International business rugman collinson pdf

English is widely accepted as the language of business; many global institutions and companies have adopted English as their official language. Moreover, a reliance on English by British and American managers, and a lack of other language skills, can weaken their ability to empathize with and adapt to other cultures.

Religion, linked to both regional characteristics and language, also influences business culture through a set of shared core values. Protestants hold strong beliefs about the value of delayed gratification, saving, and investment. There are parallels with the Confucian and Shinto work ethics, which also view spiritual rewards as tied to hard work and commitment to the fruits of industry.

At the most general level culture can refer simply to the lifestyle and behavior of a given Corporate culture group of people, so corporate culture is a term used to characterize how the managers and The shared values, traditions, customs, philosophy, and employees of particular companies tend to behave.

But the term is also used by human re- policies of a corporation; source managers and senior management in their attempts to proactively shape the kind of also, the professional behavior innovative, open, dynamic, etc. Pro- atmosphere that grows from this and affects moting a distinctive corporate culture is also expected to enhance the sense of community behavior and performance and shared identity that underpins effective organizations.

Within individual firms, for example, managers from a foreign parent company need to understand that local employees from the host country may require different organization structures and HRM procedures. Cross-border joint ventures, alliances, or buyer—supplier rela- tionships between two or more firms also require a cultural compromise. Finally, for firms to sell successfully to foreign customers requires culturally sensitive adaptations to prod- ucts, services, marketing, and advertising.

Figure 5. This influences how well multicultural workplaces operate at all levels, from strategy setting at the senior level to plant-floor operations. Firms also tend to have different organizational and decision-making practices depending on where they have evolved and which cultures and subcultures they encompass.

Finally, culture influences the behavior and preferences of clients and customers. To sell successfully in a foreign market, a manager needs to adapt his or her product or service to meet the different needs of that particular group of customers. Any alteration in advertising, marketing, product or service features, after-sales support, technical back-up, documentation, etc.

Failure to do this ends in the kinds of marketing mistakes and communication blunders that become marketing folklore. This reinforces the above point about the importance of language, but also demonstrates how some of the largest and most experi- enced companies do not appear to do the most basic cultural due diligence their home- work!

The chapter on marketing strategy in this book examines these kinds of issues more closely. Across all of the business contexts in Figure 5. The challenge lies in recognizing differences, combining the advantages that stem from different styles and approaches, adjusting and adapting to succeed with different people, in different partnerships, and in different markets. Then compare your answer to the one below. The definition of culture itself gives some indicators of the kinds of differences that matter.

Organizations from different countries will have developed different beliefs, values, and patterns of behavior based on their underlying national culture. A wide range of differences could be important, including attitudes toward work and workplace practices, management—labor relations, the decision-making hierarchy, and division of responsibilities.

Differences in the language, values, and preferences of customers in different countries also need to be taken into account. Culture has always been important Cultural convergence Despite the various patterns and processes of globalization, cultural differences still remain The growing similarity important.

Even with greater common access, via various media and the Internet, to the between national cultures, including the beliefs, same brands, rock icons, and sports stars, differences remain. Not a bad deal for children, support. It was not only the French, however; in the s but still a cultural effect from a foreign multinational.

Traditional lifestyles, critics say, are being tea culture. The company advertises itself to its critics as a born in the United States. Just hours after the United States global company owned and run by local people. Indeed, both Canada and the making fun of US eating habits. The tions.

If they want, their everyday survival. In the United States, the firm is customers can order a beer from the menu. The Indian Big Mac is made A set of healthier options has now been introduced in of lamb. Moreover, because of globalization more and more firms are coming head to head with the added complexity of doing business globally, which stems from the huge amount of variety in the world that still exists and arguably will always exist.

Before moving on to examine some typologies of global cultures, here is a word of warning. Much of this section will describe how various kinds of individual and group behavior can be linked to specific cultural groups and associate these cultural dispositions with different business styles and company structures. Acting on the basis of cultural stereotypes is highly sensitive and can be problematic.

For example, at the simplest level a banker may be able to prove empirically that Pakistanis are more successful than Jamaicans at starting and running small businesses around the world. Using this insight as the basis for discriminating against Jamaicans wanting bank loans for business start-ups is not only unethical, but in most countries falls foul of race discrimination laws.

People who are born in, or grew up in, the same country tend to share similar cultural characteristics. Nationality and culture tend to coincide, although nations encompass a wide variety of institutions, religions, beliefs, and patterns of behavior, and distinctive subcultures can always be found within individual countries.

The only way to make sense of this wide diversity is to characterize distinct cultural groups through simplified national stereotypes.

Many studies have attempted to create these stereotypes by mapping and comparing the shared characteristics of managers and employees in different countries. The following describes the milestone studies of this kind in the management field.

The cultural relativity of organizational practices and theories, Journal of International Business Studies, Fall, p. Getting answers to 32 statements from over , questionnaires, he mapped key cultural characteristics of these countries according to four value dimensions: Power distance 1 Power distance is the extent to which a culture accepts that power in organizations is A cultural dimension that distributed unequally. High power distance equates with steep organizational hierarchies, measures the degree to which less powerful with more autocratic leadership and less employee participation in decision making see members of organizations Figure 5.

High uncertainty avoidance Japan, Argentina, France will be Uncertainty avoidance reflected in the high priority placed on rituals, routines, and procedures in organizations The extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous and society in general. Countries with low uncertainty avoidance Denmark, UK, India, situations and have created US tend to emphasize flexibility and informality rather than bureaucracy.

Individualism 4 Masculinity is the value attributed to achievement, assertiveness, and material success The tendency of people to look after themselves and Japan, Mexico, Germany, UK as opposed to the stereotypical feminine values of their immediate family only relationships, modesty, caring, and the quality of life Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark , Masculinity according to Hofstede.

The degree to which the dominant values of a society Figure 5. It reflects some general material things stereotypes of the countries included, with clear grouping of Australia, UK and US as highly individualistic and less hierarchical small power distance cultures against Mexico, Thailand, and Panama at the other extreme.

We will elaborate on these definitions and their practical interpretation throughout this chapter. However, his studies have come in for significant criticism, despite widespread adoption of the four-dimensional framework. Three common criti- cisms are: 1 that the dimensions developed from data collected between and were relevant only for that particular period; 2 that corporate cultural and other influ- ences from this one-organization IBM study created significant bias; 3 that the sole use of attitude-survey questionnaires was not a valid basis for the resulting values and dimen- sions his study concluded with.

The key to understanding this mapping involved approach is to identify where each country or culture is positioned relative to others on one Particularism or more of these dimensions. Judging a situation and adjusting rules and Relative positioning gives insights into the kinds of conflicts, misunderstandings, and procedures according to organizational and management problems that are likely to arise when individuals, groups, the specific situation or individuals involved or firms from these countries interact in any of the ways described above.

Collectivism 1 Universalism versus particularism. In universalistic cultures rules and regulations are The tendency of people to applied in all situations, regardless of particular conditions or circumstances.

The example belong to groups who look used by Trompenaars refers to a salesman who does not fulfill his monthly sales quota be- after each other in exchange for loyalty cause he was looking after his sick son. Should he be penalized according to standard com- Neutral pany regulations or should he be excused because of the particular circumstances?

Australia and the UK are also toward this end of the scale. Korea, Russia, and China are the most particularist of countries. Note that the workplace some of the countries studied by Hofstede, like the strongly particularist Yugoslavia, no Emotional An acceptance of emotion longer exist. This dimension, clearly building on Hofstede, centers bases for some decision making and a preference on whether individual rights and values are dominant or subordinate to those of the col- for explicit displays of lective society.

Specific A tendency to limit work- 3 Neutral versus emotional. This reflects how much emotions are displayed in the work- place relationships and place. More importantly it indicates whether emotional or subjective rather than objec- obligations, including rela- tive status and hierarchical tive forms of assessment are thought to be the basis for good decision making in position, to the workplace organizations.

Some organizations emphasize reports, data, and analytical decision Diffuse making by managers, whereas others feel that opinions, intuition, and gut feelings are A tendency for workplace credible or valid criteria. Predictably the most emotional countries include Italy and relationships and obliga- tions, including relative France and the least emotional groups in the workplace at least are the Japanese, status and hierarchical Germans, Swiss, Chinese, and Indonesians.

Clearly Australian bosses are likely to get a characteristically blunt answer to this request! China, Japan, India, and Singapore display highly diffuse rela- tionships, Australia and the Netherlands the most specific. Achievement oriented 5 Achievement versus ascription. Where status is more of a right than earned; recruit- 6 Attitudes toward time. Sequential time as a sequence of events versus synchronic ment and promotion several events juggled at the same time views of time tend to relate to punctuality for opportunities tend to be meetings and deadlines.

Swedes and other northern European cultures tend to be punctual more dependent on seniority, ethnicity, gender, religion, and plan according to specific timetables. Many southern European, Latin American, and or birth Arabic cultures see punctuality and chronological precision as far less important. They Sequential also tend to naturally cope with a range of issues simultaneously, rather than one by one. Cultures that view time in a sequential or linear fashion; 7 Attitudes toward the environment.

On the activities and commitments one hand some cultures emphasize control and subjugation of environmental forces, Synchronic whereas others emphasize the need to work with nature, in harmony with the environment. Cultures that view events in parallel over time; order Clearly religious and philosophical differences around the world influence differences comes from coordinating within this dimension.

In general they indicate the organiza- tional characteristics we can expect from firms based in particular countries or dominated by certain nationalities. They are also used to measure changes in cultural values and behavior over time. Research shows that in both Japan and China, for example, achieve- ment orientation is on the increase alongside some elements of individualism. In China there is a shift in companies toward performance-related rewards and individual initiative, built on the changing views of the growing urban elite.

But there are also wider concerns regarding the social costs as well as the benefits of self-interest. It has involved researchers collecting data on cultural values and management and leadership attributes from 18, managers across 62 countries in the telecommunications, food, and banking industries.

A propensity for planning, investing, delayed gratification: Singa- pore, Switzerland, and the Netherlands are high; Russia, Argentina, and Italy are low. A reliance on societal norms and procedures to improve pre- dictability, a preference for order, structure, and formality: Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany are high; Russia, Bolivia, and Greece are low. A pride in small-group membership, family, close friends, etc.

Humane orientation 9. Humane orientation. An emphasis on fairness, altruism, and generosity: Ireland, Cultures that emphasize Malaysia, and Egypt are high; Germany, Spain, France, Singapore, and Brazil are low. About the Author s. Previous editions. International Business. Relevant courses. Next editions. Sign In We're sorry! Username Password Forgot your username or password? Sign Up Already have an access code? Instructor resource file download The work is protected by local and international copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their courses and assessing student learning.

Rugman and Simon Collinson define emerging markets as. Rugman, L. Sign Up Already have an access code? Taking a regional approach, this text challenges some of the underlying assumptions behind globalization and focuses on both internagional dominant economies the EU, the US Dima Sokol rated it it was amazing Dec 09, My internwtional Help Advanced Book Search. You have selected an online exam copy, you will be re-directed to the VitalSource website where you can complete your request.

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Collinsson you have a separate IRC account, please log in using that login name and password. Taking a internatinal approach, this text challenges some of the underlying assumptions behind globalization and focuses on both the dominant economies the EU, the US and Japan as well as emerging markets in world trade, such as Brazil, India and China.

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