Culture

Culture

Culture is the ways of living, built up by a group of human beings, which are transmitted from one generation to another. A culture acts out its ways of living in the context of social institutions, including family, educational, religious, governmental, and business institutions. Culture includes conscious and unconscious values, ideas, attitudes, and symbols that shape human behavior and that are transmitted from one generation to the next.

Culture is learned, not innate; most anthropologists share two additional views. First, all facets of culture are interrelated: Influence or change on aspect of a culture and everything else is affected. Second, because it is shared by the members of group, culture defines the boundaries between different groups.

The culture of a group can now be defined as: A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. (Schein 373-374)

In other words, as groups evolve over time, they face two basic challenges: integrating individuals into an effective whole, and adapting effectively to the external environment in order to survive. As groups find solutions to these problems over time, they engage in a kind of collective learning that creates the set of shared assumptions and beliefs we call "culture."

Cultural Orientations

Time

Past – high value place on continuance of traditions

Present – short-term orientation aimed at quick results

Future – willingness to trade short-term gains for long term results

Communication

High Context – A great deal of contextual information about an individual is needed before business can be transacted. Business is done through relationships.

Low Context – Little contextual information is needed about an individual before business is transacted. Business tends to be impersonal.

Power Distance

High power distance – Managers make decisions autocratically and paternalistically. Employees fear to disagree with their boss.

Low Power distance – Managers make decisions after consulting with subordinates. Employees less afraid of disagree with their boss.

Particularistic vs Universalistic

Particularistic – Relationships, personal systems, Interpersonal trust, duty to friends, family, and others, relationships evolve.

Universalistic – Rules, legal system, higher obligations, deal is deal.

Masculinity vs Feminine

Masculinity – Managers have leadership, independence and self-realization ideal. Earnings, recognitions, advancement and challenge relatively more important to the employees. Employees refer more salary.

Feminine – Managers relatively less interested in leadership, independence, self-realization. Relationship with managers, living in a desirable area, cooperation, friendly atmosphere, employment security relatively more important to the employees. Employees refer shorter working hours.

Culture universals

A universal is a mode of behavior existing in all cultures. Universal aspects of the cultural environment represent opportunities for global marketers to standardize some or all elements of a marketing program. A partial list of cultural universals, taken from cultural anthropologist George P. Murdock’s classic study, including the following: athletic sports, body adornment, cooking, courtship, dancing, decorative art, education, ethics, etiquette, family feasting, food taboos, language, marriage, mealtime, medicine, mourning, music, property rights, religious rituals, residence rules, status differentiation, and trade.

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Organizational Culture

Organizational culture creates a number of various concepts, strategies, and situations which affect every level of planning when it comes to any type of hierarchical institution. The implications of organizational structure and culture apply to companies, corporations, charitable organizations, governments, and even sports teams/organizations.

Elements of organizational culture may include:

• Stated and unstated values.
• Overt and implicit expectations for member behavior.
• Customs and rituals.
• Stories and myths about the history of the group.
• Shop talk—typical language used in and about the group.
• Climate—the feelings evoked by the way members interact with each other, with outsiders, and with their environment, including the physical space they occupy.
• Metaphors and symbols—may be unconscious but can be found embodied in other cultural elements.

Four essential strengths of the organizational culture approach:

• It focuses attention on the human side of organizational life, and finds significance and learning in even its most mundane aspects (for example, the setup in an empty meeting room).
• It makes clear the importance of creating appropriate systems of shared meaning to help people work together toward desired outcomes.
• It requires members—especially leaders—to acknowledge the impact of their behavior on the organization’s culture. Morgan proposes that people should ask themselves: "What impact am I having on the social construction of reality in my organization?" "What can I do to have a different and more positive impact?"
• It encourages the view that the perceived relationship between an organization and its environment is also affected by the organization’s basic assumptions. Morgan says:

Organization members interpret the behavior and language of others through their own cultural biases. Each member’s (or subsystem’s) set of beliefs, values, and assumptions becomes their unquestioned "reality"; they then perceive behavior inconsistent with their own biases as irrational, or even malevolent. The organizational culture model suggests reinterpreting such conflict as a product of different sets of experiences. Instead of looking at conflict as "right" versus "wrong," this approach suggests that subsystems examine the assumptions underlying their behavior, honor the experiences and learning that led to those assumptions, and then investigate whether those assumptions still work well in the present.

No matter how good a job the organization does in recruiting and selection, new employees are not fully indoctrinated in the organization’s culture. Because they are unfamiliar with the organization’s culture, new employees are potentially likely to disturb the beliefs and customs that are in place. The organization will, therefore, want to help new employees adapt to its culture. This adaptation process is called SOCIALIZATION.

Discuss Questions

1. What is Culture? Is there such a thing as a cultural universal or cultural universals: if you answer is yes, give an example of a cultural universal. If it is no, explain why there is no such thing.

2. Is socialization brainwashing? Why?

Vocabularies

1. Context - the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect:
2. Particularistic - exclusive attention or devotion to one's own particular interests, party, etc
3. Universalistic - a person characterized by universalism, as in knowledge, interests, or activities.
4. Masculinity - having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness.
5. Feminine - having qualities traditionally ascribed to women, as sensitivity or gentleness