Cultural Behavior And Its Effect On A Business 's Performance

International marketing or business is uniquely different from the local market because the product price, place and promotion is vastly different from what is been offered to local customers (Johansson, 2000) With the emergence of the information technology, cross border marketing has never been a distant dream. However, it has never been easier even for giant multinational companies to face challenges that come in international business. The biggest challenge comes from the culture which varies from country to country.

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

The culture of a company develops over time through shared experience (Schein, 2004, p. 17) or management attempts to dictate the culture, but the employees must embrace the culture for it to be effective. Interestingly, when describing a culture there are many ways to define how things feel within the company, however, this is not an objective evaluation but instead subjective. “Culture is not primarily ‘inside’ people’s heads, but somewhere ‘between’ the heads of a group of people where symbols and meanings are publicly expressed (Alvesson, 2002, p. 4).” Some might describe the company’s climate, philosophy, values, or habits, although no hard and fast method of evaluation pins down a company’s culture by impartial means (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 554). Just as companies grow, so can their culture; what began, as an innovative, individualist, growth driven environment, may become a team based, highly skilled, ritualized environment as changes in the company dictate shifts in management and employees.

All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.

The United States, a nation founded on a fundamental belief in equality, is today a multicultural mosaic of over 315 million people of varying race and cultural heritage.

Cultural organization is unique and configures their norms, beliefs, values, and behavioral characteristics into the individual and groups that unite to get things accomplished. Patterns begin to evolve and become a rule of basic assumption; whether it is a new idea, one recently discovered or under development by a certain group as they learn to cope with internal integration and external adaptation problems. Cultural characteristics are hard to define because culture is multi-dimensional with integrated components that intertwine at different levels and ever-changing which takes time to establish and therefore time to change it also. Culture becomes the fabric or social glue that unites its participants, this will counteract any processes that are different becomes an unavoidable side-effect of life in an organization. Mutual understandings and a shared system of meanings becomes the basis of communication in a cultural organization. Functions of a society need to be fulfilled with a certain amount of satisfaction or culture can impede the efficiency of that organization. Problems with this concept arise when trying to categorize culture or when, why, or how corporate culture should be changed or finding the best, healthiest or most desirable one.

In the 1980’s business experts began to realize the root to organizational success or failure is through its culture. The culture of an organization is the belief that guides each employee in knowing what to do and what not to do and it also affect the public perception of the organization’s brand. Therefore culture is the shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms and values (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson, 2012). Although, no two cultures are alike, there are components and characteristics that help business experts to define an organization’s culture.

The risk factors when dealing with corporate culture are numerous and should not be understated. If ignored a festering corporate culture can be detrimental to the health and longevity of a company, a prospering culture can have an equal and opposite effect. While management might be limited in quickly changing a company’s underlying corporate culture, especially in the aspect of underlying assumptions as previously discussed, there are some cases where a change, even a slow one, might be required. It is important during these culture changes to use outside personnel to fully identify the current company culture and be cognizant of the results the change will have, consult personnel about the change and solicit feedback, and implement the

With increasing economic globalization recently, there are more opportunities for business but yet brings some challenges because stakeholders become more geographical diverse and the market is bigger than before. Companies are also facing cultural differences when they enter into different countries. Culture is an important part of human society composing of knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, laws and other habits. Cultural differences are the variations in what people have, think and behave between different countries, religions or societies. (ghauri&cateora,2006) Whatever field a company is devoted to, whether they are local or multinational, cultural differences play an inevitable impact on their performance. Taking consideration of cultural differences unsuccessfully has caused many business failures. (Ricks, 1993). Business practice is a method, process, tactics, strategy and rules followed by a company in the pursuit of its targets. It may also refer to these collectively.In this essay, marketing has been chosen as a specific area to focus on. Marketing is the study of exchange processes: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.（kotler,1986 ，Principles of marketing）The world becomes a village and there are an increasing number of entities entering the international arena. Therefore, it is necessary for multinational corporations to understand the importance of cultural

1. A growing number of Americans work for foreign-owned firms in the United States. Do you think that these American employees are being influenced by the foreign owner's approach to management and the culture of the country of the owner?

An organization’s culture governs day to day behavior. This type of power may be seen as a control mechanism, which businesses use to manipulate internal and external perception. Every organization has a set of assumed understandings that must be adopted and implemented by new employees in order for them to be accepted. Conformity to the culture becomes the primary basis for reward by the organization. “The role of culture in influencing employee behavior appears to be increasingly important in today’s workplace, as organizations have widened spans of control, flattened structures, introduced teams, reduced

Despite its ordered and steady foundation, organisational culture can be changed if it is guided by a comprehensive strategy. An organisations culture is founded by relatively stable characteristics, based deeply on values that are enforced by organisational practices. However, an organisational culture can be changed. This essay will aim to establish this and explain the measures which are involved in changing an organisational culture. In order to explore this, the notion of organisation culture will be defined. In addition, the reasons and situational factors that bring about the need for cultural change will be explored, in line with the effectiveness of strategies for

Culture is not just an attribute of an individual. Culture is a shared set of values, norms, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of a group that share these similarities.

According to the text, each national culture constrains and guides the development of business culture. In any society, business is closely interwoven with the values, norms and beliefs of a culture as a whole. The impact of national culture influences all aspects of work and organizational life including how managers select and promote employees, lead and motivate their subordinates, structure their organizations, select and formulate their strategies and negotiate with other business people (Cullen & Parboteeah p 47).

The classic Phrase by Mckinsey organisation, “the culture is how we do things around here” is taken as reference by many great people. It’s true that culture exist in an organisation which influences the work being done and also affects the success or failure of the project.