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The Cultural Environment Facing Business
 Jashim Uddin
Senior Lecturer, East West University, Bangladesh
Culture Defined
☢ The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts,
beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and
thought.
☢ The patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of
a particular period, class, community, or population.
☢ The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the
functioning of a group or organization.
Courtesy:thefreedictionary.com
☢ The specific learned norms based on attitudes, values, and beliefs
that exist in every nation as an integral part of external
environments.
Daniels
International Business create problems of cultural
collision mostly because of following incidents:
☢ A company implements practices that work less well than
intended.
☢ A company’s employees encounter distress because of an
inability to accept or adjust to foreign behaviors.
Cultural influences on international business:
☢ Cultural Awareness
☢ Identification and dynamics of cultures
☢ Behavioral practices affecting business
☢ Strategies for dealing with cultural differences
Cultural Awareness
Cultural awareness simply means the knowledge about a
particular culture and the ability to accept its agreed norms.
All people have culturally ingrained responses to given
situations and sometimes expect that people from other
cultures will respond the same way as people in their own
culture do.
Problems that hinder manager’s cultural awareness:
☢ Subconscious reactions to circumstances
☢ The assumption that all societal subgroups are similar
Contradiction among different culture may arise for thought
toward business and leisure, boldness to truth, level of
differences among subcultures, attitude toward mistake,
salutation practices etc.
Identification and Dynamics of Cultures
The Nation as a point of reference: Nation expresses a ‘we’ feeling and
foreigners are considered as ‘they’. Nation waves a common feelings on
some issues and share a common legal system.Similar group of people
may react in the same manner in different countries.
Cultural formation and dynamics: Culture transmitted through the
persons of interaction (parent to child, teacher to pupil). Change may
come through choice or imposition (often called cultural imperialism).
Language as a cultural stabilizer: Culture spreads easily for same
language. Languages spoken in small geographical area prohibits
businesses to spread (Africa). Translation for commercial purposes is
costly and somewhere it is a regulatory bindings.
Religion as a cultural stabilizer: Religion generally lies in the core of
the heart of the people thus, this belief is very soft and sensitive. Holiday,
food, interest payment, hostility have impacts from religious side
Behavioral Practices Affecting Business
Social stratification system: A reflection of class and status in the
society creates impact on business practices. Ranking in the social
stratification determined by ascribed (affiliations determined by
birth) and acquired (affiliations not determined by birth) group
membership.
 Performance Orientation
 Gender based groups
 Age based groups
 Family based groups
 Occupation
Motivation: Employees motivational level influences economic
development positively. International business enterprises are
more interested to higher the motivational level as higher
productivity reduces cost.
 Materialism and leisure
 Expectation of success and reward
 Assertiveness
 Need hierarchy
Relationship preference: Extent of relationship gap in the social
norms influence management style and marketing behavior.
 Power Distance
 Individualism Versus Collectivism
Risk-Taking Behavior: Level of risk taking behavior of a particular
culture explains how people feel and control their destinies.
 Ease of handling uncertainties
 Degree of trust among people
 Future Orientation
 Attitudes of self-determination and fatalism
Information and task processing: People from different
culture perceive, obtain, and process information in different
manner.
 Perception of Cues
 Obtaining information
 Information Processing
Strategies for Dealing with Cultural Differences
Make little or no adjustment
Communications
 Spoken and written language
 Silent language
Cultural shock
Company and management orientations
 Polycentrism
 Ethnocentrism
 Geocentrism
Strategies for instituting change
Value system
Cost benefit of change
 Resistance to too much change
 Participation
 Reward sharing
 Opinion leaders
 Timing
 Learning abroad