Culture and Business
Read this chapter for an overview of how cultural understanding applies to business negotiations. For example, you will learn how a message is communicated in high- and low-context cultures. In high-context cultures, body language is as important and sometimes more important than actual words spoken. In low-context cultures, people tend to be explicit and direct in their communications. Verbal language and body language can impact our chances of understanding and being understood in a positive or negative way.
What Is Culture, Anyhow? Values, Customs, and Language
Learning Objectives
- Understand what is meant by culture.
- Know that there are different kinds of culture.
- Identify several different kinds of culture.
As
the opening case about Dunkin' Brands illustrates, local preferences,
habits, values, and culture impact all aspects of doing business in a
country. But what exactly do we mean by culture? Culture is different
from personality. For our purposes here, let's define personality as a
person's identity and unique physical, mental, emotional, and social
characteristics. No doubt
one of the highest hurdles to cross-cultural understanding and effective
relationships is our frequent inability to decipher the influence of
culture from that of personality. Once we become culturally literate, we
can more easily read individual personalities and their effect on our
relationships.
So, What Is Culture, Anyway?
Culture
in today's context is different from the traditional, more singular
definition, used particularly in Western languages, where the word often
implies refinement. Culture is the beliefs, values, mind-sets, and
practices of a group of people. It includes the behavior pattern and
norms of that group - the rules, the assumptions, the perceptions, and
the logic and reasoning that are specific to a group. In essence, each
of us is raised in a belief system that influences our individual
perspectives to such a large degree that we can't always account for, or
even comprehend, its influence. We're like other members of our culture
- we've come to share a common idea of what's appropriate and
inappropriate.
Culture
is really the collective programming of our minds from birth. It's this
collective programming that distinguishes one group of people from
another. Much of the problem in any cross-cultural interaction stems
from our expectations. The challenge is that whenever we deal with
people from another culture - whether in our own country or globally -
we expect people to behave as we do and for the same reasons. Culture
awareness most commonly refers to having an understanding of another
culture's values and perspective. This does not mean automatic
acceptance; it simply means understanding another culture's mind-set and
how its history, economy, and society have impacted what people think.
Understanding so you can properly interpret someone's words and actions
means you can effectively interact with them.
When
talking about culture, it's important to understand that there really
are no rights or wrongs. People's value systems and reasoning are based
on the teachings and experiences of their culture. Rights and wrongs
then really become perceptions. Cross-cultural understanding requires
that we reorient our mind-set and, most importantly, our expectations,
in order to interpret the gestures, attitudes, and statements of the
people we encounter. We reorient our mind-set, but we don't necessarily
change it.
There
are a number of factors that constitute a culture - manners, mind-set,
rituals, laws, ideas, and language, to name a few. To truly understand
culture, you need to go beyond the lists of dos and don'ts, although
those are important too. You need to understand what makes people tick
and how, as a group, they have been influenced over time by historical,
political, and social issues. Understanding the "why" behind culture is
essential.
When
trying to understand how cultures evolve, we look at the factors that
help determine cultures and their values. In general, a value is defined
as something that we prefer over something else - whether it's a
behavior or a tangible item. Values are usually acquired early in life
and are often nonrational - although we may believe that ours are
actually quite rational. Our values are the key building blocks of our
cultural orientation.
Odds
are that each of us has been raised with a considerably different set
of values from those of our colleagues and counterparts around the
world. Exposure to a new culture may take all you've ever learned about
what's good and bad, just and unjust, and beautiful and ugly and stand
it on its head.
Human
nature is such that we see the world through our own cultural shades.
Tucked in between the lines of our cultural laws is an unconscious bias
that inhibits us from viewing other cultures objectively. Our judgments
of people from other cultures will always be colored by the frame of
reference we've been taught. As we look at our own habits and
perceptions, we need to think about the experiences that have blended
together to impact our cultural frame of reference.
In
coming to terms with cultural differences, we tend to employ
generalizations. This isn't necessarily bad. Generalizations can save us
from sinking into what may be abstruse, esoteric aspects of a culture.
However, recognize that cultures and values are not static entities.
They're constantly evolving - merging, interacting, drawing apart, and
reforming. Around the world, values and cultures are evolving from
generation to generation as people are influenced by things outside
their culture. In modern times, media and technology have probably
single-handedly impacted cultures the most in the shortest time period -
giving people around the world instant glimpses into other cultures,
for better or for worse. Recognizing this fluidity will help you avoid
getting caught in outdated generalizations. It will also enable you to
interpret local cues and customs and to better understand local
cultures.
Understanding
what we mean by culture and what the components of culture are will
help us better interpret the impact on business at both the macro and
micro levels. Confucius had this to say about cultural crossings: "Human
beings draw close to one another by their common nature, but habits and
customs keep them apart".
What Kinds of Culture Are There?
Political,
economic, and social philosophies all impact the way people's values
are shaped. Our cultural base of reference - formed by our education,
religion, or social structure - also impacts business interactions in
critical ways. As we study cultures, it is very important to remember
that all cultures are constantly evolving. When we say "cultural," we
don't always just mean people from different countries. Every group of
people has its own unique culture - that is, its own way of thinking,
values, beliefs, and mind-sets. For our purposes in this chapter, we'll
focus on national and ethnic cultures, although there are subcultures
within a country or ethnic group.
Precisely
where a culture begins and ends can be murky. Some cultures fall within
geographic boundaries; others, of course, overlap. Cultures within one
border can turn up within other geographic boundaries looking
dramatically different or pretty much the same. For example, Indians in
India or Americans in the United States may communicate and interact
differently from their countrymen who have been living outside their
respective home countries for a few years.
The
countries of the Indian subcontinent, for example, have close
similarities. And cultures within one political border can turn up
within other political boundaries looking pretty much the same, such as
the Chinese culture in China and the overseas Chinese culture in
countries around the world. We often think that cultures are defined by
the country or nation, but that can be misleading because there are
different cultural groups (as depicted in the preceding figure). These
groups include nationalities; subcultures (gender, ethnicities,
religions, generations, and even socioeconomic class); and
organizations, including the workplace.
Nationalities
A
national culture is - as it sounds - defined by its geographic and
political boundaries and includes even regional cultures within a nation
as well as among several neighboring countries. What is important about
nations is that boundaries have changed throughout history. These
changes in what territory makes up a country and what the country is
named impact the culture of each country.
In
the past century alone, we have seen many changes as new nations
emerged from the gradual dismantling of the British and Dutch empires at
the turn of the 1900s. For example, today the physical territories that
constitute the countries of India and Indonesia are far different than
they were a hundred years ago. While it's easy to forget that the
British ran India for two hundred years and that the Dutch ran Indonesia
for more than one hundred and fifty years, what is clearer is the
impact of the British and the Dutch on the respective bureaucracies and
business environments. The British and the Dutch were well known for
establishing large government bureaucracies in the countries they
controlled. Unlike the British colonial rulers in India, the Dutch did
little to develop Indonesia's infrastructure, civil service, or
educational system. The British, on the other hand, tended to hire
locals for administrative positions, thereby establishing a strong and
well-educated Indian bureaucracy. Even though many businesspeople today
complain that this Indian bureaucracy is too slow and focused on rules
and regulations, the government infrastructure and English-language
education system laid out by the British helped position India for its
emergence as a strong high-tech economy.
Even
within a national culture, there are often distinct regional cultures -
the United States is a great example of diverse and distinct cultures
all living within the same physical borders. In the United States,
there's a national culture embodied in the symbolic concept of
"all-American" values and traits, but there are also other cultures
based on geographically different regions - the South, Southwest, West
Coast, East Coast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest.
Subcultures
Many groups are defined by ethnicity, gender, generation, religion, or other characteristics with cultures that are unique to them. For example, the ethnic Chinese business community has a distinctive culture even though it may include Chinese businesspeople in several countries. This is particularly evident throughout Asia, as many people often refer to Chinese businesses as making up a single business community. The overseas Chinese business community tends to support one another and forge business bonds whether they are from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, or other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries. This group is perceived differently than Chinese from mainland China or Taiwan. Their common experience being a minority ethnic community with strong business interests has led to a shared understanding of how to quietly operate large businesses in countries. Just as in mainland China, guanxi, or "connections," are essential to admission into this overseas Chinese business network. But once in the network, the Chinese tend to prefer doing business with one another and offer preferential pricing and other business services.
Organizations
Every
organization has its own workplace culture, referred to as the
organizational culture. This defines simple aspects such as how people
dress (casual or formal), how they perceive and value employees, or how
they make decisions (as a group or by the manager alone). When we talk
about an entrepreneurial culture in a company, it might imply that the
company encourages people to think creatively and respond to new ideas
fairly quickly without a long internal approval process. One of the
issues managers often have to consider when operating with colleagues,
employees, or customers in other countries is how the local country's
culture will blend or contrast with the company's culture.
For
example, Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have distinct business
cultures that are influenced both by their industries and by the types
of technology-savvy employees that they hire, as well as by the
personalities of their founders. When these firms operate in a country,
they have to assess how new employees will fit their respective
corporate cultures, which usually emphasize creativity, innovation,
teamwork balanced with individual accomplishment, and a keen sense of
privacy. Their global employees may appear relaxed in casual work
clothes, but underneath there is often a fierce competitiveness. So how
do these companies effectively hire in countries like Japan, where
teamwork and following rules are more important than seeking new ways of
doing things? This is an ongoing challenge that human resources (HR)
departments continually seek to address.
Key Takeaways
- Culture is the beliefs, values, mind-sets, and practices of a specific group of people. It includes the behavior pattern and norms of a specific group - the rules, the assumptions, the perceptions, and the logic and reasoning that are specific to a group. Culture is really the collective programming of our minds from birth. It's this collective programming that distinguishes one group of people from another. Cultural awareness most commonly refers to having an understanding of another culture's values and perspective.
- When trying to understand how cultures evolve, we look at the factors that help determine cultures and their values. In general, a value is defined as something that we prefer over something else - whether it's a behavior or a tangible item. Values are usually acquired early in life and are usually nonrational. Our values are the key building blocks of our cultural orientation.
- When we say cultural, we don't always just mean people from different countries. Cultures exist in all types of groups. There are even subcultures within a country or target ethnic group. Each person belongs to several kinds of cultures: national, subcultural (regional, gender, ethnic, religious, generational, and socioeconomic), and group or workplace (corporate culture).
Exercises
(AACSB: Reflective Thinking, Analytical Skills)
- What is culture?
- What are the different levels or types of cultures?
- Identify your national culture and describe the subcultures within it.