Discuss how the study of comparative culture may be of value to international business? Illustrate your answer with example.
INTRODUCTION
" Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster." Prof. Geert Hofstede, Emeritus Professor, Maastricht University...
Culture can be defined as “the way of life of a people.” (Elvin Hatch 1985, 178). Apart from that culture means what belongs to someone, how they think, and they live in a society. All the verbs (have, think, and do) can help us identify the main structural component of the concept of culture performance. When a person is thinking, there is have the ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs. Next it will motivate them to act in certain ways in the situation and the social life set. In short, culture is comprised of the object material, ideas, values, and attitudes, and normative, or expected, patterns of behavior.
Culture is a learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of symbols whose meaning provides, a set of orientations for membersof a society. These orientations, taken together, provide solutions to problems that all societies must solve if hey are to remain viable.
As we all know business world for today's is no longer limited by the national boundaries at some country. It seems clearly that if the business organization have desire to survive and remain successful in the international environment they need to have a global perspective. Global perspective that includes extensive use of technology in business. Meanwhile there is have culture. So the technology changes also apart of changes in culture. Clearly, culture play the important role in business enviroment, either impro...
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...day life. So it is same goes to the company which is involved in business activity towards the working element such as in investment, consumption, the opening and closing hours business, days off, holidays, ceremonies, foods. The example of country which synonym with the religion belief on their daily business is Arab. Islam is the primary religion in Arab which influences the ceremony social days, also Arabian business etiquette. Besides, drinking the alcohol, eating pork/ shellfish/ and bird is not allowed in Arab. Others Arab business etiqutte is if you want to do business in Bahrain, ethics should be simple such as sweet smiles and eye contact in the conversation session. So I am believe that if the enterpreneur in business activities knowing proper about sensitvity of their potential clients it can be as the bonus to them success in their business transaction.
Culture by definition is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices, as well as customary beliefs, social forms and material traits that characterize a racial, religious or ...
Culture is a very broad concept, including the beliefs, values, and lifestyles of people. It is an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior. It is also the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.
Understanding the business side and the country culture can help build a better understanding of how the business should come into the company and how the business should operate and viewed by members of the community. According to Professor Hofstede, “Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy.
As means of understanding the concept of culture, we must first know what culture is and its components because culture is a broad subject which is defined in different ways. Culture is expressed in so many ways, some of these are our gestures, our beliefs that we abide by and our custom. In the field of the social sciences, culture is a broad subject that is explained something that is primarily in your life, meaning it is what you’re made of from the beginning. According to the search engine Bing, “Culture is the shared beliefs and values of a group; the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behavior of a particular nation or people.
Culture refers to the behaviors and interactions of a people and the representative structures in which give such behavior meaning. Human nature, history, and environment have impacted and resulted in the many differences and similarities amongst the various cultures that exist today. A culture is inclusive of shared language or system of communication, beliefs, values, customs, and artifacts. Such facets of human nature direct and influence our actions, thoughts, and forms of expression; as well as divide a people and distinguish groups of different cultures due to the dynamic nature of humans.
Culture is a set of beliefs and patterns of behaviors that are shared by the members of a specific group. These values can be reinforced or expressed through stories, songs, art, and rituals. A language is an important tool for preserving culture.
The differences in other cultures vary from beliefs to ways of life, or norms, of the different societies. The importance of understanding and sensitivity to other countries’ differences is crucial to a business’ success. “Lack of familiarity with the business practices, social customs, and etiquette of a country can weaken a co...
Cultural conflict on the other hand is something that is inevitable. It can also be described as something that puts some people apart from others. With this idea in mind, this can cause some conflict among many people. This can be contributed to behavior between cultures that relates back to overall values. These values are “the guiding principles
Culture of a society represents the customary beliefs, values, and social constraints that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation. Culture includes all the common characteristics to the member of a particular group or society. It is through culture that a particular group define themselves, conforms to society’s shared values, and contributes to the society. Culture incorporates all the societal aspects which include language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules, policies, tool, technologies, products, associations, organizations, and institutions.
Culture can be defined as “A pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore to be taught to the new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Schein (1988)
What is culture? Culture is identity; it’s the indigenous or non-indigenous ideology, habits, customs, appearances and beliefs that people are either raised by or adapt to from different nations surrounding. It is a network of knowledge shared by a group of people. Culture consists of configurations, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior obtained and spread by symbols establishing the distinctive achievement of human groups including their embodiments in artifacts; the vital core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values. Culture systems may, on one hand, be considered as products of action, and on the other, as conditioning influences upon further action.
As a result, culture plays a vital role in expanding international business with its impacts from general strategic direction to details like logo.
Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people…Culture in its broadest sense of cultivated behavior; a totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning (http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html).
Culture can be present in any group, large or small. There are no special skills required to form a culture, all that is needed are the thoughts and ideas of the social group’s members. These provide a meaning to the people inside the culture and provide something to study for those outside the culture who wish to better understand it.
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.