Globalization and Culture

As the global marketplace develops, American companies are finding more and more that there is a need for management to have a better understanding of how to do business in foreign environments, how to manage a foreign-born workforce, and how to communicate with foreign customers, workers, and even competitors. American managers have also been noting the success of certain foreign companies and have been asking what elements might be borrowed from these successful efforts and adapted to the American company to make it more competitive. Each of these forces is causing a rethinking of the standard American way of doing business, and a reconsideration of how best to approach different cultures in order to make American business more successful overall. Managers need to understand the role of cultural differences, the way in which culture can and cannot be emulated, and the aspects of culture which can and must be adopted in order to do business in a particular cultural setting. The effort to adapt is a two-pronged effort, both in terms of adapting to foreign consumers and business and in terms of adapting management methods for a foreign-born workforce.

Culture shock may affect nearly everyone who leaves his or her own culture and lives in a foreign culture for any length of time. Social scientists use the term culture shock to denote the feeling of depression, often expressed as homesickness, caused by living in a foreign environment,

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ieve cooperation. (Prestowitz, 1988, 13) Sheldon and Kleiner note that Japanese companies may be more successful because they place more emphasis on long-term objectives, but this includes a number of other dimensions as well: The long planning horizon is made possible by the use of management practices that include: long-term profitability goals, a strong competitive attitude, vertical grouping, internal growth strategies, lifetime employment, employee training, union relationships, and personnel skill generalization rather than specialization. (Sheldon and Kleiner, 17) The Japanese method of doing business involves more than cosmetic differences with American methods and shows a deep-seated difference in terms of culture. March (1988) analyzes the psychology of Japanese business methods as a reflection of the deep-seated values and customs inherent in the culture and says there are two sides to every culture -- the ideological side, comprising a utopian vision of the culture and its highest ideals. The side that reflects how things really are: The ideological side of Japanese culture emphasizes service and doing favors and small kindnesses, stresses goodness and virtue as models to follow, and values indirect suggest

Category: Business - G