CHAPTER 2
THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
FACING BUSINESS
Case: Parris-Rogers International (PRI)
- The ensuing lack of understanding between the Arab states and
PRI and PRI's failure to adapt to a different culture contributed
directly to the company's failure.
- Approach: moving aggressively, having undivided attention of
potential clients, and restricting most conversations to the specifics
of the business transaction.
- Angela Clark, compromises with Arab customs.
- Middle East is going through a period of substantial economic
and social transformation
I - INTRODUCTION
When doing business abroad, a company first should determine whether
a usual business practice in a foreign country differs from its
home-country experience.
Understanding the cultures of groups of people is useful because
business employs, sells to, buys from, is regulated by, and is
owned by people.
II - THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE
Culture: consists of specific learned norms based on attitudes,
values, and beliefs, all of which exist in every society.
Culture cannot easily be isolated from such factors as economic
and political conditions.
Isolation tends to stabilize a culture, whereas contact tends
to create cultural borrowing
Change by Imposition: Cultural Imperialism.
III - BEHAVIORAL PRACTICES AFFECTING
BUSINESS
A - Group Affiliation: a person's affiliations reflecting class
or status.
B - Role of Competence: rewarded highly in some societies. Seniority
in Japan
C - Gender Based Groups: there are strong country-specific differences
in attitudes towards males and females.
D - Age-Based Groups: many cultures assume that age and wisdom
are correlated
E - Family-Based Groups:
F - Importance of Work: protestant ethic, belief in success and
reward; work as a habit, high-need achiever.
G - Need Hierarchy: people try to fulfill lower-order needs sufficiently
before moving on to higher ones. The hierarchy of needs theory
is helpful for differentiating the reward preferences of employees.
H - Importance of Occupation: The importance of business as a
profession
I - Self-Reliance: uncertainty avoidance, trust, fatalism, individual
versus group
J - Preference for Autocratic versus Consultative Management
IV - LANGUAGE
Language: all languages are complex and reflective of Environment
Translating one language into another.
Silent Languages: color associations, sense of appropriate distance,
time, body language.
Low-Context cultures, High-context cultures
Monochronic versus Polychronic
V - RECONCILIATION OF INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCES
Stereotypes
Cultural Shock
Polycentrism
Ethnocentrism
Geocentrism
Ethics
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