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BUSINESS CUSTOMS
• Arrange meeting before discussing business over
phone.
• Make appointments as far in advance as possible.
• Maintain eye contact, shake hands, provide
business card
• Maintain a win-win situation
• Keep presentations short
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VALUES IN CULTURE
• Values
• Learned from culture in which individual is reared
• Differences in cultural values may result in varying
management practices
• Basic convictions that people have about
• Right and wrong
• Good and bad
• Important and unimportant
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VALUE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
ACROSS CULTURES
1. Strong relationship between level of managerial
success and personal values
2. Value patterns predict managerial success and
can be used in selection/placement decisions
3. Country differences in relationship between
values and success; however, findings across U.S.,
Japan, Australia, India are similar
4. Values of more successful managers favor
pragmatic, dynamic, achievement-oriented and
active role in interaction with others
5. Values of less successful managers tend toward
static and passive values; relatively passive roles in
interacting with others
6. COMPOSITION OF CULTURE
• Material cultural products
• Nonmaterial cultural products
Material Culture – Formed by the physical objects that people create
• Cars, clothing, books, buildings, computers
• Archeologists refer to these items as artifacts
Nonmaterial Culture – Abstract human creations (can’t touch it)
• Language, family patterns, work practices, political and economic systems
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8. PHYSICAL OBJECTS
• Not only the “Physical” objects, but also the
RULES for using those objects
• Technology: The combination of objects
AND rules.
• *Also, tools used to manipulate the
environment
• Ex. Computer= Physical
• Surfing the Web= Rules and skills related to
COMPUTER
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9. COMPONENTS OF CULTURE: SYMBOLS
• Anything that stands for (or shared meaning
attached to it) something else
• “something to which people attach meaning and
that they then use to communicate with one
another” (Henslin 2007a:39)
• Any word, gesture, image, sound, physical object,
event can serve as a symbol as long as people
recognize that it carries a particular meaning
• - Ex. Class ring, word hello, handshake = all
symbols
• Symbols vary from culture to culture
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10. COMPONENTS OF CULTURE: BELIEFS &
VALUES
• Beliefs
• The statements that people of a culture believe
to be true
• Values
• Abstract concepts about the way society should
be
• Standards of judgment
• Shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong,
desirable or undesirable
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11. COMPONENTS OF CULTURE : NORMS
• Shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in specific
situations
• Behavioral boundaries regulating social interactions
• Norms are expectations, not actual behavior – doesn‟t mean
that actions of all individuals will be in line with norms.
o Ex. Norm is to be financially responsible – some don‟t
pay bills
• Lots of norms in society: unimportant (cover mouth when
yawning) to very important (don‟t kill anyone)
• Some apply to everyone while some are specific
o Ex. Nobody in US is allowed to marry more than one
person. Selected groups (some clergy and children) are
not allowed to marry at all
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12. CULTURE - TERMS
• Heredity –transmission of genetic characteristics from parents to
children.
• Environment –social and cultural conditions that influence the life of
an individual or community
• Role – behavior – the rights and obligations – expected of someone
occupying a particular status
• Assimilation – blending of culturally distinct groups into a single group
with a common culture and identity
• Stereotype – oversimplified, exaggerated, or unfavorable
generalization about a category of people
• Prejudice – unsupported generalization about a category of people
• Discrimination – denial of equal treatment to individuals based on
their group membership
• „Discriminations prevents someone from sharing their „gifts‟ with
another person.‟
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13. CULTURES ARE DYNAMIC: RULES ARE
MADE TO BE BROKEN
• Humans are creative animals and always do not
strictly follow the dictates of their culture.
• There is individual interpretation of each aspect of
culture that is in part due to family and personal
history.
• Real vs. Ideal culture.
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14. UNIVERSALITY, GENERALITY, AND
PARTICULARITY
Universal: found in all cultures.
Examples: Exogamy and incest taboo.
Generality: found in many cultures, but not all.
Example: nuclear family.
Particularities: found only in some cultures.
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15. WHAT MAKES CULTURES CHANGE?
• Diffusion: borrowing of traits between cultures.
• Acculturation: exchange of cultural features that
results from long-term exposure between cultures.
• Independent invention: Developing to solution to
problems by individual cultures. Example:
agriculture.
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17. HIGH- VERSUS LOW-CONTEXT
CULTURES
High-context culture
• context is at least as
important as what is
actually said
• what is not being said
can carry more meaning
than what is said
• focuses on group
development
• Japan and Saudi Arabia
are examples
Low-context culture
• most of the information is
contained explicitly in
words
• what is said is more
important that what is
not said
• focuses on individual
development
• The U.S. is an example
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18. CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
• Cultural universals are manifestations of the total
way of life of any group of people.
• These include elements such as courtship rituals,
etiquette, concept of family, gestures, joking,
mealtime customs, music, personal names,
status differentiation, and trade customs.
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