International Business Chapter 2 - Culture Flashcards Quizlet PDF

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international business chapter 2 culture summary, definitions, and questions. The chapter explores various concepts regarding culture, the essence of culture, etc....

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11/19/2019

International Business Chapter 2 - Culture Flashcards | Quizlet

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Terms in this set (76) culture

learned norms based on the values, attitudes, and beliefs of a group of people- an integral part of a nation's operating environment

cultural diversity

a company may gain from nurturing the cultural diversity that international operations foster. Different nationalities

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coming together through projects and teams brings their diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences together to enable businesses to gain a deeper knowledge of products and services and how to create and deliver them to keep team members from feeling threatened when expressing divergent viewpoints.

Cultural collision

when divergent cultures com in contact, cultural collision occurs. In international business, the major problems of cultural collision arise under two conditions: 1. when a company implements practices that are less effective than intended and 2. when a company's employees encounter distress because of difficulty in accepting or adjusting to foreign behaviors

Sensitivity and

a firm doing business in another country

Adjustment

must determine which of that nation's business practices differ from its own and then decide what adjustments, if any, are needed to operate efficiently

Cultural Awareness

most cultural variables- daily routines and rules, codes of social relations, language, emotive expression, concepts of luck are universal. The forms of these variables, however, differ among cultures and not everyone responds to them in the same way. Almost everyone agrees that national cultures differ, but they disagree on what the differences are. Problem areas that can hinder managers'

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cultural awareness are: subconscious reactions to circumstances and the assumption that all societal subgroups are similar.

Major Cultural Issues

Employees have subconscious reactions,

occur in international

employees assume all societal groups

business when:

are similar, employees encounter distress( inability to accept/adjust to foreign cultures), and companies/employees are insensitive to foreign consumer preferences.

Deal Focus (DF) Culture

culture where people are primarily taskoriented

Relationship Focus (RF)

culture where people are primarily

Culture

focused on relationships

The nation is a useful

similarity among people is a cause and

definition of a society

an effect of national boundaries and

because:

many laws affecting business are along national liines

Managers find country-

subcultures exist within nations and

by-country analysis

similarities link groups from different

difficult because:

countries

Cultural value systems

choice or imposition and contact with

are set early in life but

other cultures.

may change through:

Language as both a

A common language within countries is a

diffuser and stabilizer of

unifying force. When two countries speak

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culture

the same language, it is easier for culture to spread, explaining the cultural homogeneity among english speaking countries and spanish speaking countries and not between an english speaking and a spanish speaking country.

Religion as a Cultural

many strong values are the result of a

Stabilizer

dominant religion. Although the practice of religion has declined significantly, religion is a cultural stabilizer because centuries of religious influence continue to shape cultural values even in these societies. To be viewed legitimately, companies must take religious beliefs into account. Ex: McDonalds does not serve beef or pork in India as those who are Hindu or Muslim do not eat meat.

Social Stratification

a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. every culture ranks some people higher than others. Social Stratification can dictate a person's class, status, and financial rewards within the culture. In business, this practice may mean ranking members of managerial group s more highly than production group members.

Social stratification is

1. individuals' achievements and

determined by:

qualifications and 2. their affiliation with or membership in certain groups. The two factors interact, but the importance of one versus the other varies among cultures.

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Group affiliations can

ascribed or acquired and a reflection of

be:

class and status

Ascribed group

those determined by birth such as

memberships

gender, family, age, caste, and ethnic, racial, or national origin

acquired group

chosen groups, including religious,

memberships

political affiliation, educational, and achievement and profession.

Work Motivation

motivated employees are normally more productive than those who aren't. On an aggregate basis, of course, this influences companies' efficiency and countries' economic development. The desire for material wealth is a prime motivation to work and is positive for economic development

The productivity and

some cultures place more value on

Leisure trade-off

leisure time than others. They push for working shorter hours, take more holidays, and generally spend more time and money on leisure activities. US does not place value in leisure time

People are more eager

rewards for success are high and there is

to work if:

some uncertainty of success. People have little enthusiasm for effort when the likelihood of success seems too easy or too difficult. The reward for a task may be high or low and most of us work harder

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the more we expect success to lead to a higher reward. Success and reward

performed in different countries, the

across borders

same tasks come with different probabilities of success, different rewards for success, and different consequences for failure.

Masculinity-Femininity

A study using the masculinity-femininity

Index

index found significant differences in attitudes toward achievement among employees in 50 countries. Those with a high masculinity score admired successful work achievers, harbored little sympathy for the unfortunate, and preferred to be better than others rather than on par twitch them. They shared a money and things orientation rather than a people orientation, a belief that it is better to live to work than to work to live and a preference for performance and growth over quality of life and the environment.

Hierarchies of Needs

according to the hierarchy of needs theory of motivation, people try to fulfill lower level needs before moving on to higher level ones. 1. physiological, 2. Security, 3. Affiliation, 4. Esteem, and 5. Self actualization. The theory implies that well typically work to satisfy a need, which, once satisfied, diminishes in value as a motivator. The hierarchy of needs may differ among countries and is useful in deciding how to motivate differently among countries. Research has shown that different cultures not only attach different degrees of importance to

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various needs, they also rank higher order needs differently. Thus the theory can distinguish among the reward preferences of employees in different parts of the world. In very poor countries, a larger portion of workers are likely engaged in manual jobs; thus a company can motivate a larger portion of them simply by providing enough compensation to satisfy their needs for food an d shelter. elsewhere, a larger portion of works are motivated by other needs.

Physiological needs

food, water, sex

Security needs

sage physical and emotional environments

Affiliation needs

social needs or peer acceptance

esteem needs

bolstering self image through recognition, attention, and appreciation

self actualization or self

becoming all that we are capable of

fulfillment needs

becoming

Protestant Work Ethic

the view that a person's duty and responsibility is to achieve success

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through hard work and thrift.

Power Distance

Relationship between superiors and subordinates. -- From voluntary to country, employee preferences tend to differ in terms of interacting with bosses, subordinates, and peers. Considerable evidence suggests that people perform better when the nature of their interactions fits their preferences. Thats why companies are well advised to align management styles with superiorsubordinate interaction preferences, which are known in general as power distance.

High power distance

people prefer little consultation between the two tiers and one of two management styles: autocratic (ruling with unlimited authority) or paternalistic (regulating conduct by supplying needs)

Low power distance

people prefer consultative styles in which subordinates have a say in decisions

Individualism vs.

high individualism describes an

Collectivism

employee's preference to fulfill leisure time and improve skills outside th organization, receive direct monetary compensation as opposed to fringe benefits, and engage in personal decision making and on the job challenges. In countries with high individualism, a self actualization opportunity is a prime motivator because employees want challenges.

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high collectivism

typifies an employee's penchant for dependence on the organization through training, satisfactory workplace conditions, and good benefits. In countries with high collectivism fulfilling securities needs is a prime motivator.

Risk-taking Behavior

Cultures differ in peoples willingness to accept the status quo and control over destiny. There are four types of risk taking behavior: 1. uncertainty avoidance, 2. trust, 3. future orientation, and 4. fatalism. Nationalities differ in ease of handling uncertainties, degree of trust among people, future orientation, and attitudes of self determination and fatalism.

Risk-taking Behavior:

in countries where uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty Avoidance

is high, most employees prefer to follow set rules even if they believe that breaking them may be in the company's best interests. They also tend to stay with current employers for a long time, preferring the certainty of present positions over the uncertainty of their future elsewhere. When uncertainty avoidance is high, superiors ma need to be more precise in their directions to subordinates, who typically don't want to be responsible for actions that counter what their superiors want. Fewer consumers are prepared to risk being early product adopters.

Risk-taking Behavior:

in countries where trust is high, business

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Trust

costs tend to be lower because managers spend less time fussing over every possible contingency and monitoring every action for compliance and more time producing, selling and innovating. The degree of trust may differ between what people consider in their in group and their out group.

Risk-taking Behavior:

Cultures differ in their perceptions of the

Future Orientation

risks from delaying gratification. A future orientation (living for the future) is more pronounced in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada than in Russia, Poland, and Italy. In the former cultures, it may be easier for companies to motivate workers through such delayed compensation programs as retirement plans.

Risk-taking Behavior:

If people believe strongly in self-

Fatalism

determination, they may be willing to work hard to achieve goals and take responsibility for performance. If they're fatalistic (they believe every event in life is inevitable) they're less likely to accept the basic case and effect relationship between work and reward. In countries that rate high on fatalism, people plan less for contingencies. Religious differences play a considerable role in this regard.

Perception of Cues

we are selective in perceiving cues, features that form us about the nature of something. We ma identify things through any of our senses and each sense can

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provide information in various ways. people rely on cues that are partly physiological, and growing evidence suggests that evolution and genetics play a role in how different groups perceive. Cultural differences, especially language, also reflect differences in perception of cues. The richness of a language's descriptive vocabulary allows its speakers to note and express very subtle nuances that speakers of a different language may not discern, or to perceive certain subjects more precisely than others.

Obtaining Information:

low context cultures are cultures in which

Low Context vs. High

people generally regard only first half

Context Cultures

information that bears directly on the subject at hand as relevant. Businesspeople will spend little time on small talk and tend to get to the point. In high context cultures, people tend to regard seemingly peripheral information as pertinent and infer meanings from things that said either indirectly or casually. The tend to follow these patterns in written communications as well. Miscommunication can result as well.

Information Processing

Every culture has its own systems for ordering and classifying information. To perform efficiently and work amicably in a foreign environment, you need to understand such differences in processing systems. Perhaps more important, different processing systems create challenges in sharing global data.

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Monochronic vs.

Cultural differences also affect people's

Polychronic Cultures

comfort with different degrees of multitasking. In monochromic cultures people may prefer to work sequentially, such as finishing transactions with one customer before dealing with another. Conversely, polychromic people are more comfortable when working simultaneously on a variety of tasks, such as dealing immediately with multiple customers who need service. Imagine the potential misconceptions when monochronic businesspeople see their polychromic counterparts as uninterested in doing business with them because they don't bother to give them their undivided attention. Further, when teams combine people from both types of cultures, the former sometimes feel that the latter delay results by wasting time.

Idealism vs. Pragmatism

Some cultures tend to focus first on the whole and then on the parts; others do the opposite. When asked to describe and underwater scene in which one large fish was swimming among some smaller fish and other aquatic life, most Japanese first described the overall picture, whereas most Americans first described the large fish. Similarly, some cultures prefer to establish overall principles before they try to resolve small issues, an approach sometimes labeled idealism. Cultures in which people focus more on details than on abstract principles are said to be pragmatic. These different

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approaches can affect business in a number of ways. In a culture of pragmatists, labor negotiations tend to focus on well defined issues - say hourly pay increases for a specific bargaining unit. In an idealist culture, labor disputes tend to blur the focus on specific demands as workers tend to rely first on mass action, such as general strikes or political activities, to publicize basic principles.

Monochronic

Some cultures are traditionally monochronic. In such a culture, time is thought of as being linear. People are expected to do one thing at a time, and they will not tolerate lateness or interruptions.

Polychronic

In polychronic cultures, time is thought of as being cyclical. Polychronic cultures like to do multiple things at the same time. A manager's office in a polychronic culture typically has an open door, a ringing phone and a meeting all going on at the same time. Though they can be easily distracted they also tend to manage interruptions well with a willingness to change plans often and easily. People are their main concern (particularly those closely related to them or their function) and they have a tendency to build lifetime relationships. Issues such as promptness are firmly based on the re...