Chapter 4
Culture, Management Style, and Business Systems
Business Customs in Global Marketing:
▪ Business etiquette is largely driven by cultural norms.
▪ Cultural analysis often pinpoints market opportunities, gives companies a competitive
edge
▪ This requires adaptation, a key concept in international marketing
▪ To successfully deal with individuals, firms, or authorities in foreign countries,
managers should exhibit:
1. open tolerance
2. flexibility
3. humility
4. justice/fairness
5. ability to adjust to changing tempos
6. curiosity/interest
7. knowledge of the country
8. liking for others
9. ability to command respect
10. ability to integrate oneself into the environment
Degree of Adaptation:
1. Cultural Imperatives = business customs and expectations that must be recognized, met,
conformed and accommodated if relationships are to be successful
2. Cultural Electives = areas of behavior or customs to which adaptation is helpful but not
necessary. One may wish for the other country to conform to or participate in those
customers, but it is still not required.
3. Cultural Exclusives = customs or behavior patterns reserved exclusively for the locals and
from which the foreigner is barred and must not participate
Examples:
1. Cultural Imperatives: meeting or greeting one another or exchanging business cards in
Asian culture such as in Japan, Korea and China.
2. Cultural Electives: Drinking alcoholic drinks before lunch in Czech Republic or coffee in
Saudi Arabia.
3. Cultural Exclusives: in Denmark, this may involve understanding and respecting the
Danish language, as well as being knowledgeable about Danish history and customs.
▪ BEIJING, CHINA: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister
Wen Jiabao toast after the EU–China Business Summit at the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing.
▪ The summit was boosted by the settlement of a trade row that had left 80 million
Chinese-made garments piled up in European seaports, unable to be delivered to
shops under a quota pact agreed to at the time.
▪ Drinking half a bottle is a cultural elective, but taking a sip is more of an imperative in
this case.
Management Styles around the world
1. Authority and Decision Making
▪ In high-PDI (power distance) countries, subordinates are not likely to contradict
bosses, but in low-PDI countries they often do
2. Differences in Communication Styles
▪ Face to Face vs. internet Communication
▪ High-context cultures depend heavily on the contextual (who says it, when it is said,
how it is said) or nonverbal aspects of communication, while communication in a
low-context culture depends more on explicit, verbally expressed communications
3. The symbolic meanings of time, space, things, friendships, and agreements, vary
across cultures
▪ There are 11 cultures along a high-context/low-context continuum
4. Formality and Tempo
▪ Level of formality in addressing business clients by first name
▪ Level of formality in addressing your boss by first name
▪ Tempo or speed in getting “down to business”
▪ Perception of time varies in many cultures
5. Negotiations Emphasis
▪ Differences with respect to the product, its price and terms, services associated with
the product, and finally, friendship between vendors and customers
6. Marketing Orientation
▪ American companies are embracing the market orientation philosophy
▪ Other countries are still in the traditional production, product and selling orientations
7. P-Time vs M-Tim
Edward T. Hall defines 2 time systems in the world: monochronic and polychronic time .
▪ M-time (monochronic time):
1. Those cultures tend to concentrate on one thing at a time (like most North
Americans, Swiss, Germans, and Scandinavians).
2. They divide time into small units and are concerned with punctuality.
3. Most low-context cultures operate on M-time.
▪ P-time (polychronic time):
1. characterized by the simultaneous occurrence of many things and by “a great
involvement with people.”
2. more dominant in high-context cultures, where the completion of a human
transaction is emphasized more than holding to schedules.
3. allows for relationships to build and context to be absorbed as parts of high-
context cultures.
Business Ethics:
▪ Business ethics is complex in the international marketplace because value judgments
differ widely among culturally diverse groups
▪ Corruption & Bribery are diversely defined from one culture to another.
▪ The gender bias against women managers exists in some countries. (Women are not
easily accepted in upper-level management roles in Asia, Middle East, and Latin
America (although this is changing). This poses significant challenges in cross-
cultural negotiations.
