Business Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Business Culture - Essay Example We suggest that those that involve a combination of cultures are even more at risk. The poor success rate due to concentrating only on financial aspects will be even more detrimental in cultures where priorities lie elsewhere. We also believe that corporations actually sacrifice performance by neglecting to profitably leverage differences in culture and that culture mix is potentially advantageous. Western companies working internationally and planning joint ventures in China, Japan or India are unlikely to have put in place a working global strategy for themselves. To do this, they will need to identify what can be standardised between cultures and what must be localised (Yip). Some corporations know how to do this, McDonald's being a good example. Others do not: Burger King failed in at least one European country for this reason. Part of the cultural differences is the business management differences. We have seen companies from both the East and the West unsuccessfully try to impose their own style of management in completely different cultural contexts. In our opinion, there is no one management theory that is generally applicable, just as there is no "one-size-fits-all" culture. Compounded by fundamental differences in values, religions and languages, the business culture between East and West has developed in different ways. Some of these differences are immediate. The difference in language, both spoken and written, characters for some, ideograms for others. From our experience, a westerner's first glimpse of eastern cultural differences comes from the initial business communications, particularly in face-to-face meetings. Where the westerner expects to describe everything in great detail, the eastern cultures are more oriented to a context rich in non-verbal information, where less sometimes means more (Hall). China in particular has occasioned much discussion and revamping of business models. Hofstede in his model of cultural dimensions first defined four dimensions and then added the fifth, "Long-term vs. Short-term", to take account of China (Hofstede). We see this criterion, dealing with the attitude of persevering to overcome problems in time, as be ing typically weighted towards the long term for Asian countries in general. Going further than some of the other models defined, we can start to characterise China, Japan and India for joint ventures in different ways. Thus China is an example of a "diffuse" culture, where responsibility is shared or diffused (Trompenaars), compared with the "specific" culture of a country like the UK, where responsibility is specifically assigned. Japan can be described as having a synchronic culture (doing several things at once) compared to a typical western sequential culture. India with its caste system is a prime example of a culture functioning by ascription (status is given according to social standing) rather than the western ideal of achievement and meritocracy. China - cultural difficulties for a joint venture Of the three nations considered (China, Japan and India), China is perhaps the one that has undergone the most profound changes in the last century. The change from empire to republic and the transfer of power from self-elected dynasty to revolutionary leaders backed by the population were fundamental alterations. However, the