Learning objectives:
Students are able to indicate how business and culture are related.
Students demonstrate knowledge of different cultural theories and the connection to doing
business.
Students show understanding of the concept of reconciling dilemmas in working with different
cultures.
Students show awareness of what can be expected from organisational cultures when working in
national and international contexts.
Students show understanding of methods for how to study and explore cultures.
Students have the ability to present about theory and practices in cultural awareness.
Students have acquired sensitivity for acting professionally in cross-cultural situations.
Introduction
diverse definitions of culture
Topical Culture consist of everything on a list of topics, or categories, such as social
organisation, religion and economy.
Historical Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed on to future generations.
Behavioural Culture is shared, learned human behaviour; a way of life.
Normative Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living.
Functional Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to the environment or
living together.
Mental Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that inhibit impulses and
distinguish people from animals.
Structural Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas, symbols or behaviours.
Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are shared by a society.
Culture operates in three levels
1. Artefacts and attitudes
2. Norms and values
3. Basic assumptions
Giving dimensions to culture
Six cultural orientations
1. The nature of people
2. The relationship to nature
3. The relationship to other people
4. The modality of human activity (doing and being)
5. The temporal focus of human activity (future, past, present)
6. The concept of space (private / public)
,Chapter 1 Determinants of culture
Learning outcomes:
o The concept of culture and the role of norms and values in determining culture.
o The relationship between culture, organisations and management.
o The concept of culture at various levels, both national and organizational.
o The role of ethnography in organizational research
Preface
There are different levels of culture and different methods used to explore and measure culture.
Culture as organizational metaphor
Organizational culture can also be explored through metaphor.
Metaphor : Etymologically, the meaning of the term derives from Greek – (to) transfer or
carry over.
a part of the human conceptual system; its function at the semantic (linguistic) and
cognitive level.
Time is money metaphor in the Western world.
Metaphor Features; applications Value Weaknesses
Culture National cultures; corporate Quest for Underplays role of
cultures and subcultures; meaning meaning fragmentation, ambiguity
systems; shared beliefs and values, and complexity of cultural
norms and rule; enacting shared dynamics; leads to
realities; organizational change; mechanistic culture
corporate culture writers management.
Organism Open system; changeable; Natural Ascribes agency to the
adaption; relationship with selection environment; ignores the
environment; organizational role of conflict.
needs; good fit; human relations
approach; contingency thinking.
Brain Self-organization and creative Learning Overlooks realities of power
action; double-loop learning; and control; overlooks role
learning throughout the of inertia as based on
organization; holographic; existing beliefs.
decision-making; cybernetics;
learning organization.
Political Limited resources; conflicting Distribution of Can generate cynicism and
system interests; distribution of power; power mistrust; pursuit of personal
wheeling and dealing; negotiations; interest; can overstate
analyzing of power and conflict; power of individuals.
sources of power.
,When apply this conceptual from to organization not only facilitate insight but also create new
meanings and offer new perspectives.
1.1 Facets of culture
Society : an organized group of individuals who share functional relations.
Defines its own norms and the ways in which they are realized.
are organized politically into nations, but within national unity subcultures may exist with
specific cultural characteristics.
These groups use the society in which they are embedded as their framework of references, and
share their nationality, language and institutions, while being delineated by their socio-
economic, historic or geographic characteristics.
The complexity of present-day societies is increasing the roles for an individual and is, at the same
time, diversifying the ways these roles can be interpreted.
roles are determined by culture
What does culture really mean?
Culture: the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one
human group for another.
Includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture. (Hofstede)
Norms and Values
Each culture can be seen as having three layers:
1. Behavioural
The language, the food, the architecture, the houses, the buildings etc. Communication style,
body language, facial expressions.
2. Norms and values
Every culture has its own system of norms and values. Together they form the national
characteristics of a culture, and act as its framework of reference.
Norms: rules of a society, determining what is good or bad with regard to behaviour, the
written and unwritten rules of a society.
Values: what is considered important or unimportant, beautiful or not beautiful, right or
wrong.
3. Assumptions and beliefs
The most inner layer, and which lies at the core of ‘’culture’’. Difficult to describe or explain.
, Four categories in which norms and values have developed in the society:
1. Traditional society, in which religion plays an important role, large families are encouraged,
conformity is rewarded and individualism rejected. This is, for example, the case in many
Arab countries.
2. Rational society, in which the interests of the individual come first, birth control is
encouraged and the authority of the state is recognized. Germany is a typical example.
3. A society in which survival is the primary concern, where the people are not happy and
rather intolerant, where equality between the sexes has little chance, where materialism is
predominant. This is often the situation in ex-communist countries.
4. Post-modern society, tolerant and democratic, such as those in Scandinavia and the
Netherlands.
Politics and norms and values
The influence of politics and values is obvious when it comes to bringing global unity to humanitarian
norms and values.
formally laid down in the ‘’Universal Declaration of Human Rights’’
In a number of countries also in
education, dress, manners and many other aspects of daily life.
There are degrees of acceptance with regard to what politicians in each country may or may not do;
what constitutes a scandal – and what does not.
Cultural assumptions in management
The third layer of culture: assumptions (Schein)
Culture: a set of basic assumptions – shared solutions to universal problems of external
adaptation (how to survive) and internal integration (how to stay together) – which have evolved
over time and are handed down from one generation to the next. (Schein)
Management in a international context
take account of the norms and values of the specific culture
and its cultural assumptions
