...editor for Academia Press (college-level business textbook publisher) has arrived from New York, USA to Bogota, Colombia. He was intended to combine leisure and business. He met his old college friend Rodrigo Cardozo and spent some good time his family. But his primary aim was to conduct a series of meetings with directors of business schools at various Bogota Universities and establish business contacts in the Colombian market, as his company has seen future opportunities in Latin America. The deal was important not only to his company, but for him also, as it was a good possibility to get a promotion. He scheduled the meeting and went for the first one on Tuesday. He was supposed to meet 3 professors at 11:00, but two of them arrived half an hour later. Then they offered Jim to go for a lunch, during that time they were not discussing the business matters at all, all the conversations were about the dishes and the sights of Bogota, the professors seem to be simply not interested in Jim’s offerings. The lunch finished at 2:30, but Jim hasn’t accomplished his goal at all, he was didn’t understand what went wrong and very upset about it. When he came to his friend’s home later, he met friend’s father Dario, who was a businessman and had conducted business with people from different countries. He told about the meeting and asked for the advice. Dario reminded that Jim is Bogota now, not in the USA and the way of negotiations and doing business is simply different. First of all it is...
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...Hofstede Analysis of Italy, Germany, France and USA 1. Dimensions of Management Culture Comparison Chart |Dimension |Italy |Germany |France |USA | |PDI |50 |35 |68 |40 | |IDV |76 |67 |71 |91 | |MAS |70 |66 |43 |62 | |UAI |75 |65 |86 |46 | |LTO |61 |83 |63 |26 | 2. Analysis of Section I Results Question 1. How do the dimensions of management culture of the 3 foreign nations differ from each other? There are varying variances between the different countries, Germany was well below Italy and France on Power Distance, indicating that “Germany is not surprisingly among the lower power distant countries…control is disliked and leadership is challenged to show expertise and best accepted when it’s based on it” (Hofstede Centre). However...
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...HOW TO DEAL WITH CROSS CULTURAL PROBLEMS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEGOTIATION. EMEM UDOBONG* ABSTRACT: Businesses all over the world today are extending their frontiers beyond domestic markets. In this global business environment, cross cultural negotiation becomes a common field of research. This is primarily due to the fact that the negotiating parties are often from different countries, with different cultural values and beliefs which they usually bring with them to the negotiating table. What is communicated, how it is communicated, how people think and behave during negotiations can differ across cultures. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of culture on negotiation and suggest ways to deal with cross cultural problems in international business negotiations. An analytical approach is applied in this research. The conclusion reached is that effective international negotiators need to know not only the fundamentals of negotiation, but also how culture can influence the negotiator’s behavior and the negotiation agreement. Understanding, accepting and respecting the cultural values of the other parties is very important as it will lead to a more successful outcome. * The Author is a legal practitioner and holds an LL.B (Hons) from the Igbinedion University, Okada. She is currently a postgraduate student of CEPMLP University of Dundee, Scotland, where she is pursuing an LL.M Degree in Energy Law and Policy. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABBREVIATIONS...
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...Group 3 PGPIM DOING BUSINESS IN USA Doing business in the United States of America By Group 3 PGPIM 2011-13 September 22, 2011 Page | 1 Group 3 PGPIM DOING BUSINESS IN USA Doing business in the United States of America Overview The United States, a nation founded on the fundamental belief in equality, is today a multicultural mosaic of over 290 million people of varying race and cultural heritage. American culture portrays a strong sense of regional and ethnic identity, which is represented by a number of subcultures and influenced by the country’s vast geographical and regional differences. America’s influence on business culture across the globe is unmistakable. Understanding the cultural assumptions, values and artefacts are paramount to doing sustainable profitable business in the United states. Page | 2 Group 3 PGPIM DOING BUSINESS IN USA Introduction and starting point problem “Systemlessness is the ultimate American folly” Peter Lawrence, 1996 It is very often complained that Americans have no culture. This is partially true; seen from a European or an Asian point of view, American culture is a little more than 200 years old. The superficiality of American culture seems to be at stake here, and the implicit assumption of those who formulate this criticism seems to be that depth of culture is what allows the intensity of responsibilities. Thus the criticism about the superficiality of American culture is essentially a complaint...
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...KFC’s and McDonald’s Intercultural Managements Natasha Martin American InterContinental University Abstract In this paper I have chosen the differences in cultures with United States of America and China. In the Western civilization, business is often about the fundamentals when dealing with the idea of marketing. These are usually six different fundamentals such as, strategy for sound marketing, research for professional marketing, development for a world-class product, prices’ that are effective, motivation for promotion, and distribution that is appropriate. With a focus on the basic, makes for a successful outcome in competitive marketing. Even so, when business collides with Western (America) and China, differences in culture can become a problem. This becomes an issue that is more than just fundamentals. For a worldwide view, factors have to be considered in order to be successful. This factor would be culture. Cultural views and expectations are crucial in business. Westerner marketers have to come with the knowledge of awareness to the background of the culture, and in which the world they live in. This is the ability that can affect business ethics. USA and China have different ethical behaviors in the way they conduct business. The USA foundation of ethics is based on the origins of Puritan’s. They tend to be based on a foundation of traditional Judeo-Christian and Western socio theological laws and principles (Iseberg, S. 1999). This...
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...Cultural Differences in Saudi Arabia and the USA Saudi Arabia is the biggest country in the whole Arab world. The population of Saudi Arabia is 27 Million. Saudi Arabia is a country where from Islam is originated. The Prophet of the Muslims Muhammad SAW was born in Saudi Arabia, and also He started His teaching here. It can be said that the Saudi Arabia was the first home of the Muslim’s nations. The geography of Saudi Arabia is very diverse; it has mountains, desserts grassland, and forests. The temperature goes very down in winter and in summer; it goes very high in desserts. Rain is slightly lessor in Saudi Arabia. The surface of Saudi Arabia is also called as the surface of the oil. While United States is a liberal democracy having 50 states and USA was also the key partner in the initiation of the World Bank in 1944. Now at the present USA is a major shareholder of the World Bank. The USA has a total population of 323,214,999. It makes the USA the third biggest country in the world according to population (Li, 2012). Each nation has what recognizes it from different nations. The United States and Saudi Arabia are huge countries. They have a universal impact on political issues and the economy. The United States has novel things; likewise, Saudi Arabia has as well. There is a considerable measure of contrasts between the United States and Saudi Arabia; however there is a couple of similitude between them. One evident difference is the religion. The main religion is...
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...and Organizational Change Organizational Culture Roger N. Nagel Senior Fellow & Wagner Professor Lehigh University 1 CSE & Enterprise Systems Center Lehigh University Roger N. Nagel © 2006 Topics This Presentation Organizational Culture Characteristics 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Innovation and risk taking Attention to detail Outcome orientation People orientation Team orientation Aggressiveness Stability Agility eleventh edition organizational behavior stephenp. ro s bbin 2 Organizational Culture USA & China What Do Cultures Do? How Employees Learn Culture “Organizational behavior” “Organizational behavior” Eleventh Edition Eleventh Edition By Steve Robbins By Steve Robbins ISBN 0-13-191435-9 ISBN 0-13-191435-9 Reference Book Reference Book 2 CSE & Enterprise Systems Center Lehigh University Roger N. Nagel © 2006 What Is Organizational Culture? Organizational Culture A common perception held by the organization’s members; a system of shared meaning. Characteristics: Characteristics: 1. Innovation and risk 1. Innovation and risk taking taking 2. Attention to detail 2. Attention to detail 3. Outcome orientation 3. Outcome orientation 4. People orientation 4. People orientation 5. Team orientation 5. Team orientation 6. Aggressiveness 6. Aggressiveness 7. Stability 7. Stability 8. Agility 8. Agility Page 485 Page 485 3 CSE & Enterprise Systems Center Lehigh University Roger N. Nagel © 2006 Culture Characteristics A Closer look 1. Innovation...
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...Ethical Attitudes Across Cultures As we all know, it is very common for businesses to interact with companies in other countries. It is found that a major difference in culture is the ethics found in different countries. Although, many different countries share views on the ethics of business, there still are many significant differences in opinion found among different countries' opinions regarding business ethics. There were many tests and samples done in South Africa, Turkey, Israel, USA, Western Australia that were compared to more recent studies done in Jamaica, and the West Indies. Researchers compared the countries' cultures using Hofstede's four dimensions of National culture: power distance, collectivist vs individualist, femininity vs masculinity, and uncertain avoidance. The researchers then gathered employee attitudes towards business ethics from a sample of people in each country. Some examples of things on the questionnaire are “The only moral of business is making money” or “I view sick days as vacation days that I deserve” etc. The results suggested that the people in Jamaica and West Indies had similar views on business ethics to those living in Western Australia. Taking it a step further, they found that both Australia and Jamaica scored moderately on power distance and on masculine culture. USA culture received a score similar to the Australian culture on all four of Hofstede's dimensions, yet Jamaica's attitudes of business ethics were extremely different...
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... Introduction 2 3. Cultural aspect to Communication 3 3.1. Cultural Contexts 3 3.2. Assessing Cultures through Hofstede’s Framework 4 4. Codes of Communication 6 4.1. Verbal Communication 6 4.1.1. Welcome topics of conversation 7 4.1.2. Topics to avoid 8 4.2. Non-Verbal Communication 9 5. Gift Giving 10 6. Causes of Cross-Cultural Communication Conflicts 12 7. Conclusion 13 8. Recommendations 14 9. References 15 Executive Summary Today’s world has gone global. This globalization has led to the collaboration among manufacturers of products, suppliers of materials and service providers situated across the globe. The markets are no more restricted to a specific region or a country. The boundaries and distances between the markets have vanished. Saturation in developed markets has led to exploration and exploitation of emerging markets. The expansion of geographic footprint is not happening only to meet business needs, but this is happening also to promote social causes (Education, Health Awareness) and to mitigate global risks (Global Warming). Therefore, for the purpose of effective functioning, there is a strong need to learn about Cross-Cultural Communication. It is true that any usage of an inappropriate word, an impression or a gesture can lead to serious business or social implications. These cross-cultural communication blunders can then lead to lost customers, failed...
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...provide management the administrative privileges to access company data at any moment, re-format business processes and procedures, and coordinate systems that are located sporadically geographically. However, these great benefits do not come without great financial cost, which may cause a company to fall behind to complete a deadline or surpass their budget which can come at a great expense to the company. Thus, we will be examining the purpose of the ERP, the contract with SAP, and the benefits it provided Nestle SA, Nestle USA, and Nestle UK. The reason why an ERP system was implemented can be seen by examining any one of the three Nestle stories. For instance, Nestle SA is the forerunner of the current company that it is now which is headquartered in Switzerland. In the year 2000, the company decided that it wanted to take advantage of the size and financial value of the company by implementing an ERP system. The company began by signing a huge $200 million contract with SAP to create an ERP system that incorporated all 230,000 employees dispersed around 80 countries worldwide. In addition to this huge financial expense, they also committed another $80 million to strengthen maintenance, upgrades, and consulting within the company. Executives and board members at Nestle SA came to conclusion that in order for the business to remain competitive it needed to standardize its business processes with the multiple subsidiaries of the company. The whole operation was designed to take...
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... UCD ID: 14207863 Case 1. Question 1A) Figure 1.0 Hofstede’s Five Cultural Deminsions for Germany, UK, USA and Japan. (Data from Geert-hofstede.com,n.d) Figure 1.0 is a bar chart that presents the full data of all four cultures. (Germany, UK, USA, and Japan) Other than two dimensions (Individualism and uncertainty avoidance) that have been discussed in the case, the rest of the three dimensions will be discussed in following article. Masculinity Masculinity shows whether the society is driven by competition or quality of life (Geert-hofstede.com, n.d). According to figure 1.0, all four cultures are masculine culture. USA scored at the lowest of 62, followed by Germany and UK at the score of 66. The highest score in Masculinity is Japan, at 95. Although Japan has an extremely high score at Masculinity dimension, due to its collectivism, there are not much intense competitions between individuals. Power Distance Power distance is referring to how people within the society react to unequal power distribution. The higher the score is, the higher acceptability for unequal power distribution by the society will be. This time, UK and Germany again scored at the same mark of 35, and USA has a slightly higher score of 40. It shows that all three western countries have a low power distance culture, means that people from these culture believes that people should be treated equally, regardless the ranking of the position. Japan however, scored at 54, as a...
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...------------------------------------------------- Tables and References………………………………………………12 ------------------------------------------------- List of tables and graphs Table 1: Operational Structure Table 2: Executive Structure Table 3: Corporate Governance Structure Table 4: Staff by age and gender Executive Summary The Northern Territory Government (NTG) consists of 22 agencies. It is responsible for a wide range of functions, including but not limited to budgeting, finance, housing, taxation, etc. Department of Business and Employment (DBE) is one of the agencies under the NTG. Its main responsibilities are to deliver corporate shared services, defence support, employment, and business and industry development services. This business report aims to analyse and understand the culture and the structure and sources of power within an organisation, which DBE is the concentration. The first part of this report is the application of the prescriptive views of culture to DBE using Deal and Kennedy’s “Strong...
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...money?3 What is the exportability of search engine’s technology and business model?4 Why did many governments appear thretened by google? How did they counter this threat?4 Global leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE)4 Hofstede’s five dimensions:4 Google (USA) to France - focus dimensions: PDI & UAE (appendix 1: figure 1)4 Google (USA) to Germany - focus dimensions: UAI & IDV (appendix 1: figure 2)6 Google (USA) to Japan - focus dimensions: UAI, MAS, IDV and LTO (appendix 1: figure 3)7 Is the threat, from the government-sponsored search engines, real or imagined?8 What can Google do to secure dominance in those countries?8 What can Google learn from those experiences to guide its entry strategy for other countries?9 The negotiation process (appendix 2: figure 1)9 Stage One: Preparation9 Stage two: Relationship Building9 Stage Three: Exchange of task-related Information10 Stage Four: Persuasion10 Stage Five: Concession and Agreement10 Sources:11 Websites:11 Appendix 112 Figure 1: Hofstede, USA vs. France12 Figure 2: Hofstede, USA vs. Germany12 Figure 3: Hofstede, USA vs. Japan13 Appendix 2:14 Figure 1: The Negotiation Process14 Introduction In this assignment we will take a closer look at how technology, and Internet in particular, is changing the “rules of game” when it comes to cultural exchange and how it creates a need to protect ones own culture. We will give a brief presentation of Google as a company, explaining...
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...WAL-MART IN GERMANY The case features in David Needle (2010), Business in Context, 5th edition, Cengage/South-Western, pp. 159-62. The Wal-Mart Success Story The first Wal-Mart store was established by Sam Walton in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. At first expansion was steady with 24 stores by 1967. The initial focus for Wal-Mart operations was small town, rural America. The company grew to 276 stores by 1980 and the Wal-Mart empire reached 640 stores by 1984. The company currently has around 4,100 stores in the USA and by 2003 it was the world’s largest retailer, three times as large as its nearest rival, the French company, Carrefour. It was also the world’s largest employer with 1.9 million employed worldwide in 2007. In terms of revenue, it remains the world’s largest company and in 2002 it was ranked number one in the Fortune 500. Wal-Mart is noted for its large and diverse product range, which includes food, clothing, electrical goods, homeware, pharmaceuticals and so on. The USA business comprised four types of operation, ‘supercenters’, ‘discount stores’, ‘Sam’s Club’ and a small number of convenience stores. The ‘supercenters’ carry the full range of goods, including food and a large variety of other types of merchandise. The ‘discount stores’ are like the ‘supercenters’ without the food and ‘Sam’s Club’ is a membership discount warehouse for bulk purchases. According to Knorr and Arndt (2003) the success of Wal-mart is based on four factors. • Low prices. • A focus on...
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...Leading Culturally Diverse Groups Dave Park Leadership is important in managing and organizing the structure of the organization while trying to maintain a profitable company that takes into consideration employees, shareholders, customers and board of directors, etc. Another attribute of a great leader is managing diversity in the workplace. However, diversity includes many different issues and needs to be managed and if done properly can lead to competitive advantages for the company. Thomas A. Kochan, professor at MIT, stated “Diversity can enhance business performance only if the proper training is provided and the organizational culture supports diversity (Dubrin, 2010). Managing Cultural Diversity: Managing cultural diversity is not an easy task, however, when incorporated into the organizations core values, is makes it easier to incorporate (Dubrin, 2010). Below is a diagram that provides a breakdown of areas or issues that may need to be looked at to evaluate the possibility of creating and leading a culturally diverse organization. These areas may help to identify areas where a competitive advantage may be available in the organization. In such a culturally diverse world and as the organization makes decisions that will impact them globally, these discussions are vital for the success of the company. Whether not decisions are made to implement or not to implement decisions based on diversity within the organization, these ideas, may identify some of the...
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