30-Jul-18

Chapter 03
Erin Meyer- How Cultural Differences Affect Business
Differences in Culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQvqDv4vbEg

Md. Kaysher Hamid

Md. Kaysher Hamid

Lesson Outline Introduction

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• Concept of Culture • Understanding and adapting to the local cultural is important for the
international companies
• Social Structure
o Cross-cultural literacy - an understanding of how cultural
• Religious and Ethical Systems differences across and within nations can affect the way in which
• Language business is practiced

• A relationship may exist between culture and the costs of doing

• Education
business in a country or region
o Japan, Great Britain

• MNE can be the agent of cultural change

Md. Kaysher Hamid Md. Kaysher Hamid
 30-Jul-18

Culture Values
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• A system of values and norms that are shared among a group • Abstract ideas about what a group believes to be good, right, and desirable

of people and that when taken together constitute a design for • Provide the context within which a society's norms are established and
justified.
living
• May include a society's attitudes toward such concepts as individual
freedom, democracy, truth, justice, honesty, loyalty, social obligations,
collective responsibility, the role of women, love, sex, marriage, and so on.

• Often reflected in the political and economic systems of a society

o Democratic free market capitalism is a reflection of a philosophical
value system that emphasizes individual freedom

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Norms Society
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• Social rules and guidelines that prescribe appropriate behavior in particular

• A group of people who share a common set of values and norms
situations
• Norms can be subdivided into • A society may be equivalent to a country, some countries
o Folkways harbor several societies (i. e. they support multiple cultures),
 The routine conventions of everyday life
and some societies embrace more than one country
 Example: Obsession with precise time and schedules
o Mores
 Norms that are seen as central to the functioning of a society and
to its social life
 Include such factors as indictments against theft, adultery, and
cannibalism

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Culture, Society, and The Nation-State Determinants of Culture

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• The relationship between a society and a nation state is not

strictly one-to-one

• Nation-states are political creations

o May contain one or more cultures

• A culture can embrace several nations

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Social Structure Individuals and Groups

• A society’s basic social organization • Emphasis on Individual Performance

• Two important dimensions o High level of entrepreneurial activity

o High degree of managerial mobility
o The degree to which the basic unit of social organization is
the individual, as opposed to the group. • Emphasis on Group Performance
o Mutual respect and collective action
o The degree to which a society is stratified into classes or
o Low degree of managerial mobility
castes.
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Social Stratification Social Stratification

• Social Strata • Social mobility

o All societies are stratified on a hierarchical basis into social o The extent to which individuals can move out of the strata into which

categories on the based on characteristics such as family they are born

background, occupation, and income.  Caste system

• Societies differ in social stratification in two related ways  Class system

o The degree of mobility between social strata • Significance attached to social strata in business contexts

o Significance attached to social strata in business contexts o Class consciousness

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Md. Kaysher Hamid