Sociocultural

Forces

International Business
What is culture?

Sum total of the beliefs, rules, techniques, institutions, and artifacts that
characterize human populations.

Culture consist of:

Individual world views, social rules, and interpersonal dynamics characterizing a
group of people set in a particular time and place.
Most antropologists agree :

1. Culture is learned. We are not born with a culture.

2. The various aspects of culture are interrelated.
3. Culture is shared, patterned, and mutually constructed through social
interaction.
4. Culture defines the boundaries of different groups.
What is culture? - Sociocultural

Society… ???

Culture…???

Sociocultural is Description of the social world through which we observe the effects of
culture
 What is a culture?

Ethnocentricity
-------lead to stubborn resistance-------

E.T Hall suggested to ways

1. Spend a lifetime in culture

2. Undergo an extensive training program

Student of cultures
 Marketing

Cultures has results in attitudes and values.

Marketing Mix
 Marketer has to understand the foreign market the firm is selling into, and it should be beyond a
surface awareness of differences.
i.e.,
 automotive - Europe vs Japan in Indonesia

 Fail to understand  costly mistakes with product introduction  time consuming and expensive
i.e.,
 Watson
 Human resources

Sociocultural values play key roles in motivation and evaluation of employees.

Social status, is it…

• Something we earn or achievement (what we do)
• Family’s social position (who we are)
American vs British

It’s all about Cultural Values --- Samsung vs Nokia

 Production

– Acceptance of new product methods

Assembly line  Task receives & Social relationship

America & Asia (china)

 Accounting & finance

Basic nature of people  culture’s accounting control

Formal institutions  rules and sanctions

Informal Institutions  social norms

i.e., Tosikatsu Matsuoka

Leadership styles

– Is the usual relationship between leader and followers hierarchical or more

lateral?
– is the leadership model paternalistic? Heroic? Servant leadership?
– Does the ideal leader come up through the ranks, or is the ideal leader
someone placed in the leadership position due to family of status?
 CHINESE culture

– In 5000 years of history, based on communities, strong morality, holistic thinking , and cynicism
toward foreigners.
• Family and relationship valued much more than civil laws
• Relationship and personal commitment > contract
• Think much more about big pictures with thousand of questions
• Taking more time to consider many different alternatives before taking any action.

Americans see the Chinese: Inefficient, indirect, and dishonest

The Chinese see Americans: aggressive, impersonal, and excitable

 Hall’s high and low context

Hall offers a classification of cultures based upon

communication styles and specifically on the role that
context plays in the communication patterns.
High-context culture – participants have social ties that are long-standing and close – long
experience and communication signals

Low-context culture – the relationships are of shorter duration and so more of the
communication has to be explicit
HOFSTEDE’S FIVE
DIMENSION
– Individualism – Collectivism
– Power Distance
– Uncertainty Avoidance
– Masculinity – Femininity
– Long-term orientation/ Confucian Dynamism
TROMPENAARS’ SEVEN
DIMENSIONS
– Universalism Vs. Particularism
– Individualim Vs. Communitarianism
– Neutral Vs. Affective (unemotional vs. emotional)
– Specific Vs. Diffuse
– Achievement Vs. Ascription
– Attitudes toward time
– Attitudes toward the environment
Components of culture

– Aesthetics
– Attitudes and beliefs
– Religion
– Material Culture
– Education
– Language
– Societal organization
– Legal Characteristics
– Political stuctures
THANK YOU