Culture and Global Business - Research Paper Example

Culture and Global Business The Role of Culture in the Global Business Environment Culture is comprised of shared values, understanding, assumptions and goals learned from earlier generations. Before venturing into a new business in any given nation or country, a business manager is supposed to anticipate different changes and issues concerning a given culture that he or she is unfamiliar with. A variety of issues within organizations including power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty and all other components discussed by Hofstede in his paper, determine cultural variations.

As such, other issues that ought to be discussed are the various issues that influence various issues concerning the growth of businesses. The shared values also affect business strategy implementation greatly. The cultural orientation model explains the ways through which culture affects the performance of businesses in international markets. Primarily, one of the concepts popularized by Hofstede is power distance. Consideration of power distance in a variety of cultures is crucial in assessing how different cultures will affect different business models.

Power distance changes while considering aspects such as cultural values and the way inequality affects people. Power distance varies in various organizations depending on the culture of the demographic as well as the internal organization culture. For instance, centralized decision-making cultures increase the power distance affecting the levels of confidentiality in information shared among individuals and decision making within the organization (Nelson, 2008). Hofstede also cites individualism and the extent to which people assist each other as a key consideration when analyzing the orientation of an individual’s culture.

Individualism addresses issues such as friendship, socializing and other similar aspect that foster interaction within an organizations. In individualistic cultures, such as in the United States, people mostly interact with other people if there is mutual benefit derived from the interaction (Travis, 2007). As such, individualism in its organizations is also highly evident. For instance, people work in teams that compete against each other. However, in organizations with high power distance and high socialization levels, competition is rather limited.

Gender is also a key consideration that ought to be made when discussing issues that pertain to cultural orientation. The levels of masculinity in cultures largely determine business largely. Some cultures have high levels of masculinity with women leadership being none evident. For instance, consider an organization in the Middle East. The Middle East is comprised of highly masculine cultures. Organizations in such countries have limited if any number of female employees. As such, women cannot lead a western organizations working in such an environment as part of the culture of its home country.

Sharma (2015) discusses the issue of diversity and the current landscape. In the article, the author argues that there is an urgent need for the organizations to accommodate diversity and embrace it for global operations to be successful. Sharma (2015) also introduces a concept of unconscious bias in organizations whereby people might unconsciously oppress an individual of a different culture. Diversity is a major influential factor that determines success and failure of organizations in a global business environment (Sharma, 2015).

There is an urgent need for organizations to limit unconscious bias within the organizations. Tomlinson (2012) addresses the issue of globalization and its influence on culture. In the article, the author argues that globalization has made culture an integral part of political and economical gains from a variety of issues. To maintain global competitiveness, businesses need to embrace other cultures and integrate some of their core values within the organization as well. Tomlinson (2012) also addresses the unconscious bias against other cultures that began with the 9/11 attacks.

Global business management is more demanding as compared to conventional business management due to the complexity surrounded by culture. The paper also discusses other factors that influence business in a global environment. Besides culture, technology, learning and development, anti-globalization and have been identified as some of the influential factors determining success in a global business environment. Regardless, culture discernibly has a heftier influence than most of the other factors.

Building business strategy ought to emphasize on the importance of businesses and their key strategies developed. Additionally, other areas of concern that ought to be assessed are the various aspects about culture that could have an impact on employee productivity. Values determine what is good or bad in business. For instance, dealing with Chinese people, gifts are an exceptional way to win a stranger’s heart or business. Such ideals in the western culture are apparently bribes. As such, understanding how culture influences an individual and his values is crucial for the success of an individual and his business in such countries.

Culture plays a crucial role in determining business success and adaptability. As such, culture influences various aspects in the contemporary global world. References Nelson, D. (2008). Doing Business in India. London: DK. Sharma, N. (2015). The Landscape of Diversity and Inclusion: Unconscious bias and leaders. Leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com. Travis, T. G. (2007). Doing Business Anywhere: The Essential Guide to Going Global. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Tomlinson, J. (2012). The global environment.

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