This literature review examines cultural theories and concepts related to global management and corporate social responsibility. It discusses how cultural differences impact how businesses operate globally in areas like communication, negotiation, branding, and leadership. It analyzes cultural dimensions models, particularly Hofstede's, that identify aspects of national cultures. Understanding these differences is important for managing diverse stakeholders across cultures. Firms must adapt to local cultures to be effective while also creating shared value for all stakeholders in their global operations.

1. 1
Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW
2
Literature review
Literature Review
The purpose of this paper is to conduct a review of the
literature on cultural theories and global management concepts
so far discussed in this course, and relate these theories and
concepts to the concepts of corporate social responsibility
(CSR). The following concepts and themes emerged from the
analysis of the articles reviewed.
Cultural Differences and Global Business
Companies face some new and unfamiliar challenges while
engaging in international business. Factors such as political,
legal, economic, and cultural environments affect how
businesses are conducted globally. It is important to consider
both the similarities and differences in these factors between the
home and the foreign country. The differences in language,
religion, political, and social norms will affect the way
companies conduct businesses globally and will also affect the
nature of consumer demand (Zacharakis, 1996). Mayrhofer

2. (2004) noted that the socio-cultural difference is an even more
important aspect of the factors to be considered. Therefore,
businesses expanding to international markets must consider the
cultural differences before entering (Zacharakis, 1996).
According to Deari, Kimmel, & Lopez (2008), culture has
positive as well as negative influence on business operations, so
companies must handle the differences in culture in such a way
that it benefits both parties involved.
According to Bowie (2008), becoming knowledgeable about
different countries’ communication styles, body language,
meeting and negotiation tactics, dress, greetings, and social
events are all keys to having a good business relationship with
individuals in other countries. Deari, Kimmel, & Lopez (2008)
noted that trust and respect can easily be won and competitive
advantage can rise by learning the host country language;
however, disrespect for the foreign culture can destroy the
whole cooperation.
Cultural Dimensions
According to Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House
(2006), there is need for managers to be able to compare their
own cultures with the cultures of other countries in order to
understand the cultures of different countries. Several models
have been developed to help in understanding of cultural
differences; however, the Hofstede model is the most used of
these models (deMooiji and Hofstede, 2010). The Hofstede
model provides six dimensions of national culture (The
Hofstede Center, n. d). Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and
House (2006) re-conceptualized the Hofstede model and the
works of Trompenaars, and Kuckohn and Strodtbeck, and
developed a few new dimensions to make nine cultural
dimensions. These cultural dimensions are the aspects of a
country’s culture that distinguishes the country from other
countries and as such have implications for management
engaging in international business (Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de
Lupe, and House, 2006).
Power distance. This according to Javidan, Dorfman, Sully

3. de Lupe, and House (2006), is the degree to which members of a
society expect and should expect power to be distributed
equally. The Hofstede Center (n. d) sees the fundamental issue
in power distance as how a society handles inequalities among
people. The high power distance countries such as Thailand,
Brazil, and France accept hierarchical order; therefore firms in
such countries should expect hierarchical decision making
processes (Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House, 2006;
The Hofstede Center, n. d).
Uncertainty avoidance. The degree to whichmembers of a
society feeluncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainties in
the future (The Hofstede Center, n. d). It deals with the fact that
the future is always uncertain, therefore, the society struggles to
either let it happen or control the unpredictability of the future
(The Hofstede Center, n. d) by relying on social norms, rules,
and procedures (Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House,
2006, The Hofstede Center, n. d). High uncertainty avoidance
countries such as Singapore and Switzerland prefer elaborate
processes and formal detailed strategies, unlike the low
uncertainty avoidance countries like Russia and Greece where
simple processes and broadly stated strategies are preferred.
Assertiveness. This is the degree of aggressiveness and
confrontational that individuals are and should be in their
relationship with others (Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and
House 2006). The Hofstede Center (n. d) calls this masculinity
versus femininity dimension, where masculinity refers to
societal preference for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and
material rewards for success; and femininity refers to societal
preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and
quality of life. In highly assertive countries such as United
States and Australia, firms should expect high competition in
business as people tend to have a can-do attitude; whereas in
low assertive countries like Sweden and New Zealand, firms
should expect the preference for loyalty and solidarity as well
as harmony in relationships (Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe,
and House, 2006).

4. Individualism / collectivism. This dimension captures how
people’s image in a society is being defined either in terms of
“I” or “we” (The Hofstede Center, n. d). The individualism
aspect of this dimension refers to the definition in terms of “I”
where there is high preference for loosely-knit social framework
that expects individuals to take care of only themselves and
their immediate family. However, the masculinity aspect refers
to the definition in terms of “we” characterizing a tightly-knit
social framework where individuals can expect themselves to be
taken care of by their relatives and members of in-group society
in exchange for loyalty (The Hofstede Center (n. d). This
dimension was captured as two separate dimensions:
institutional collectivism and in-group collectivism by Javidan,
Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House (2006). In their work,
institutional collectivism captures “the degree to which
organizational and societal institutional practices encourages
and rewards (and should encourage and reward) collective
distribution of resources and collective action” (p. 69). Sweden
and Singapore are examples of collectivistic countries that
emphasize group performance and rewards, while
Individualistic countries like Greece and Brazil emphasize
individual achievement and rewards.
Gender egalitarianism. The degree to which the society tend
to minimize gender inequality. European countries are known
for their gender egalitarian practices while countries like Egypt
and South Korea are known to be male dominated (Javidan,
Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House, 2006). Countries operating
in the gender egalitarian countries should expect and encourage
tolerance for diversity in both ideas and individuals.
Humane orientation. This is one of the new dimensions of
national culture developed by Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe,
and House (2006). It is the degree to which the society tends to
encourage and reward individuals for fairness, altruisticity,
generosity, care, and kindness to others. Egypt and Malaysia
have high humane orientation while France and Germany have
low humane orientation.

5. Future orientation. This captures the extent to which
individuals engage in future oriented activities or behaviors
such as delaying gratification, planning, and future investments
(Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House, 2006). The
Hofstede Center identified this as long term versus short term
normative dimension. Long term orientation characterizes
societies that have a pragmatic approach to the future. They
encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to
prepare for the future. Whereas short term characterizes
societies that prefer to maintain time-honored traditions and
norms while viewing societal change with suspicion (The
Hofstede Center, n. d).
Performance orientation. High performance orientation is
evident in countries like the U. S. and Singapore where the
society encourages and rewards individuals for performance
improvement and excellence. Firms operating in such countries
should expect to emphasize training and development. On the
other hand, low performance orientation is evident I Russia and
Greece where family and background counts more (Javidan,
Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House, 2006).
Indulgence / restraint. This is Hofstede’s latest dimension of
national cultures. Indulgence stands for a society that allows
relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives
related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint refers to a
society that suppresses and regulates gratification of needs
through strict social norms (The Hofstede center, n. d).
Cultural Adaptability
Almost all firms engaging in international business are
impacted by globalization. One of such impacts is the rising
need to cope with the diverse stakeholders such as cross-
cultural employees, suppliers, competitors, and creditors.
Culture affects almost every aspect of human behavior,
therefore, it is important that every execute operating in a cross
cultural business environment have a good working knowledge
of culture and its influences.

6. Cultural adaptabilityaccording to Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de
Lupe, and House (2006) means “the ability of the manager to
understand other cultures and behave in a way that helps
achieve goals and build strong and positive relations with local
citizens” (p. 19). In the work of Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de
Lupe, and House (2006), ten culture clusters were identified by
GLOBE and these includes: Latin America, Anglo, Latin
Europe, Nordic Europe, Germanic Europe, Confucian Asia, Sub-
Saharan Africa, Middle East, Southern Asia, and Eastern
Europe. These culture clusters differ in terms of the culture
dimensions stated above.
Leadership. Large corporations engaged in global business need
executives that have global mindsets cross cultural leadership
abilities. As a result of the differences in culture clusters and
culture dimensions, acceptable management practices found in
country are not guaranteed to work in another country. Javidan,
Dorfman, Sully de Lupe, and House (2006), propose a two-step
process that enables global leaders to build a positive pathway
towards cultural understanding and adaptability irrespective of
the host country. First, the leaders need to share information on
similarities and differences between his own as well as the host
country’s culture, while using similarities as a fertile ground to
build mutual understanding. Second, the leader will think of a
way to bridge the gap between the two cultures rather than
automatically applying their approach.
Global branding and advertising. Culture has great
consequences for global marketing and advertising; therefore, it
is important to adapt branding and advertising strategies to the
culture of the consumer. Studies have been conducted as to
whether to standardize advertising for purposes of efficiency, or
to adapt to local habits and motives of consumers for
effectiveness. Study by Dow (2005) demonstrated that
adaptation strategy is more effective; therefore, understanding
culture is viewed as increasingly important (de Mooij and
Hofstede, 2010).
To develop effective advertising, consumer must be central.

7. The self and personality of consumers are defined by cultural
values, this in turn explain the variations in branding strategy
and communications. The effect of the various dimensions of
culture on verbal and non-verbal communication styles are
reflected in advertising styles as described in the work of
Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988). Power distance,
individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance are the
three dimensions that explain variance of communication styles
(de Mooij and Hofstede, 2010).
Negotiation. Negotiation is a universal phenomenon, but the
rhythms and the movements involved in the process are specific
to the culture of the people involved in the bargaining process
(Adair and Brent, 2005). According to Morris and Gelfand
(2004), the different characteristics of culture are seen in
implicit theories of negotiation that guide the strategies and
avenues available to negotiators. Adair & Brent (2005)
proposed a normative model of transactional negotiation in
which both cooperative and competitive negotiation behaviors
thrive under four distinct stages: relational positioning,
identifying the problem, generating solutions, and reaching
agreement. Although the functional stages are universal, it is
expected that the behavioral content of these stages be culture
specific. On the basis of Hall’s (1976) account that high context
communicators are skilled in both direct and indirect forms of
communication, Adair & Brent (2005) found that the high
context negotiators are more flexible, complementary sequences
of information than the low-context cultures. They are therefore
more able to gather information without signaling pure
cooperation to the other party.
Culture and Application CSR in Current Global Business
It is imperative that the global business should benefit the
stakeholders of the companies including the employees, the
customers, the external environment and other publics. Some
issues of corporate social responsibility arising out of global

8. business include: ethics, value, and leadership, labor practices.
Ethical practice in global businesses involves viewing such
businesses as it impacts the organization, the employees and
other stakeholders, as well as the communities involved.
Diversity in nationality, culture, and values can affect the
ability of MNCs to achieve their objectives in global business.
However, it is expected that such businesses create value for the
stakeholders from some kind of synergy. The leadership of the
companies needs to ensure that differences are not submerged or
conformity forced upon diverse members. Rather, the
differences are recognized, understood, and utilized to deal with
cultural issues, to encourage employees to continuously evolve,
and for effectiveness and achievement of company’s goal.
References
Adair, W. L., & Brett, J. M. (2005). The negotiation dance:
Time, culture, and behavioral
sequences in negotiation. Organizational Science 16(1), 33 –
51. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/2138326
17?
Bowie, A. (2008). The effect of culture on business
relationships. Retrieved from
http://www.neumann.edu/academics/divisions/business/journal/t
review_08/bowie.pdf
Deari, H., Kimmel, V., & Lopez, P. (2008). Effects of cultural
differences in international
Business and price negotiations. Retrieved from

9. http://inu.diva-
portal.org/smash/get/diva2:206119/FULLTEXT01.pdf
deMooij, M. and Hofstede, G. (2010). The Hofstede model:
Applications to global branding and
advertising strategy and research. Retrieved from
http://mariekedemooij.com/articles/demooij_2010_int_journal_a
dv.pdf
Dow, D. (2005). Adaptation and performance in foreign
markets: evidence of systematic under-
adaptation. Journal of International Business Studies, 37,
212 – 226.
Gudykunst, W. B. & Ting-Toomey, S. (1988). Culture and
interpersonal communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., Sully de Luque, M., & House, R.
J. (2006). In the eye of the
beholder: Cross cultural lessons in leadership from project
GLOBE. Academy of Management
Perspectives, 20(1), 67 – 90. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/2105086
88?accountid=34899
Mayrhofer, U. (2004). International market entry: Does the
home country affect entry-mode
decisions? Journal of International Marketing. 12(4), 71-96
The Hofstede Center (n. d). National culture dimension.
Retrieved from
http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html
Zacharakis, A. (1996). The double whammy of globalization:
Differing country and foreign
partner cultures. Academy of Management Executive, 10(4),
109-110.
doi: 10.5465/AME.1996.3145325