Summary study book International business of Radha Jethu-Ramsoedh, Maud Hendrickx - ISBN: 9789001805036, Edition: 1, Year of publication: 2011 (Finished with an 8)
Chapter 3:Culture
§3.1 What is culture?
Doing international business means that you have to deal with different people with other standards
of live, norms, and customs. Sometime we think people are strange, because the act different then
us, but different is not strange.
Culture affects:
The way in which we live
The way in which we think
The way in which we organize ourselves
The way in which we communicate
The way in which we observe
Culture is a complex system of norms and values, and it has developed over hundreds of years and
from generation to generation. So it is how people think and act. In figure 3.1 on page 69 is shown
which three levels of mental programming there are. Geert Hofstede describe culture as the
collective mental programming that separates members f a group or category from another.
Layers of a culture
According to Hofstede, culture can look like an onion, the outer part is visible, the rest isn't. See
figure 3.2 at page 69. The onion exists of:
1. Symbols
This are the parts that could be observed, like the way of breakfast. It are words, gestures or objects
with a meaning understood in the culture.
2. Heroes
This are the people, alive or death, real or fictive who have a high status in the culture.
3. Rituals
This are symbolic actions that will be done be every generation on the same way. This good be
church services or the way of greeting.
4. Values
At the core of the onion are the values which we are the most deeply attached, and related to
feelings and they engender (veroorzaken) a collective tendency to favour a certain course of fairs
above another.
In Europe every countries have different values, like having children or the religion.
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