it had reduced the size of its
coffeemakers to fit into smaller Japanese kitchens and its shavers to fit smaller
Japanese hands.
Coca-Cola had to withdraw its two-liter bottle in Spain after discovering that few
Spaniards owned refrigerators with large enough compartments to accommodate
it.
General Foods’ Tang initially failed in France because it was positioned as a
substitute for orange juice at breakfast. The French drink little orange juice and
almost none at breakfast.
Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts failed in Britain because the percentage of British homes
with toasters was significantly lower than in the United States and the product
was too sweet for British tastes.
Culture, Society and the Nation-state
Successful international managers need
cross-cultural literacy –
IT IS VITAL to understand how cultural
differences across and within nations
can affect the way in which business is
practiced
What is culture?
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Observed behavioural regularities
when people interact
Norms that evolve in working
groups
Dominant values in a society
Systems of shared values or
meanings
The way we do things around here
Values = Ideas about what is right, good,
honourable & desirable
Norms = social rules & guidelines that spell out
acceptable behaviour in a situation
Definition of Culture
Invisible
Assumptions
Values
Behavior
Visible
Beliefs
Culture, Society and the Nation-state
What is national culture?
 Culture changes over a period of time as determinants of culture change
Religion
4 dominate:
Christianity
Islam
Hinduism
Buddhism
Social
Structure
2 types:
Individual
Group
Language
 Spoken &
unspoken
 Define
culture
 Perception
Culture
Education
Political
Philosophy
2 types:
Democracy
Totalitarianism
Economic
Philosophy
3 major
systems:
Communism
Socialism
Capitalism
 Learn
languages,
conceptual &
mathematical
skills
 Socializing
 Citizenship
Religion
Responsible for many of the attitudes and beliefs affecting human behavior
Work Ethic
• Protestant work ethic
o Duty to glorify God by hard work and the practice of thrift
• Confucian work ethic
o Drive toward hard work and thrift; similar to Protestant work ethic
Christianity
• Protestant Work Ethic
Islam
• Prayer five times per day
• No consumption of Alcohol or Pork
Hinduism
• Focus on Spiritual Growth
Buddhism
• Strong Class System
Confucianism
• High Ethics, Loyalty
Culture and the workplace
Study on the relationship between culture and the workplace
by Geert Hofstede (1967-1973)
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40 countries
100,000 individuals at IBM
4 cultural dimensions used to analyse national cultures
Important for companies to understand how a society’s
culture affects workplace values
Management processes and practices must be adapted to
culturally-determined work-related values
Cultural Models:
Geert Hofstede
• Geert Hofstede identified four dimensions of culture:
• Power distance focuses on how a society deals with the fact that people are unequal in
physical and intellectual capabilities
• Individualism versus collectivism focuses on the relationship between the individual
and his or her fellows
• Uncertainty avoidance measures the extent to which different cultures socialize their
members into accepting ambiguous situations and tolerating ambiguity
• Masculinity versus femininity looks at the relationship between gender and work roles
• Hofstede later expanded his study - included a fifth dimension called Confucian dynamism
which captures attitudes toward time, persistence, ordering by status, protection of face,
respect for tradition, and reciprocation of gifts and favors
• (HOFSTEDE’S MODEL IS EXPLAINED IN THE FOLLOWING SLIDES)
Power Orientation
Power Respect
Power Tolerance
• Appropriateness of power/authority within organizations
• The extent to which members of a society accept the unequal distribution
of power among individuals
• In large-power-distance societies employees believe their supervisors
are right; employees do not take any initiative in making non-routine
decisions
Hofstede found people in France, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, and Singapore to be
relatively power respecting.
Hofstede’s work suggested that people in the United States, Israel, Austria, Denmark,
Ireland, Norway, Germany, and New Zealand tend to be more power tolerant.
Uncertainty Orientation
Uncertainty
Acceptance
Uncertainty
Avoidance
• Emotional response to uncertainty and change
• Degree to which members of a society feel threatened by
ambiguity and are rule-oriented
• Employees in high uncertainty-avoidance cultures tend to stay with
their organizations
• Those from low uncertainty-avoidance nations are more mobile
Hofstede suggested that many people from the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Canada,
Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia are uncertainty accepting.
Hofstede found that many people in Israel, Austria, Japan, Italy, Colombia, France,
Peru, and Germany tend to avoid uncertainty whenever possible.
Plot of Nations: Power distance and
Uncertainty Avoidance
Social Orientation
Individualism
Collectivism
• Relative importance of the interests of the individual versus interests of the
group
• Collectivism: people belong to groups that are supposed to look after them
in exchange for loyalty
• Individualism: People look after only themselves and the immediate family
Hofstede’s research suggested that people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands tend to be relatively individualistic.
Hofstede found that people from Mexico, Greece, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Peru, Singapore,
Colombia, and Pakistan tend to be relatively collectivistic in their values.
Plot of Nations: Individualism and Power
Distance
Goal Orientation
Aggressive
Passive
• What motivates people to achieve different goals
• Degree to which the dominant values in a society emphasize assertiveness,
acquisition of money and status
• Masculinity - achievement of visible and symbolic organizational rewards
• Femininity - emphasize relationships, concern for others, and the overall quality of
life
According to Hofstede, cultures that value aggressive goal behavior also tend to define genderbased roles somewhat rigidly, whereas cultures that emphasize passive goal behaviour do not.
According to Hofstede’s research, many people in Japan tend to exhibit relatively aggressive goal
behavior, whereas many people in Germany, Mexico, Italy, and the United States exhibit
moderately aggressive goal behaviour.
Men and women in passive goal behavior cultures are more likely to both pursue diverse careers
and to be well represented within any given occupation. People from the Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland tend to exhibit relatively passive goal behaviour.
Time Orientation
Long-term
outlook
Short-term
outlook
The extent to which members of a culture adopt
a long-term or a short-term outlook on work and
life
Some cultures, such as those of Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, have a long-term,
future orientation that values dedication, hard work, perseverance, and thrift.
Other cultures, including those of Pakistan and West Africa, tend to focus on the past and present,
emphasizing respect for traditions and fulfillment of social obligations. Hofstede’s work suggests
that the United States and Germany tend to have an intermediate time orientation.
Hall’s Low-Context, HighContext Approach
Business behaviours in high-context cultures often differ from those in low-context cultures.
For example, German advertising is typically fact oriented, while Japanese advertising is
more emotion oriented.
High-context cultures place higher value on interpersonal relations in deciding whether to
enter into a business arrangement. In such cultures, preliminary meetings are often held to
determine whether the parties can trust each other and work together comfortably.
Low-context cultures place more importance on the specific terms of a transaction.
In low-context cultures such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, lawyers
are often present at negotiations to ensure that their clients’ interests are protected.
Conversely, in high-context cultures such as Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Egypt, the presence
of a lawyer, particularly at the initial meeting of the participants, would be viewed as a sign of
distrust. Because these cultures value long-term relationships, an assumption by a
potential partner that one cannot be trusted may be sufficient grounds to end the
negotiations.
Low
Context
Chinese
Korean
Japanese
Vietnamese
Arab
Greek
Spanish
Italian
British
U.S. / Canadian
Scandinavian
Swiss
German
Hall’s Low-Context, High-Context
Approach
High
Context
Cultural Models:
Trompenaar & Hampden-Turner seven
dimensions model of culture
Five orientations cover the ways in which human beings deal with each other:
1. Universalism vs. particularism (What is more important, rules or relationships?)
2. Individualism vs. collectivism (communitarianism) (Do we function in a group or as individuals?)
3. Neutral vs. emotional (Do we display our emotions or not?)
4. Specific vs. diffuse (Is responsibility specifically assigned or diffusely accepted?)
5. Achievement vs. ascription (Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us?)
One different way in which societies look at time:
6. Sequential vs. synchronic (Do we do things one at a time or several things
at once?)
The last important difference is the attitude of the culture to the
environment:
7. Internal vs. external control (Do we control our environment or are we
controlled by it?)
Culture Affects All Business Functions
Marketing
• Variation in attitudes and values requires firms to use different marketing mixes
Human Resource Management
• Evaluation of managers
Production and Finance
• Attitudes toward authority
• Attitudes toward change
Implications For Managers
There are three important implications that flow from these differences for managers:
1. There is a need to develop cross-cultural literacy
2. There is a connection between culture and national competitive advantage
3. There is a connection between culture and ethics in decision making
• Cross-cultural literacy is critical to the success of international businesses
• Companies that are ill informed about the practices of another culture are unlikely to
succeed in that culture
• Managers must also beware of ethnocentric behavior, or a belief in the
superiority of one's own culture
Understanding New Cultures
Do not rely on the self-reference criterion – this is the unconscious use of one’s own culture
to help assess new surroundings.
A US salesperson who calls on a German customer in Frankfurt and asks about the customer’s
family is acting politely according to US culture—the salesperson’s reference point—but rudely
according to German culture, thereby generating ill will and the potential loss of a customer.
Cross-cultural literacy is the first step to understand a foreign culture but also modify and adapt
their behaviour to make it compatible with that culture.
Cross-cultural literacy is of particular importance to home country managers who frequently
interact with host country nationals.
Doing Business in Mexico
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First names are reserved for family and closer acquaintances
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Professional titles are a very important part of Mexican business protocol. Doctors,
professors, engineers, lawyers, CPAs, and architects are always addressed by their
professional titles
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Use professional title followed by a surname, e.g. "Ingeniero Fernandez“, “Doctora
Gonzalez”. Always use a title when addressing someone, and use the form “usted”, which
means “you”
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Anyone without a professional title should be addressed by a courtesy title such as "Mr.",
"Mrs." or "Miss" followed by a surname. If you don't know someone's last name, just use the
courtesy title
o Mr. = "Señor = Sr."
o Mrs. = "Señora = Sra."
o Miss = "Señorita = Srita.“
o For a lady, use "Señorita“ if you don’t know her marital status
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Mexicans have two surnames that consist of their father's last name followed by their
mother's surname “Sr. Raul Martinez Castro”
Doing Business in Germany
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First names are reserved for family members and close friends. It's
not uncommon for colleagues who have worked together for years
not to know of each other's first names
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For those without professional titles, or if you're unsure, use a
courtesy title, followed by a surname
o Mr. = "Herr"
o Mrs. (or Ms.) = "Frau“
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German business culture is extremely hierarchical, so be sure that
you learn and use the professional titles of those you expect to
encounter
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Professionals of any kind will expect to be referred to as "Herr" or
"Frau", followed by the correct occupational title
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An individual with a Ph.D. should be addressed as "Herr (or Frau)
Doctor Professor"
Doing Business in Japan
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First names are reserved for family and close friends
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Don't invite others to call you by your first name
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Even if you are on a first name basis with a Japanese colleague, it may be appropriate to
use his or her last name in the presence of colleagues, to avoid causing any embarrassment
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Use courtesy titles such as "Mr.", "Ms.", or the suffix "san", in addition to last names
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“San“ = honorific attached to a person's last name. It is not used to refer to someone in your
company when talking with someone outside it. This is because it is considered bad
manners to elevate people of your own group when speaking with "outsiders”
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The Japanese often use professional titles in the place of actual names, as an
acknowledgment of a person's status
Importance of Learning Foreign
Language
“You can buy in any language, but
to sell you have to speak their
language”
Do’s and Taboos
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Waving is a serious insult in Greece and in Nigeria
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A wave goodbye can mean “no” in Europe, but “come here” in Peru
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OK sign in Brazil is like raising your middle finger in US
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Crossing your fingers (good luck) is offensive in Paraguay
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Punctuality is expected in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, China and Belgium but you
better be at least 15 minutes late in Latin America
Tips
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Carry plenty of business cards
Keep language simple
Know habits of the country
Use safe conversation topics
Understand how to negotiate
Appreciate the place of women in
international business
Learn some simple phrases