International Management

and Culture

Tim G. Andrews

Preface
• The Biggest barrier in world business

• Cultural values and their influence

• Responding to these challenges

• Weighing culture’s consequences

When does culture matter?

• Opposing claims
• Culture – one factor among many…
• …so when does it matter?
• When explaining/predicting behaviour?
• When responding to and/or causing
behaviour?

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Factors influencing
decision-making: INTERNAL

• CEO’s psychological make-up

• Organization’s strategy
• Organization’s history
• Organization’s resources
• Policies and systems
• Organizational culture

Factors influencing decision-

making: EXTERNAL (i)
• Decisions made by competitors,
customers, suppliers
• Labour and financial markets
• Infrastructure and technology
• Politics and economics (multi-level)
• Laws and regulations

Factors influencing decision-

making: EXTERNAL (ii)

• The various publics

• Various pressure groups
• Factors in the green environment
• Industry norms
• National culture

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The organization in its

environment

• The internal-external divide

• …but how realistic is this?
• A more ‘porous’ perspective
• Cross-national complexities

Using Culture
• Focus on national culture

• How it can be used

• How it can help

• What it can show

Influence of personal factors

• Psychological
• Genetic
• Gender
• Age
• Social constraints

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Limited predictability
• Predictive worth of cultural analyses

• Calculating culture’s weight

• Non-routine situations

• Atypical individuals

Defining Culture
• Culture is the collective programming of
the mind which distinguishes the members
of one human group from
another….culture includes systems of
values; values are the building blocks of
culture… (Hofstede, 1984)

What Hofstede’s definition

implies
• A culture is particular to one human group

• Culture is learned, not innate

• Culture includes systems of values

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Culture and the group

• Different groups have different cultures
• Different groups respond to similar
situations in different ways
• US vs Panama: charity case
• Nation vs civilization
• National territory vs national group

Culture is learned
• …as communication via:

- interaction with family members

- eliciting rewards, avoiding punishment
- negotiating for what you want
- Causing, avoiding, resolving conflict

Values
• What do they mean?

• The school illustration

• Problems with using values

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Other ‘cultural’ characteristics

• Beliefs
• Political systems
• Religion
• Technology
• Artistic culture

Beliefs
• Belief vs behavior – how predictable?

• E.g. ‘my door is always open’

• E.g. ‘equal treatment for men and women’

• We’d better focus on values

Political systems
• Political systems as expressions of culture

• Concepts of democracy

• …versus underlying values

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Religion
• Same religion, different values

• But same beliefs, same values, same

behaviors?

• Not necessarily

Technology
• Same technology, different culture…
- but who selects it?
- who uses it?
- who directs use?
- when, where , why…?

• The numbers analogy

Cross-cultural and International

Management
• Influences on individual managers
- psychology
- functional responsibility
- organization’s culture and history
- industry factors
- national culture
• CCM vs IM…