A manager assigned to a foreign subsidiary, for example, must expect to find large and small differences in the behavior of individuals and groups within that organization. As depicted on this slide, these differences result from the societal, or sociocultural, variables of the culture, such as religion and language, in addition to prevailing national variables, such as economic, legal, and political factors. National and sociocultural variables thus provide the context for the development and perpetuation of cultural variables. These cultural variables, in turn, determine basic attitudes toward work, time, materialism, individualism, and change. Such attitudes affect an individual’s motivation and expectations regarding work and group relations, and they ultimately affect the outcomes that can be expected from that individual
Managers should recognize, of course, that generalizations in cultural profiles will produce only an approximation, or stereotype, of national character. Many countries comprise diverse subcultures whose constituents conform only in varying degrees to the national character.
To develop cultural profiles we first need to be familiar with the kinds of universal cultural variables found in most societies that make up unique clusters and provide a snapshot of the overall character of a specific group. Although there are countless individual variables, one approach to categorizing interdependent variables is given by Harris and Moran, who have identified eight categories that form the subsystems in any society.
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