Rabu, 23 November 2011

Differences in Culture

Introduction
International business is different because countries are different.
We open this chapter with a general discussion of what culture is. Then we focus on how differences in social structure, religion, language, and education influence the culture of a country. The implications for business practice will be highlighted throughout the chapter and summarized in a section at the end.
What Is Culture?
Scholars have never been able to agree on a simple definition of culture. The anthropologist Edward Tylor defined culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society. Since then hundreds of other definitions have been offered. Geert Hofstede defined culture as the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another . . . Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture. Another definition of culture comes from sociologists who see culture as a system of ideas and argue that these ideas constitute a design for living.
Someone viewing culture as a system of values and norms that are shared among a group of people and that when taken together constitute a design for living. By values we mean abstract ideas about what a group believes to be good, right, and desirable. Put differently, values are shared assumptions about how things ought to be. By norms we mean the social rules and guidelines that prescribe appropriate behavior in particular situations. We shall use the term society to refer to a group of people who share a common set of values and norms. While a society may be equivalent to a country, some countries harbor several "societies".
Values and Norms
Values form the bedrock of a culture. They provide the context within which a society's norms are established and justified. They 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. Values are not just abstract concepts; they are invested with considerable emotional significance. People argue, fight, and even die over values such as freedom. Values also often are reflected in the political and economic systems of a society.
Norms are the social rules that govern people's actions toward one another. Norms can be subdivided further into two major categories: folkways and mores. Folkways are actions of little moral significance. Folkways are social conventions concerning things such as the appropriate dress code in a particular situation, good social manners, eating with the correct utensils. Folkways define the way people are expected to behave, violation of folkways is not normally a serious matter.
The concept of time can be very different in other countries. It is not necessarily a breach of etiquette to arrive a little late for a business appointment; it might even be considered more impolite to arrive early. As for dinner invitations, arriving on time for a dinner engagement can be very bad manners.
Mores are norms that are seen as central to the functioning of a society and to its social life. They have much greater significance than folkways. Accordingly, violating mores can bring serious retribution. Mores include such factors as indictments against theft, adultery, incest, and cannibalism. In many societies, certain mores have been enacted into law. Thus, all advanced societies have laws against theft, incest, and cannibalism.
Culture, Society, and the Nation-State
We have defined a society as a group of people that share a common set of values and norms; that is, people who are bound together by a common culture. However, there is not a strict one-to-one correspondence between a society and a nation-state. Nation-states are political creations. They may contain a single culture or several cultures.
To complicate things further, it is also possible to talk about culture at different levels. It is reasonable to talk about "American society" and "American culture," but there are several societies within America, each with its own culture. One can talk about Afro-American culture, Cajun culture, Chinese-American culture, Hispanic culture, Indian culture, Irish-American culture, and Southern culture. The point is that the relationship between culture and country is often ambiguous. One cannot always characterize a country as having a single homogenous culture, and even when one can, one must also often recognize that the national culture is a mosaic of subcultures.
The Determinants of Culture
The values and norms of a culture do not emerge fully formed. They are the evolutionary product of a number of factors at work in a society. These factors include the prevailing political and economic philosophy, the social structure of a society, and the dominant religion, language, and education. Remember that the chain of causation runs both ways. While factors such as social structure and religion clearly influence the values and norms of a society, it is also true that the values and norms of a society can influence social structure and religion.

Social Structure
Individuals and Groups
A group is an association of two or more individuals who have a shared sense of identity and who interact with each other in structured ways on the basis of a common set of expectations about each other's behavior.8 Human social life is group life. Individuals are involved in families, work groups, social groups, recreational groups, and so on. However, while groups are found in all societies, societies differ according to the degree to which the group is viewed as the primary means of social organization.
The Individual
The emphasis on individual performance in many Western societies has both beneficial and harmful aspects. In the United States, the emphasis on individual performance finds expression in an admiration of "rugged individualism" and entrepreneurship. One benefit of this is the high level of entrepreneurial activity in the United States and other Western societies. New products and new ways of doing business .
Individualism also finds expression in a high degree of managerial mobility between companies, and this is not always a good thing. While moving from company to company may be good for individual managers, who are trying to build impressive resumes, it is not necessarily a good thing for American companies. The lack of loyalty and commitment to an individual company, and the tendency to move on when a better offer comes along, can result in managers that have good general skills but lack the knowledge, experience, and network of interpersonal contacts that come from years of working within the same company. An effective manager draws on company-specific experience, knowledge, and a network of contacts to find solutions to current problems, and American companies may suffer if their managers lack these attributes.
The emphasis on individualism may also make it difficult to build teams within an organization to perform collective tasks. If individuals are always competing with each other on the basis of individual performance, it may prove difficult for them to cooperate.
The Group
In contrast to the Western emphasis on the individual, the group is the primary unit of social organization in many other societies. Strong identification with the group is argued to create pressures for mutual self-help and collective action. If the worth of an individual is closely linked to the achievements of the group, this creates a strong incentive for individual members of the group to work together for the common good. Some argue that the competitive advantage of Japanese enterprises in the global economy is based partly on their ability to achieve close cooperation between individuals within a company and between companies.
Social Stratification
Social Mobility
Social mobility refers to the extent to which individuals can move out of the strata into which they are born. Social mobility varies significantly from society to society. The most rigid system of stratification is a caste system. A caste system is a closed system of stratification in which social position is determined by the family into which a person is born, and change in that position is usually not possible during an individual's lifetime. Often a caste position carries with it a specific occupation. Members of one caste might be shoemakers; members of another caste might be butchers, and so on. These occupations are embedded in the caste and passed down through the family to succeeding generations. A class system is a less rigid form of social stratification in which social mobility is possible. A class system is a form of open stratification in which the position a person has by birth can be changed through their own achievements and/or luck. Individuals born into a class at the bottom of the hierarchy can work their way upwards, while individuals born into a class at the top of the hierarchy can slip down.
As a result of these factors, the class system in Britain tended to perpetuate itself from generation to generation, and mobility was limited. Although upward mobility was possible, it is something that could not normally be achieved in one generation. While an individual from a working class background may have succeeded in establishing an income level that was consistent with membership of the upper-middle class, he or she may not have been accepted as such by others of that class due to accent and background. However, by sending his or her offspring to the "right kind of school," the individual can ensure that his or her children were accepted.
Accordingly to many politicians and popular commentators, modern British society is now rapidly leaving this class structure behind and moving towards a classless society. However, sociologists continue to dispute this finding and present evidence that this is not the case. The class system in the United States is less extreme than in Britain and mobility is greater.
Significance
From a business perspective, the stratification of a society is significant if it affects the operation of business organizations. In American society, the high degree of social mobility and the extreme emphasis upon individualism limits the impact of class background on business operations. The same is true in Japan, where the majority of the population perceive themselves to be middle-class. In a country such as Britain, however, the relative lack of class mobility and the differences between classes has resulted in the emergence of class consciousness. Class consciousness refers to a condition where people tend to perceive themselves in terms of their class background, and this shapes their relationships with members of other classes.


Religious and Ethical Systems
Religion may be defined as a system of shared beliefs and rituals that are concerned with the realm of the sacred.16 Ethical systems refer to a set of moral principles, or values, that are used to guide and shape behavior. Most of the world's ethical systems are the product of religions. Thus, we can talk about Christian ethics and Islamic ethics. However, there is a major exception to the principle that ethical systems are grounded in religion. Confucianism and Confucian ethics influence behavior and shape culture in parts of Asia, yet, as we shall see, it is incorrect to characterize Confucianism as a religion.
The relationship between religion, ethics, and society is subtle, complex, and profound. While there are thousands of religions in the world today, four dominate--Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
Christianity
Christianity is the most widely practiced religion in the world. The vast majority of Christians live in Europe and the Americas, although their numbers are growing rapidly in Africa. Christianity grew out of Judaism. Like Judaism, it is a monotheistic religion.. Today the Roman Catholic church accounts for over half of all Christians, most of whom are found in Southern Europe and Latin America. The Orthodox church, while less influential, is still of major importance in several countries.
Economic Implications of Christianity: The Protestant Work Ethic
Some sociologists have argued that of the two main branches of Christianity--Catholicism and Protestantism--the latter has the most important economic implications.
According to Weber, there was a relationship between Protestantism and the emergence of modern capitalism. Weber argued that Protestant ethics emphasize the importance of hard work and wealth creation). According to Weber, this was the kind of value system needed to facilitate the development of capitalism. Protestants worked hard and systematically to accumulate wealth. However, their ascetic beliefs suggested that rather than consuming this wealth by indulging in worldly pleasures, they should invest it in the expansion of capitalist enterprises. Thus, the combination of hard work and the accumulation of capital, which could be used to finance investment and expansion, paved the way for the development of capitalism in Western Europe and subsequently in the United States.
There is also another way in which Protestantism may have encouraged capitalism's development. By breaking away from the hierarchical domination of religious and social life that characterized the Catholic church for much of its history, Protestantism gave individuals significantly more freedom to develop their own relationship with God. The right to freedom of form of worship was central to the nonconformist nature of early Protestantism. This emphasis on individual religious freedom may have paved the way for the subsequent emphasis on individual economic and political freedoms and the development of individualism as an economic and political philosophy.
Islam
Adherents of Islam are referred to as Muslims. Muslims constitute a majority in more than 35 countries and inhabit a nearly contiguous stretch of land from the northwest coast of Africa, through the Middle East, to China and Malaysia in the Far East.
Islam has roots in both Judaism and Christianity. Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a monotheistic religion. The central principle of Islam is that there is but the one true omnipotent God. Islam requires unconditional acceptance of the uniqueness, power, and authority of God and the understanding that the objective of life is to fulfill the dictates of his will in the hope of admission to paradise. According to Islam, worldly gain and temporal power are an illusion. Those who pursue riches on earth may gain them, but those who forgo worldly ambitions to seek the favor of Allah may gain the greater treasure--entry into paradise.
Islam is an all-embracing way of life governing the totality of a Muslim's being.20 As God's surrogate in this world, a Muslim is not a totally free agent but is circumscribed by religious principles--by a code of conduct for interpersonal relations--in social and economic activities. Religion is paramount in all areas of life. The Muslim lives in a social structure that is shaped by Islamic values and norms of moral conduct. The ritual nature of everyday life in a Muslim country is striking to a Western visitor.
Islamic Fundamentalism
The past two decades have witnessed a surge in what is often referred to as "Islamic fundamentalism. In the West, Islamic fundamentalism is often associated in the media with militants, terrorists, and violent upheavals, such as the bloody conflict occurring in Algeria or the killing of foreign tourists in Egypt. This characterization is at best a half-truth. Just as "Christian fundamentalists" in the West are motivated by sincere and deeply held religious values firmly rooted in their faith, so are "Islamic fundamentalists." The violence that the Western media associates with Islamic fundamentalism is perpetrated by a very small minority of "fundamentalists" and explicitly repudiated by many.
The rise of fundamentalism has no one cause. In part it is a response to the social pressures created in traditional Islamic societies by the move toward modernization and by the influence of Western ideas, such as liberal democracy, materialism, equal rights for women, and by Western attitudes toward sex, marriage, and alcohol. In many Muslim countries, modernization has been accompanied by a growing gap between a rich urban minority and an impoverished urban and rural majority. For the impoverished majority, modernization has offered little in the way of tangible economic progress, while threatening the traditional value system. Thus, for a Muslim who cherishes his traditions and feels that his identity is jeopardized by the encroachment of alien Western values, Islamic fundamentalism has become a cultural anchor.
Fundamentalists demand a rigid commitment to traditional religious beliefs and rituals. The result has been a marked increase in the use of symbolic gestures that confirm Islamic values. Women are once again wearing floor-length, long-sleeved dresses and covering their hair; religious studies have increased in universities; the publication of religious tracts has increased; and more religious orations are heard in public.22 Also, the sentiments of some fundamentalist groups are increasingly anti-Western. Rightly or wrongly, Western influence is blamed for a whole range of social ills, and many fundamentalists' actions are directed against Western governments, cultural symbols, businesses, and even individuals.
Economic Implications of Islam
Given the Islamic proclivity to favor market-based systems, Muslim countries are likely to be receptive to international businesses so long as those businesses behave in a manner that is consistent with Islamic ethics. Businesses that are perceived as making an unjust profit through the exploitation of others, by deception, or by breaking contractual obligations are unlikely to be welcomed in an Islamic state. In addition, in Islamic states where fundamentalism is on the rise, it is likely that hostility to Western-owned business will increase.
One economic principle of Islam prohibits the payment or receipt of interest, which is considered usury. To the devout Muslim, acceptance of interest payments is seen as a very grave sin. Practitioners of the black art of usury are warned on the pain of hellfire to abstain; the giver and the taker are equally damned.
On the face of it, rigid adherence to this particular Islamic law could wreak havoc with a country's financial and banking system, raising the costs of doing business and scaring away international businesses and international investors. To skirt the ban on interest, Islamic banks have been experimenting with a profit-sharing system to replace interest on borrowed money. When an Islamic bank lends money to a business, rather than charging that business interest on the loan, it takes a share in the profits that are derived from the investment.
Hinduism
Hindus believe that there is a moral force in society that requires the acceptance of certain responsibilities, called dharma. Hindus believe in reincarnation, or rebirth into a different body after death. Hindus also believe in karma, the spiritual progression of each person's soul. A person's karma is affected by the way he or she lives. The moral state of an individual's karma determines the challenges they will face in their next life. By perfecting the soul in each new life, Hindus believe that an individual can eventually achieve nirvana, a state of complete spiritual perfection that renders reincarnation no longer necessary. Many Hindus believe that the way to achieve nirvana is to lead a severe ascetic lifestyle of material and physical self-denial, devoting life to a spiritual rather than material quest.
Economic Implications of Hinduism
Max Weber, who is famous for expounding on the Protestant work ethic, also argued that the ascetic principles embedded in Hinduism do not encourage the kind of entrepreneurial activity in pursuit of wealth creation that we find in Protestantism. According to Weber, traditional Hindu values emphasize that individuals should not be judged by their material achievements, but by their spiritual achievements. Indeed, Hindus perceive the pursuit of material well-being as making the attainment of nirvana more difficult. Given the emphasis on an ascetic lifestyle, Weber thought that devout Hindus would be less likely to engage in entrepreneurial activity than devout Protestants.
Mahatma Gandhi, the famous Indian nationalist and spiritual leader, was certainly the embodiment of Hindu asceticism. It has been argued that the values of Hindu asceticism and self-reliance that Gandhi advocated had a negative impact on the economic development of post-independence India.
Hinduism also supports India's caste system. The concept of mobility between castes within an individual's lifetime makes no sense to Hindus. Hindus see mobility between castes as something that is achieved through spiritual progression and reincarnation. An individual can be reborn into a higher caste in his next life if he achieves spiritual development in this life. In so far as the caste system limits individuals' opportunities to adopt positions of responsibility and influence in society, the economic consequences of this religious belief are bound to be negative.
Buddhism
Siddhartha achieved nirvana but decided to remain on Earth to teach his followers how they too could achieve this state of spiritual enlightenment. These desires can be curbed by systematically following the Noble Eightfold Path, which emphasizes right seeing, thinking, speech, action, living, effort, mindfulness, and meditation. Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism does not support the caste system. Nor does Buddhism advocate the kind of extreme ascetic behavior that is encouraged by Hinduism. Nevertheless, like Hindus, Buddhists stress the afterlife and spiritual achievement rather than involvement in this world.
Because Buddhists, like Hindus, stress spiritual achievement rather than involvement in this world, the emphasis on wealth creation that is embedded in Protestantism is not found in Buddhism.
Confucianism
Confucianism teaches the importance of attaining personal salvation through right action. Confucianism is built around a comprehensive ethical code that sets down guidelines for relationships with others. The need for high moral and ethical conduct and loyalty to others are central to Confucianism.
Economic Implications of Confucianism
There are those who maintain that Confucianism may have economic implications that are as profound as those found in Protestantism, although they are of a somewhat different nature. In this regard, three values central to the Confucian system of ethics are of particular interest--loyalty, reciprocal obligations, and honesty in dealings with others.
In Confucian thought, loyalty to one's superiors is regarded as a sacred duty--an absolute obligation that is necessary for religious salvation. In modern organizations based in Confucian cultures, the loyalty that binds employees to the heads of their organization can reduce the conflict between management and labor that we find in class-conscious societies such as Britain. Cooperation between management and labor can be achieved at a lower cost in a culture where the virtue of loyalty is emphasized in the value systems.
However, in a Confucian culture, loyalty to one's superiors, such as a worker's loyalty to management, is not blind loyalty. The concept of reciprocal obligations also comes into play.
Language
One of the most obvious ways in which countries differ is language. By language, we mean both the spoken and the unspoken means of communication. Language is one of the defining characteristics of a culture.
Unspoken Language
Unspoken language refers to nonverbal communication. We all communicate with each other by a host of nonverbal cues. A failure to understand the nonverbal cues of another culture can lead to a failure of communication.
Another aspect of nonverbal communication is personal space, which is the comfortable amount of distance between you and someone you are talking to. In the United States, the customary distance apart adopted by parties in a business discussion is five to eight feet. The result can be a regrettable lack of rapport between two businesspeople from different cultures.
Education
Formal education plays a key role in a society. Formal education is the medium through which individuals learn many of the language, conceptual, and mathematical skills that are indispensable in a modern society. Formal education also supplements  the family's role in socializing the young into the values and norms of a society. Values and norms are taught both directly and indirectly. Schools generally teach basic facts about the social and political nature of a society. They also focus on the fundamental obligations of citizenship. Cultural norms are also taught indirectly at school. Respect for others, obedience to authority, honesty, neatness, being on time, and so on, are all part of the "hidden curriculum" of schools. The use of a grading system also teaches children the value of personal achievement and competition.
From an international business perspective, perhaps one of the most important aspects of education is its role as a determinant of national competitive advantage. The availability of a pool of skilled and educated workers seems to be a major determinant of the likely economic success of a country.
Not only is a good education system a determinant of national competitive advantage, but it is also an important factor guiding the location choices of international businesses. It would make little sense to base production facilities that require highly skilled labor in a country where the education system was so poor that a skilled labor pool wasn't available.
The general education level of a country is also a good index of the kind of products that might sell in a country and of the type of promotional material that should be used.
Culture and the Workplace
Hofstede's Model
Hofstede's power distance dimension focused on how a society deals with the fact that people are unequal in physical and intellectual capabilities. According to Hofstede, high power distance cultures were found in countries that let inequalities grow over time into inequalities of power and wealth. Low power distance cultures were found in societies that tried to play down such inequalities as much as possible.
The individualism versus collectivism dimension focused on the relationship between the individual and his or her fellows. In individualistic societies, the ties between individuals were loose and individual achievement and freedom were highly valued. In societies where collectivism was emphasized, the ties between individuals were tight. In such societies, people were born into collectives, such as extended families, and everyone was supposed to look after the interest of his or her collective.
Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension measured the extent to which different cultures socialized their members into accepting ambiguous situations and tolerating uncertainty. Members of high uncertainty avoidance cultures placed a premium on job security, career patterns, retirement benefits, and so on. They also had a strong need for rules and regulations; the manager was expected to issue clear instructions, and subordinates' initiatives were tightly controlled. Lower uncertainty avoidance cultures were characterized by a greater readiness to take risks and less emotional resistance to change.
Hofstede's masculinity versus femininity dimension looked at the relationship between gender and work roles. In masculine cultures, sex roles were sharply differentiated and traditional "masculine values," such as achievement and the effective exercise of power, determined cultural ideals. In feminine cultures, sex roles were less sharply distinguished, and little differentiation was made between men and women in the same job.
Evaluating Hofstede's Model
Hofstede's results are interesting for what they tell us in a general way about differences between cultures. Many of Hofstede's findings are consistent with standard Western stereotypes about cultural differences. For example, many people believe
However, one should be careful about reading too much into Hofstede's research. It is deficient in a number of important respects.36 First, Hofstede assumes there is a one-to-one correspondence between culture and the nation-state, but as we saw earlier, many countries have more than one culture. Hofstede's results do not capture this distinction. Second, the research may have been culturally bound. The research team was composed of Europeans and Americans. The questions they asked of IBM employees and their analysis of the answers may have been shaped by their own cultural biases and concerns. So it is not surprising that Hofstede's results confirm Western stereotypes, since it was Westerners who undertook the research!
Cultural Change
Culture is not a constant; it evolves over time. Changes in value systems can be slow and painful for a society.
The culture of societies may also change as they become richer because economic progress affects a number of other factors, which in turn impact on culture. For example, increased urbanization and improvements in the quality and availability of education are both a function of economic progress, and both can lead to declining emphasis on the traditional values associated with poor rural societies.
As for globalization, some have argued that advances in transportation and communications technologies, the dramatic increase in trade that we have witnessed.

Tidak ada komentar:

Posting Komentar