Culture and Organizational Behavior

1. Culture and OrganizationalBehavior Chapter 2 2-1

2. Learning Objectives • Define culture and levels of culture • Explain how culture develops • Describe the major frameworks for explaining the cultures of different societies • Discuss the relation of culture to the study of OB • Debate the issue of cultural convergence Vs. divergence

3. What is Culture? • A way of life of a group of people • That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by people as members of society • Everything that people have, think, and do as members of society

4. Sathe’s Levels of Culture Manifest culture Manifest culture Expressed values Expressed values Water line Basic assumptions Basic assumptions Iceberg Onion

5. How is Culture Learned? • Enculturation • Primary Socialization • Cultures and Subcultures • Secondary Socialization

6. Frameworks for Examining Cultures • Cultural Orientations • Work-related Values Dimensions • Communication Patterns • Chinese Value Survey • Cultural Metaphors

7. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Variations in Values Orientations • Framework to describe how different societies cope with various issues or problems • Includes six value orientations • A culture may prefer one or more variations of a value orientation

8. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Variations in Values Orientations Values OrientationVariations Relation to Nature Time Orientation Basic Human Nature Activity Orientation Relationships among People Space Orientation Subjugation Past Evil Being Individualistic Private Harmony Present Neutral/Mixed Containing/Controlling Group Mixed Mastery Future Good Doing Hierarchical Public

9. How we cook and eat quite differently You cook like that! You cook this way!

10. Hofstede’s Four Dimensions of Cultural Values • Individualism/Collectivism • Power Distance • Uncertainty Avoidance • Masculinity/Femininity

11. Masculinity culture countries strive for a performance society In Boy Scouts movement, a book was called “Rovering to Success” Femininity culture countries for a welfare society When translated to Dutch, it is “Roving on the road to Happiness” Masculinity vs. Femininity

12. To help the poor • Austria spent .24% of the GNP • Norway spent 1.12% of the GND

13. The Chinese Value Survey • Confucian Work Dynamism • Long Term Vs. Short Term Orientation • Future • Thrifty • Persistence

14. Hofstede’s and CVS Cultural Dimension Scores for 10 Countries PD ID MA UA LT USA 40L 91H 62H 46L 29L Germany 35L 67H 66H 65M 31M Japan 54M 46M 95H 92H 80H France 68H 71H 43M 86H 30L Netherlands 38L 80H 14L 53M 44M Hong Kong 68H 25L 57H 29L 96H Indonesia 78H 14L 46M 48L 25L West Africa 77H 20L 46M 54M 16L Russia 95H 50M 40L 90H 10L China 80H 20L 50M 60M 118H

15. Schwartz's Value Survey • Focuses on universal aspects of individual value content and structure • Based on issues that confront all societies • Collected data over ten years from over 60,000 people in 63 countries • Identified three cultural dimensions • Embededness vs. autonomy • Hierarchy vs. egalitarianism • Mastery vs. Harmony

16. Embeddedness Versus Autonomy • Embeddedness: People view others as inherently part of collectives • Meaning in life comes from social relationships, identification with the group, and participation in shared way of life and goals. • Value social order, respect for tradition, security and wisdom. • Autonomy: Individuals are seen as autonomous, bounded entities who find meaning in their own uniqueness • Intellectual autonomy - people follow their own ideas and value curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness • Affective autonomy - individuals independently pursue positive experiences that make them feel good

17. Hierarchy Versus Egalitarianism • Hierarchy • Use a social system with clearly defined roles to make sure people behave responsibly • Egalitarianism • Think of each other as moral equals sharing basic human interests

18. Mastery Versus Harmony • Mastery • Encourages people to master, change, and exploit the natural and social environment for personal or group goals. • Harmony • Emphasizes understanding and fitting in with the environment, rather than trying to change it.

19. Trompenaars’ Dimensions of Culture • Dimensions represent how societies develop approaches to managing problems and difficult situations • Over a 14 year period, data collected from over 46,000 managers representing more than 40 national cultures • Identified six cultural dimensions

20. Trompenaars’ Six Dimensions of Culture • Universalism Vs. Particularism • Individualism Vs. Communitarianism • Specificity Vs. Diffusion • Achieved Vs. Ascribed Status • Inner Direction Vs. Outer Direction • Sequential Vs. Synchronous Time

21. Hall’s High-Context and Low-Context Cultural Framework High-Context Low-Context China Austria Egypt Canada France Denmark Italy England Japan Finland Lebanon Germany Saudi Arabia Norway Spain Switzerland Syria United States

22. Ronen and Shenkar’s Country Clusters • Within each cluster, countries generally have similar work values, geographic location, language and religion; • Similarity of countries and clusters are associated with economic levels, with countries higher on GNP per capita located closer to the center; • There are independent countries not fit into any cluster, and not similar to each other, but they are likely more economically and technologically developed than their geographic neighbors.

23. Ronen and Shenkar’s Country Clusters Near Eastern Nordic Arab Turkey Iran Greece Finland Norway Denmark Sweden Germanic Bahrain Abu-Dhabi United Arab Emirates Kuwait Oman Saudi Arabia • Austria • Germany • Switzerland ` • Malaysia • Singapore • Hong Kong • Philippines • South Vietnam • Indonesia • Taiwan • Thailand • United State • Australia • Canada • New Zealand • United Kingdom • Ireland • South Africa Far Eastern Anglo • Argentina • Venezuela • Chile • Mexico • Peru • Colombia • France • Belgium • Italy • Spain • Portugal Latin European Latin American Independent Brazil Israel India Japan

24. The World Values Survey • Study of sociocultural and political change • Collected data from more than 65 societies • Four waves of data collection: 1981, 1990-1991, 1995-1996, and 1999-2001

25. Traditional Vs. Secular-Rational Orientations Toward Authority • Traditional values reflect pre-industrial society and the centrality of the family • Importance of God, obedience, religious faith over independence and determination • Absolute standards of good and evil • Support deference to authority • National pride and nationalistic outlook • Secular-rational values have opposite preferences

26. Survival Vs. Self-Expression Values • Survival values • Priority on economic and physical security over self-expression and quality of life • Self-expression values • Priority on self-expression and quality of life • Generational differences in values • Higher in ex-communist societies and advanced industrial democracies • Lower in developing and low income societies

27. Gannon’s Cultural Metaphors • Identifies an important phenomenon, activity, or institution that members of a culture see as important as a metaphor for that culture • Helps outsiders to describe and understand the essential features of a society

28. Cultural Metaphors CountryMetaphor England the traditional British house Germany the symphony Italy the opera Japan the garden Nigeria the marketplace Russia the ballet Turkey the coffeehouse United States football

29. American Football and the U.S. Corporate Culture • Members of the team come together and decide what to do as a group • Individuals receive rewards based on individual performance and contribution to the team • A masculinity culture that emphasis “tough values” such as “Competition”

30. Trompenaars’ Seven Dimensions of Culture • Universalism Vs. Particularism • Individualism Vs. Collectivism • Achievement Vs. Ascription • Neutral Vs. Affective Relationships • Specific Vs. Diffuse Relationships • Relationship to Time • Relationship to Nature

31. Brown’s Cultural Universals • Contends that significant elements of human behavior are the same throughout societies • A list of 375 cultural universals that compose the "Universal People”, e.g. • Conflict, cognition, decision making, play • Concepts about death, ethnocentrism, metaphor • Cooking, marriage, rituals

32. Do the Frameworks Explain Cultural Differences? • Represent average behavior within a culture • Subcultures and within cultural variations • Individual differences • Countries classified similarly may still be very different (e.g., U.S. vs. U.K. or Canada) • Reliability may vary

33. Closer communication and trade links Worldwide marketing and product distributions Globalization of businesses and business education Cultural impact and penetration Different cultural interpretations Need to maintain cultural identity Adaptation to different markets Trade disputes Convergence or Divergence?

34. Implications for Managers • Understanding culture is important even in one’s home country • Organization’s stakeholders could be from another culture • Need to look for underlying cultural meanings