Culture Project: the Case of Aalborg Industries

“Culture comprises traditional ideas and related values, and it is the product of actions” (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952); “it is learned, shared, and transmitted from one generation to the next (Linton, 1945); and it organizes life and helps interpret existence” (Gordon, 1964).

Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.

Culture can be defined as the behaviours and belief characteristics of a particular social, ethnic,

Culture is defined by a construction of one's world-view, and it is transmitted by individuals and collectives through socialization and enculturation (Pederson & Ivey, 13). It contains values, beliefs, language, and perception. In studying cultural differences among members of distinct national, ethnic groups researcher have examined the concept of collectivism and individualism. People form individualistic cultures tend to view themselves as unique entities and independent form one another (Coon & Kemmelmeier, 348)

Looking at the chart the first dimension of culture plotted is individualism-collectivism. This dimension addresses how people define themselves and their relationships with others. Cultures that fall on the individualism side of the continuum share four characteristics. First, such cultures consider the individual to be the most important entity in any social setting. Second, individualistic cultures stress independence rather than dependence. Third, individualistic cultures reward individual achievement. The last characteristic is; individualistic cultures value each individual’s uniqueness.

The theory of functionalism by Bronisław Malinowski suggests that, a society’s cultural system is maintained through a specific aspect of culture of societal life. Generally, everything we do is to maintain ourselves or society.

The attitude, values, ideals and beliefs of individuals are greatly influenced by the culture in which they live. Precisely, culture is the sum total of the ways of life of people in a particular society.

In this book, Hofstede point out the different six dimensions that describe the national culture of a country. The author note, that even though the six dimensions are considerable, the ones that are highly correlated with individualistic or collectivistic cultures are the dimensions of ‘‘power distance’’ and ‘‘individualism’’, in which United States and Saudi Arabia have totally different punctuations, being United States an individualistic country and Saudi Arabia a collectivistic one.

Fundamental beliefs surrounding the very idea of culture separate the cross-cultural and sociocultural approach, which may seem to suggest incompatibility. Sociocultural psychological understanding of culture is that it employs a “mutually constitutive” or “cyclic model”. (Eom & Kim, 2014) The idea of culture in the sociocultural model is that culture influences people on a

Culture is shaped by beliefs, ideas, history, religion, and traditions that give each culture its distinctions. Leaders must take culture into account as they lead an organization. Eastern cultures place power and authority high creating a respectful gap between leadership and employees, while western cultures take a more democratic approach building relationship and influence with employees (Hamedoğlu, Kantor, and Gülay, 2012). Leaders must understand the culture surroundings and engage employees using those cultural values in conjunction with values of the organization. Values of an organization will often transcend over cultures, leaders must find a way to engage the values of the organization in a way that fits within the current culture (Staebler Tardino, 2012).

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.

A country’s national culture dictates almost everything that is done on a daily basis within that specific country. Everything from the way people eat, the way they speak and the holidays they celebrate are all dictated by these established beliefs and traditions. Culture can be described as “the characteristic way of behaving and believing, that a group of people have developed over time and share in common” (Tarique). This can be easily

This essay will discuss the influence of cultural dimensions on behavior. A cultural dimension is defined as a perspective of a culture based on its values and cultural norms. In particular, Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualism vs. collectivism will be discussed. Individualism vs collectivism is defined as the preference of a person only being concerned about oneself and looking after oneself, compared to a person who wants to remain in a closely knitted network. These are some terms with definitions which will be used in this essay: the Asch paradigm, which refers to the studies conducted by Solomon Asch, in which he showed his participants different lines and asked them to verbally judge and respond as to what the length of the

Culture can be defined in many ways due to the fact that everyone can have their own distinct and traditional beliefs and values. “ Culture is fluid, it is not a static entity which one takes out of the box on occasion. It is with us daily” (Cultural Handout). Someone’s culture is set as the characteristics of the group practices in language, religion, types of food, social traits and habits, and the distinct arts and music. There are a variety of different cultures for example, Western Culture, Eastern Culture, Latin Culture, Middle Eastern Culture, and African Culture. All of these different cultures have their own ideas, values, and individualism, laws that are implied, civil rights, and even technology. In our, “ Culture Handout” culture is defined as the tool of the mind, “ it is an individual’s way seeing and interacting within the world. It encompasses one’s values systems, beliefs, and perceptions of the world around them. Race, socio-economic class gender, sexual orientation, ability, geographic location, age, religion language, etc. all impact the formation of culture, but these various context are not culture” (Cultural Handout).

'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991)