Sociocultura

l Forces
CHAPTER 3
What is Culture and Why Is it Important?

 Culture is the sum total of the beliefs, rules, techniques,

institutions, and artifacts that characterize human
populations.
 In other words, culture consists of the “ individual
worldviews, social rules, and interpersonal dynamic
characterizing a group of people set in a particular time and
place”.
 Most anthropologists agree that culture is learned; the
various aspects of culture are interrelated; culture is
shared, patterned, and mutually constructed through social
interaction; and culture defines the boundaries group.
Ethnocentricity- the belief that your own culture is superior to
other cultures. Ex. German way, Chinese way, or British way.

Anthropologist E.T. Hall claims managers can do this in only

two ways:
1. Spend a lifetime in a culture,
2. Undergo an extensive training program that covers the
main characteristics of cultures in order, including the
language.
Culture Affects all Business Functions
MARKETING
 To build effective marketing campaigns, marketers have to
understand how customers in the target market give meaning to events
in their world and how they think the world should be better.
 Acquiringknowledge about a new culture is time-consuming
and expensive, but probably less so than recovering from a
major marketing disaster.
Human Resources
> cultural values play key roles in motivating and evaluating
employees. In some cultures, individual effort is rewarded, while in
others, group effort is more highly valued. Other values that come into
play in human resource (HR) contexts relate to our attitudes toward
social status.
PRODUCTION AND PROCUREMENT
 Production managers have found that cultural values around attitudes towards
change can seriously influence the acceptance of new production methods.
 Plant layout is also influenced by culture
 Ex. Procurement often exists in a web of social relationships and friendships,
whereas in the United States, transparency and price frequently drive the
process. Personal relationships are so critical in Japan that if a foreigner turned
down an offer being concluded successfully.
Accounting and Finance
 A culture’s accounting controls directly relate to its
assumptions about peoples’ basic nature. Are the controls
tight throughout the organization, suggesting low levels of
trust, or loose, suggesting the culture assumes people will
act honestly even when they are not closely monitored?
PREFERRED LEADERSHIP STYLES
 The way we think about the role and function of our leaders
varies across cultures. Desired leadership traits vary by culture
as well.
 Is the usual relationship between leader and followers
hierarchical or lateral? Is the leadership model paternalistic?
Heroic? Does the ideal leader come up through the ranks?
Ways Culture Affects all Business Activity
Culture affects everything we do, and, thus, national cultural differences affect the functional
areas of international business.
 Wide variations in cultural attitudes and values across markets require that many firms develop a
variety of marketing mixes to reach their consumers. HR motivation practices are culturally
affected.
 Leadership is greatly influenced by culture, as well. What is leadership thought to be? Is it
patriarchal or hierarchical? Is the leader one among equals?
 Production Managers have found that cultural values around attitudes toward change can
seriously influence the acceptance of new production methods.
 Every business action is influenced by national-level cultural values.
 How Culture Shows Itself
AESTHETICS – a culture sense of beauty and good taste.
 a culture’s aesthetics is expressed in many areas, most directly and
intentionally in art, drama, music, folklore, and dance.
RELIGION
 along with its spiritual aspects, religion is an important
component of culture and responsible for many attitudes and
beliefs that influence human behavior.
 expresses its beliefs through particular kinds of worship and
prayers, rituals, dietary rules, and mode of dress
Five major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism and Judaism
Christianity
 Christians are monotheistic, i.e.,
they believe there's only one God,
and he created the heavens and
the earth. This divine Godhead
consists of three parts: the father
(God himself), the son (Jesus Christ)
and the Holy Spirit.
ISLAM

 Followers of Islam are called Muslims.

Muslims are monotheistic and worship
one, all-knowing God, who in Arabic is
known as Allah. Followers of Islam aim to
live a life of complete submission to Allah.
They believe that nothing can happen
without Allah's permission, but humans
have free will.
HINDUISM
 Hinduism is a religion with
various Gods and Goddesses.
According to Hinduism, three Gods
rule the world. Brahma: the
creator; Vishnu: the preserver and
Shiva: the destroyer. Lord Vishnu
did his job of preserving the world
by incarnating himself in different
forms at times of crisis.
JUDAISM
 Judaism traces its origins back to
the Iron Age land in the Southern
Levant, and the 12 tribes of Israel
that descended from Jacob. It is
a monotheistic faith ̶ based on
the belief in a single, all-powerful
God, who provided Moses and the
Jewish people with a set of laws or
commandments to live by.
MATERIAL CULTURE
 are all the human-made objects of
culture; people who study material culture
are connected with how people make things
( technology) and who makes what and
why (economics).
 Ex. Prints and pottery in Japan, beads
and classical theater in Greece, and artisan
chocolate in Switzerland.
LANGUAGE
 most obvious and distancing culture
for newcomers to international business
is language, spoken and unspoken.
 important key to a culture, and
without understanding it, people find
themselves locked out of all but a
culture’s perimeter.
Foreign seller who speaks the local
language has a competitive edge.
 SOCIETAL ORGANIZATION
 every societal structure has its social
relationship, and these patterned
arrangements define an important aspect of
culture: the way social groups are
constructed.
 Sociologists define two kinds of
social groups or institutions: KINSHIP
AND FREE ASSOCIATION.
SPECIAL FOCUS: GIFT GIVING IN
BUSINESS
 the ritual of giving gifts in international
business is important because it creates a
social bond that requires you to be a giver, a
receiver, and a holder of an obligation to the
other person in the exchange.

 every country will have an

antiquated and set of implicit rules
around the giving of gifts: their
timing, their value, how they are to
be presented.