2. 5-2
Topics To Be Covered
1. Required adaptation
2. The impact of American culture on management style
3. Management Style around the world
4. Communication Styles
5. P-Time versus M-Time
6. Culture’s Influence on Strategic Thinking
7. A Synthesis, Relation-ship Oriented vs. Information
oriented Cultures
3. 5-3
•Culture, including all its elements, profoundly affects
management style and overall business systems
–Max Weber (1930)
•Americans
–Individualists
•Japanese
–Consensus oriented & committed to the group
•Central & Southern Europeans
–Elitists and rank conscious
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
4. 5-4
•Knowledge of the management style existing in a
country and a willingness to accommodate the
differences are important to success in an
international market
–Business culture
–Management values
–Business methods
–Behaviors
5. 5-5
•Culture not only establishes the criteria for day-to-day
business behavior but also forms general patterns of
values and motivations
•A lack of empathy for and knowledge of foreign business
practices can create insurmountable barriers to
successful business relations
6. 5-6
REQUIRED ADAPTATION
Adaptation is a key concept in international marketing.
Ten basic criteria for adaptation.
1) open tolerance
2) flexibility
3) humility
4) justice/fairness
5) ability to adjust to varying tempos
6) curiosity/interest
7) knowledge of the country
8) liking for others
9) ability to command respect
10) ability to integrate oneself into the environment
7. 5-7
•Essential to effective adaptation
―Awareness of one’s own culture and the
―Recognition that differences in others can cause anxiety,
frustration, and misunderstanding of the host’s intentions.
•The SELF-REFERENCE CRITERION (SRC) is especially operative
in business customs.
•The key to adaptation is to remain American but to develop an
understanding of and willingness to accommodate the differences
that exist.
8. 5-8
• “Master of destiny” viewpoint
• Independent enterprise as the instrument of social action
• Personnel selection and reward based on merit
• Decisions based on objective analysis
• Wide sharing in decision making
• Never-ending quest for improvement
• Competition producing efficiency
THE IMPACT OF AMERICAN CULTURE
ON MANAGEMENT STYLE
9. 5-9
MANAGEMENT STYLES AROUND
THE WORLD
•Authority and decision making
•Management objectives and aspirations
•Communication styles
•Formality and tempo
•P-time versus M-time
•Negotiation emphasis
•Marketing orientation
10. 5-10
•Influencers of the authority structure of business:
–High PDI Countries (power Distance Index)
Mexico, Malaysia
–Low PDI Countries
Denmark, Israel
•Three typical authority patterns:
–Top-level management decisions
–Decentralized decisions
–Committee or group decisions
Authority and decision making
11. 5-11
Communication styles
Face-to-face communication
–Managers often fail to develop even a basic understanding of
just one other language
–Much business communication depends on implicit messages
that are not verbalized
Internet communications
–Nothing about the Web will change the extent to which people
identify with their own language and cultures
•78% of today’s Web site content is written in English
•An English e-mail message cannot be understood by 35% of all Internet
users
–Country-specific Web sites
–Web site should be examined for any symbols, icons, and other
nonverbal impressions that could convey and unwanted message
12. 5-12
HIGH CONTEXT CULTURE:
•Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South America
•emphasize interpersonal relationships and trust.
Context over words: speaker’s tone of voice, facial expression,
gestures, posture—and even the person’s family history and
status.
•High-context communication tends to be more indirect and
more formal.
•Flowery language, humility, and elaborate apologies are typical.
13. 5-13
•(North America and much of Western Europe)
•logical, linear, individualistic, and action-oriented.
•Decisions are based on fact and Discussions end with actions.
•communicators are expected to be straightforward, concise, and
efficient in telling what action is expected.
LOW CONTEXT CULTURE:
14. 5-14
Monochronic time
–Tend to concentrate on one thing at a time
–Divide time into small units and are concerned with
promptness
–Most low-context cultures operate on M-Time
Polychronic time
–Dominant in high-context cultures
–Characterized by the simultaneous occurrence of many
things
–Allows for relationships to build and context to be
absorbed as parts of high-context cultures
Most cultures offer a mix of P-time and M-time behavior
Have a tendency to be either more P-time or M-time in
regard to the role time plays
As global markets expand more businesspeople from
P-time cultures are adapting to M-time.
P-Time versus M-Time
15. 5-15
• British-American
– Individualistic
• Japan & Germany
– Communitarian
• In the less individualistic cultures labor and management
cooperate
• A competitive, individualistic approach works well in the
context of an economic boom
• Fourth kind of capitalism –
– Common in Chinese cultures
– Predicted by culture
CULTURE’S INFLUENCE ON STRATEGIC
THINKING
16. 5-16
A SYNTHESIS – RELATIONSHIP-ORIENTED VS.
INFORMATION ORIENTED CULTURES
•Studies are noting a strong relationship between Hall’s high/low
context and Hofstede’s Individualism/Collective and Power Distance
indexes
•Not every culture fits every dimension of culture in a precise way
•Information-oriented culture
–United States
•Relationship culture
–Japan
•Synthesis of cultural differences allows us to make predictions
about unfamiliar cultures
18. 5-18
•Understanding the culture you are entering is the only sound basis
for planning.
•Some cultures appear to emphasize the importance of information
and competition while others focus more on relationships and
transaction cost reductions.
•No matter how long in a country, the outsider is not a local – in
many countries that person may always be treated as an outsider
•Assuming that knowledge of one culture will provide acceptability
in another is a critical mistake.
SUMMARY
