University of North Texas Wk 5 Communicating Across Cultures Reflection

DescriptionF O U R T H
E D I T I O N
THE CULTURAL DIMENSION OF
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Gary P. Ferraro
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ferraro, Gary P.
The cultural dimension of international business 1 Gary P. Ferraro.4th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-13-090327-2
1. International business enterprise-Social aspects. 2. Intercultural
communication. 3. Technical assistance-Anthropologicalaspects. I. Title
HD2755.5 .F48 2001
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00-067759
For Avery and Mitchell, with the hope that their generation
will become the best intercultural communicators yet.
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Contents
Preface
vii
1.
Cultural Anthropology and International Business, I
The Anthropological Perspective, 2
Cultural Anthropology and Business, 6
Culture and International Business, 7
The Need for Greater Awareness of the Cultural Environment, 9
International Competency-A National Problem, 15
2.
Culture and lnternational Business: A Conceptual Approach, 18
Culture Defined, 18
Culture Is Learned, 20
Culture Influences Biological Processes, 22
Cultural Universals, 24
Economic Systems 26 Marriage and Family Systems 27
Educational Systems 28 Social Control Systems 28
Supernatural Belief Systems 29
Cultural Change, 29
Ethnocentrism, 35
Cultures Are Integrated Wholes, 37
Conclusion, 41
Cross-Cultural Scendrios, 43
iv
Contents
3. Communicating across Cultures: Language, 46
The Need for Linguistic Proficiency in International Business, 46
Linguistic Diversity, 50
Language and Culture, 53
The Influence of Culture on Language 53 The Influence
of Language on Culture 54 Language Mirrors Values 56
Explicit versus Implicit Communication, 57
Language and Social Context, 62
Some Additional Complicating Factors 65
Slang 65 Euphemisms 65 Proverbs 66
Humor 68 Conversational Taboos 69
ErbalDueling
Conclusion, 70
Cross-Cultural Scenarios, 70
4. Communicating across Cultures: The Nonverbal Dimension, 73
The Nature of Nonverbal Communication, 73
Body Posture, 76
Hand Gestures, 79
Facial Expressions, 82
Gaze, 84
Proxemics, 86
Bodily Contact (Touching), 89
Conclusion, 93
Cross-Cultural Scenarios, 94
5.
Contrasting Cultural Values, 97
The Individual-Collective Dimension, 100
How This Value Plays Out in the Two Types of Society I01
Implications for Business 103
The Equality-Hierarchy Dimension, 105
How This Value Plays Out in the Two Types of Society 106
Implications for Business 107
The Tough-Tender Dimension, 108
How This Value Plays Out in the Two Types of Society 110
Implications for Business 111
The Uncertainty-AvoidanceDimension, 112
How This Value Plays Out in the Two Types of Society 114
Implications for Business 115
67
I
I
Contents
The Time Dimension, 115
Precise versus Loose Reckoning of Time 115 Sequential
versus Synchronized Timing 117 Past, Present, and Future
Orientations 118 How This Value Plays Out in Dzfferent Types
of Societies I20 Implications for Business 121
Conclusion, 121
Cross-Cultural Scenarios, 122
6. Negotiating across Cultures, 125
The Nature of Cross-Cultural Negotiation, 126
Where to Negotiate, 127
Effective Strategies fdr International Negotiators, 129
Concentrate on I Long-Term Relationships, Not Short-Term
Contracts 129 Focus on the Interests behind the Positions I30
Avoid Overreliance on Cultural Generalizations 132 Be Sensitive
to Timing I33 Remain Flexible 134 Prepare Carefully 134
Learn to Listen; Not Just Speak 136
The Use of Interpretors, 138
The Global Negotiator, 139
Cross-Cultural Scenarios, 140
7. Coping with Culture Shock, 142
The Nature of Culture Shock, 142
Minimizing Culture Shock, 148
Cross-Cultural Scenzirios, 154
8. Developing Global Mdinagers, 157
Selection, 159
I
~ommunicatiohSkill 160 Personality Traits 160
Motivation 161 Family Circumstances 161
Cross-Cultural Training, 163
Repatriation, 168 1
Global Managers for the Twenty-First Century, 171
Cross-Cultural Scenarios, 178
Appendix A Cross-Cultural Scenario Discussions, 180
Appendix B Locating R’elevant Cultural Information, 188
The Traditional Anthropological Approach, I88
HRAF: An Underutilized Cultural Database, 189
v
vi
Contents
Documentary Sources Useful in Developing a Cultural Profile, 190
Culture-SpecificAssociations 190 Some Country-Specific
Series 190 US. Government Sources 191 Sources of
Country-Speczjk News and Current Events
191 Sources on
Business Customs and Protocols 192 The Electronic Library 193
Human Resources for Culture-Specific Information, 194
One b Own Company 194 Academia 194 Foreign Trade
Ofices 195 Private-Sector Consultants and Trainers 195
The Search for Cultural Information upon Arrival, 196
In-Country Documentary Resources 196
Resources 197
Conclusion, 198
References,
199
Photo Credits,
Index, 208
207
In-Country Human
Preface
This book is aimed at demonstrating how the theory and insights of cultural anthropology can positively influence the conduct of international business. To date, anthropologists have given embarrassingly little attention to this subject, and writers in the field of
international management and marketing, although acknowledging the importance of
the cultural dimension, have dealt with it in a cursory and anecdotal fashion. This bookwhich explores the contributions that cultural anthropology can make to the more effective and humane conduct of international business–can serve the interests of both the
international business community and the discipline of anthropology, which is continually searching for new, nonacademic environments in which to make practical contributions. Specifically, the book takes a fourfold approach to understanding the cultural
dimension of international business.
I. Culture-General Approach: Making the Connections between
AnthropologicalTheory (Generalizations) and International Business
Chapter 2 provides an in-depth look at the concept of culture, what generalizations hold true for all cultures of the world, and the implications of those generalizations for international business. This chapter is predicated on the notion that it is
impossible for anyone to master all of the specific cultural facts about the thousands
of cultures found in the world today. Thus, a more conceptual approach is needed. The
chapter begins with various definitions of the culture concept, followed by some important generalizations that can be usefully applied to any cross-cultural situation. The
importance of these cultural generalizations for the conduct of international business
is then discussed.
viii
Preface
II. Understanding Communication Patterns–Verbal And Nonverbal
In Chapters 3 and 4 we examine some of the critical dimensions of communication,
both verbal and nonverbal, in a cross-cultural business setting. Effective communication
between people from the same cultural and linguistic group is often difficult enough,
but when one is attempting to communicate with people who speak little or no Englishand have different ideas, attitudes, assumptions, perceptions, and ways of doing thingsthe chances for miscommunication increase enormously. In Chapter 3, we examine the
critical importance of language competence in an international business situation, the
interrelatedness between language and culture, the situational use of language, and some
additional factors (such as slang and euphemisms) that can further complicate verbal
communication in an international business context.
In Chapter 4 we discuss the importance of knowing the nonverbal communication
patterns prevalent in the international business arena. As important as language is to
sending and receiving messages, nonverbal communication is perhaps even more important. Not only do nonverbal cues help us interpret verbal messages, but they are also
responsible in their own right for the majority of the messages that make up human communication. Six major modes of communicating nonverbally-posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, proxemics, and touching-are discussed in a cross-cultural
perspective. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how many ways there are to miscommunicate in a cross-cultural business setting unless one is familiar with the nonverbal patterns of communication in addition to the linguistic patterns.
Ill. Cultural Self-Awareness: Their Values and Ours
Chapter 5, dealing with values, is designed with two purposes in mind. First, it
aims to show that people from different cultures view the world from the viewpoint of
different cultural assumptions. And second, it encourages Western businesspeople to increase their cultural self-awareness-that is, their ability to recognize the influences of
their culture on their thinking and behavior. An increase in cultural self-awareness should
make it easier to diagnose difficulties when communicating in a foreign business setting.
It should enable the overseas businessperson to discover how a cross-cultural misunderstanding may have arisen from his or her own cultural assumptions rather than from some
shortcoming of the culturally different person.
This chapter has undergone extensive revision in this edition. Whereas previous editions had focused on American cultural values, this edition takes a more conceptual approach. Following the lead of such theorists as Florence Kluckhohn, John Condon, and
Geert Hofstede, among others, Chapter 5 now presents a framework of values that can
be used to analyze cultural differences throughout the world. The model examines such
dimensions of values as individualism versus collectivism, equality versus hierarchy,
tough versus tender societies, varying levels of uncertainty avoidance, and certain aspects of time, including precise versus loose reckoning of time, past, present, and future
time orientations, and sequential versus synchronical aspects of time. Chapter 5 describes
Preface
ix
each of these dimensions, shows how they play out in different types of societies, and then
examines the implications for conducting business.
IV. Culture-Specific Approach: Finding Relevant Cultural Information
The final segment of this four-pronged approach involves a discussion of how
and where to find the specific cultural information needed for any particular international
business assignment. For example, how does one procure current and pertinent data describing the cultural patterns that exist in Djakarta, Madras, or La Paz? Appendix B explores a number of anthropological and nonanthropological data sources (both
documentary and human) that can be useful in developing a profile of any particular culture. This appendix is based on the assumption that if U.S. businesses are to meet the
current challenges of a highly competitive world economy, they will need an everincreasing flow of information about the cultures of those with whom they are conducting business.
Chapter 6 deals with negotiating across cultures. Although it is recognized that no
two international negotiating situations are ever identical, some negotiating strategies
are generally valid in most situations. Based on the experiences of successful and culturally sensitive international negotiators, this chapter provides such general guidelines
as (1) concentrating on long-term relationships, (2) focusing on the interests behind the
positions, (3) being attuned to timing, and (4) needing flexibility, careful preparation,
and willingness to listen.
Chapter 7 of this book examines culture shock, a phenomenon that can sour an
otherwise promising international business assignment. Although there are no ways of
totally eliminating this psychologically disorienting experience, there are steps to take before, during, and after an international assignment that can reduce some of the more debilitating symptoms. The chapter concludes with suggestions for minimizing culture
shock.
Chapter 8 examines developing global leaders, expatiate excellence, and a number of other important global human resource issues. This chapter argues that expatriate
assignments must be managed in a more systematic, holistic, and long-term way than they
are currently being managed. This requires international firms to be attentive to all phases of transferring personnel abroad, including selection, cross-cultural preparation, incountry support, repatriation, and the utilization of those skills gained abroad for future
assignments.
As a final note, attention should be given to the scenarios appearing at the end
of Chapters 2 through 8. The reader is encouraged to analyze these minicase studies in
an attempt to determine why a cultural conflict has arisen and how the conflict or misunderstanding portrayed could have been avoided. Although it is impossible to include
examples of every possible cross-cultural conflict in a business setting, these end-ofchapter scenarios are designed to help the reader gain a greater sensitivity to the wide
range of potential conflicts that could arise. Explanations of these scenarios appear in
Appendix A.
x
Preface
As with the previous editions of this book, a number of reviewers have made insightful suggestions for improvement. I trust that all reviewers will notice that many
of their helpful suggestions have in fact been incorporated into the new edition. In particular, I would like to thank the following reviewers for their helpful suggestions: John
.’F Staeck, College of DuPage; Thomas E. Durbin, California State University-Stanislaus; R. Boyd Johnson, Indiana Wesleyan University; and John Rhoades, St. John Fisher College.
Gary P. Ferraro
Cultural Anthropology
and International Business
How often do we hear people say “The whole argument is academic”? By this statement
they mean that, despite the elegance of the logic, the whole line of reasoning makes little or no difference. In other words, the term academic has become synonymous with irrelevant. In all of academia, it is hard to think of other disciplines generally perceived by
the public to be any more irrelevant to the everyday world than cultural anthropology, the
comparative study of cultures. The student of biology, for example, can apply his or her
skills to the solution of vital medical problems; the student of creative arts can produce
lasting works of art; and the political science student, owing to a basic understanding of
political dynamics, can become a local, state, or national leader. But according to popular perception, the study of cultural anthropology, with its apparent emphasis on the nonWestern cultures of the world, has little to offer other than a chance to dabble in the
exotic.
To counter the long-held popular view that cultural anthropology is of little use in
helping to understand the world around us, in recent years an increasing number of cultural anthropologists have applied the theories, findings, and methods of their craft to a
wide range of professional areas. Professionals in such areas as education, urban administration, and the various health services have been coming to grips, albeit reluctantly, with the cultural environments within which they work; however, those in the area
of international business, although having perhaps the greatest need, remain among the
most skeptical concerning the relevance of cultural anthropology. There has in fact been
little contact between cultural anthropology and the international business sector. According to Erve Chambers, cultural anthropologists have avoided working with the international business community because of “a highly prejudiced ethical stance which
associates commercial success and profit taking with a lack of concern for human welfare” (1985, 128). Also, Western multinational corporationshave not actively sought the
services of cultural anthropologists, whom they generally view as serving little useful pur-
2
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
pose other than providing more interesting cocktail-party conversation about the esoteric peoples of the world. In short, both cultural anthropologists and international businesspeople view the concerns of the other as irrelevant, morally questionable, or trivial.
This book rests on the fundamental assumption that to operate effectively in the international business arena one must master the cultural environment by means of purposeful preparation as well as sustained learning throughout one’s overseas assignment.
Now, as in the past, international businesspeople acquire their international expertise
while on the job, and they consider such hands-on factors as business travel and overseas
assignments to be the most important experiences. While not minimizing the value of experiential learning, this book argues that, in addition to on-the-job learning (and in most
cases, before entering the international marketplace), successful international businesspeople must prepare themselves in a very deliberate manner in order to operate within a
new, and frequently very different, cultural environment.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
When the average American hears the word anthropologist, two images usually come to
mind. The first image is that represented by Harrison Ford in his portrayal of anthropologist Indiana Jones in the film Raiders of the LostArk. In his search for clues to the secrets of lost civilizations, Indiana Jones spends most of his time being chased by irate
cannibals, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with sinister Nazis, and being thrown into
pits with thousands of snakes. Although this image is exciting theater, it gives us little insight into what anthropology is all about. The second image of an anthropologist is that
of the irrelevant academic who spends every moment out of the classroom interviewing
exotic peoples whose cultures are about to become extinct. Anthropology, however, is neither hazardous to the health nor irrelevant. Both these views of anthropology are misleading stereotypes, which obscure both the nature of the discipline and its relevance to
the world.
The scientific discipline of anthropology is far less life-endangering than Hollywood
would have us believe and far more relevant than most of us imagine. To be certain, anthropologists do travel to the far corners of the world studying little-known cultures (cultural anthropologists) and languages (anthropological linguists). Moreover, some
anthropologists unearth fossil remains (physical anthropologists) and artifacts (archaeologists) of people who lived thousands or, in some cases, millions of years ago. Despite
the fact that these four subareas of anthropology frequently deal with different types of
data, they are all directed toward a single purpose: the scientific study of human cultures
in whatever form, time period, or region of the world in which they might be found. According to Carol and Melvin Ember,
Anthropology is concerned explicitly and directly with all varieties of people throughout the
world, not just those close at hand or within a limited area. It is also interested in people of
all periods. Beginning with the immediate ancestors of humans who lived a few million years
ago, anthropology traces the development of humans until the present. Every part of the
world that has ever contained a human population is of interest to anthropologists. (1999,2)
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
Cultural anthropologist no longer work only in exotic parts of the world, such
as southwest Africa.
3
4
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
Anthropology differs from other disciplines that study humans in that it is much
broader in scope both geographically and historically. Four distinct yet closely related subfields comprise anthropology: (1) archaeology, the study of ancient and prehistoric societies; (2) physical anthropology, the study of humans as biological entities; (3)
anthropological linguistics, the comparative study of languages; and (4) cultural anthropology, the search for similarities and differences among contemporary peoples of
the world. Even though the discipline encourages all anthropologists to constantly integrate these four fields, in recent decades increasing disciplinary specialization has made
it virtually impossible for any anthropologist to cover all four fields in a comprehensive
way. When we look at the contributions anthropology can make to the more effective
conduct of international business, we are looking primarily at cultural anthropology.
Cultural anthropology seeks to understand how and why contemporary peoples of
the world differ in their customary ways of behaving and how and why they share certain similarities. It is, in short, the comparative study of cultural differences and similarities
found throughout the world. Cultural anthropologists may often appear to be documenting inconsequential cultural facts about little-known peoples of the world, but our learning more about the wide range of cultural variations will serve as a check on those who
might generalize about “human nature” solely on observations from their own society. It
is not at all unusual for people to assume that their own ways of thinking and acting are
unquestionably rational, “natural,” or “human.” Consider, for example, the nonverbal
gesture of negation (found in the United States and in other parts of the world), shaking
the head from side to side. In some parts of India, however, people use this very same gesture to communicate not negation but affirmation. In fact, there are any number of different ways of nonverbally communicating the idea of negation, all of which are no more
or no less rational than shaking the head from side to side. The study of cultural anthropology provides a look at the enormous variations in thinking and acting found in the
world today and how many different solutions have been generated for solving the same
problem.
Anthropologydoes more than simply document the enormous variations in human
cultures. If anthropology deserves to be called a science, it must go beyond the mere cataloging of cultural differences. It must also identify and describe the commonalities of
humans amid the great diversity-that is, the regularities found in all cultural contexts
regardless of how different those contexts might appear at first glance. For example, for
any society to continue to exist over the long run, it must solve the basic problem of how
to pass on its total cultural heritage–all the ideas, values, attitudes, behavior patterns, and
so on-to succeeding generations. Should that complexity of cultural traditions not be
passed on to future generations, that society will very likely not survive. Saudis have
solved this problem by developing Koranic schools, which pass on the cultural traditions
to the younger generations; in parts of West Africa, “bush schools” train young adolescents to become adults; in our own society, we rely on a formal system of compulsory
education, complete with books, desks, and teachers. Although the details of these educational systems vary enormously, all societies in the world-today or in the past-have
worked out a system for ensuring that new generations will learn their culture. Thus, the
science of anthropology attempts to document the great variations in cultural forms while
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
5
looking for both the common strands that are found in and the general principles that apply
to all cultures.
The strong comparative perspective that anthropologists bring to the study of the
human condition helps reduce the probability that their theories will be culture bound.
Sociologists and psychologists, for example, concentrating as they have on studies of
peoples from Western societies, are more likely to construct theories that are based on
Western assumptions of reality. The cross-cultural perspective of anthropological studies has frequently served as a corrective to those disciplinesthat rely more heavily for their
theory construction on data from Western societies. According to Clifford Geertz, cultural anthropologists were the first to recognize
that the world does not divide into the pious and the superstitious; that there are sculptures
in jungles and paintings in deserts; that political order is possible without centralized power
and principled justice without codified rules; that the norms of reason were not fixed in
Greece, the evolution of morality not consummated in England. . . . We have, with no little
success, sought to keep the world off balance; pulling out rugs, upsetting tea tables, setting
off fire crackers. It has been the office of others to reassure; ours to unsettle. (1 984,275)
In addition to being comparative, the anthropological perspective has another distinctive feature. Unlike other social or behavioral sciences, anthropologists analyze cultural differences and similarities firsthand. For example, psychologists usually study
human behavior by using post facto data rather than actually observing the behavior as
it is occurring; sociologists generally rely on secondary information gleaned from questionnaires, interviews, and census reports; historians are removed in time from the people and events that constitute their subject matter. Cultural anthropologists, however, use
participant observation as a major method for collecting culturally comparative information. When anthropologists use participant observation, they share in the everyday
activities of the local people while making detailed descriptive observationsof people eating, working, playing, conversing, dancing, fighting, or any other activity that might distinguish their cultural patterns.
Given the nature of the anthropological enterprise, it is not surprising that the
founders of modern anthropology developed the tradition of firsthand field observations
of cultural behavior. If indeed anthropology had set as its task the comparative study of
human cultures, it would have to study all human cultures, many of which had not been
studied before. In the absence of descriptive studies of exotic cultures, early anthropologists had no other choice but to learn the language and spend at least a year immersed
in the culture of the people under study. Today, even though libraries are well stocked with
descriptive studies of a wide variety of world cultures, participant observation remains
a preferred investigative strategy among contemporary anthropologists.
Thus, cultural anthropologists are trained to analyze the social organizations of
various types of societies. In the early twentieth century, cultural anthropologists tended
to devote their energies exclusively to the analysis of small-scale, technologically sirnple, and usually non-Western peoples. Within the last several decades, however, cultural anthropologists have become increasingly involved in the study of more complex
societies.Yet whether dealing with simple or complex societies, the focus of cultural an-
6
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
thropologists has been the comparative study of sociocultural organizations wherever,
or in whatever form, they may be found.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND BUSINESS
Since the 1930s, cultural anthropologists have conducted a modest amount of research
in industrial and corporate settings, focusing largely on corporate cultures in the United
States. For example, the human relations school of organizational research of the 1930s
and 1940s produced a number of ethnographies showing how informal cultural patterns
could influence managerial goals (Mayo 1933, Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939, Gardner 1945, Warner and Low 1947, Richardson and Walker 1948). More recent studies of
corporate cultures have attempted to show how specific configurations of values contribute to the relative success or failure of meeting corporate goals (Denison 1990, Kotter 1992, Frost et al. 1991, Rhinesmith 1996).
This body of research is predicated on the understanding that, business organizations are like those societies studied by traditional anthropologists. For example, like
people found in small-scale, preliterate societies, corporate members engage in rituals;
perpetuate corporate myths and stories; adhere to a set of norms, symbols, and behavioral
expectations; and use specialized vocabularies. Since business organizations tend to be
both differentiated and socially stratified, specific roles and statuses can be identified.
Also, business organizations, through dealings with such groups as unions, governments,
environmental groups, and consumers, have external relations with other social systems.
Given these similarities, cultural anthropologists have made modest contributions to the
understanding of domestic business organizations, and they have the potential for making many others.
The anthropological perspective can be useful in the study of purely domestic business organizations, which frequently are composed of many social components that come
from different backgrounds, hold contrasting values and attitudes, and have conflicting
loyalties. For instance, the company vice president will not likely have much in common
with the assembly-line worker, the union representative, the president of the local Sierra Club, the OSHA inspector, the janitor, or many members of that diverse group called
the buying public. And yet, if the organization is to function effectively, that high management official needs to know about the values, attitudes, expectations, concerns, and
behavioral patterns of all these people, and others as well. This is particularly true today
as more and more minorities are brought into domestic workforces under equal opportunity employment laws. In short, domestic business organizations can be viewed as
minicultures (composed of different people with different roles, statuses, and value systems) that operate within the wider national cultural context.
In the mid-1990s, approximately 500 doctoral anthropologists were working in the
private sector for consulting firms or large corporations (Baba 1994, 178). That number
has no doubt increased as we enter the new millenium. Anthropologist John Sherry, who
years ago studied communications technology among the Navajo, is now a member of a
team of design ethnographers with Intel Corporation. Their purpose is to learn as much
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
7
as possible (by using anthropological methods) about how people work and use hightech tools so that Intel can design more efficient tools in the future. Anthropologists are
trained to patiently observe human behavior for hours on end while recording those behaviors in minute detail. Intel (along with other high-tech firms like IBM, Hewlett
Packard, Motorola, AT&T, and Xerox) is betting that useful insights will emerge from
those minute details. To illustrate this application of anthropology, Sherry and lus fellow
design ethnographers spent large amounts of time in the late 1990s hanging out in
teenagers’ bedrooms. They talked to over 100 teenagers, analyzed still photos, and studied hours of videos that cataloged how their bedrooms were used. The team concluded
that teenagers would like to send photos to each other by transmitting images over telephone lines that would enter a friend’s computer and then be displayed in a bedside electronic picture frame. It is not surprising then, that in 2000 the world’s first Internet-connected
picture frame was on the market (Takahashi 1998).
Failure to consider the cultural context in the domestic organization can, and has,
led to misunderstandings, miscommunication, costly marketing blunders, lawsuits, and
generally an undermining of organizational goals. When moving into the area of international business, the need to be aware of cultural environments becomes even more critical. Here the magnitude of the cultural differences is vastly greater; consequently,
breakdown of communication usually increases geometrically. Although the anthropological perspective is valuable in understanding any business organization, be it domestic or international, this book focuses on the contributions that cultural anthropology can
make to the improvement of international business operations, with particular emphasis
on the functional areas of international marketing and management.
CULTURAL AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Whether dealing with issues of marketing, managing, or negotiating, the success or
failure of a company abroad depends on how effectively its employees can exercise
their skills in a new location. That ability will depend on both their job-related expertise
and the individual’s sensitivity and responsiveness to the new cultural environment.
One of the most common factors contributing to failure in international business assignments is the erroneous assumption that if a person is successful in the home environment, he or she will be equally successful in applying technical expertise in a
different culture.
Research has shown that failures in the overseas business setting most frequently
result from an inability to understand and adapt to foreign ways of thinking and acting
rather than from technical or professional incompetence (Tung 1988; Black, Gregersen,
and Mendenhall 1992). At home, U.S. businesspeople equip themselves with vast amounts
of knowledge of their employees, customers, and business partners. Market research provides detailed information on values, attitudes, and buying preferences of U.S. consumers; middle- and upper-level managers are well versed in the intricacies of their
organization’s culture; and labor negotiators must be highly sensitive to what motivates
those on the other side of the table. Yet when Americans turn to the international arena,
8
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
they frequently deal with customers, employees, and fellow workers with a dearth of information that at home would be unimaginable.
The literature on international business is filled with examples of business miscues when U.S. corporations attempted to operate in an international context. Some are
mildly amusing; others are downright embarrassing. All of them, to one degree or another, have been costly in terms of money, reputation, or both. For example, when American firms try to market their products in other countries, they often assume that if a
marketing strategy or slogan is effective in, say, Cleveland, it will be equally effective
in other parts of the world. But problems can arise when changing cultural contexts.
The following examples illustrate some miscues. An airline offering service to Brazil
advertised that it had comfortable “rendezvous lounges” in its business-class section. Unfortunately, it failed to realize that the word rendezvous in Portuguese refers to a room
for illicit sexual encounters. Chicken entrepreneur Frank Purdue decided to translate
one of his very successful advertising slogans into Spanish, but the new slogan didn’t
produce the desired results. The slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as “It takes a virile man to make a chicken affectionate.” And the Dairy Association’s wildly successful ad campaign “Got Milk?’ had the
unfortunate translation “Are you lactating?” when used in Mexico. Although all these
cross-cultural advertising blunders cause us to chuckle, they can result in a loss of revenue and even product credibility.
Insensitivity to the cultural realities of foreign workforces can lead to less than desirable results. David Anderson (1985) tells of a U.S. businessperson who rewarded the
most outstanding member of a Japanese marketing team by promoting him to head up
the group. Rather than being proud and grateful, however, the top performer seemed
ashamed, and the others in the group were uncomfortable and demoralized. Contrary to
what the American manager had anticipated, performance in the group quickly deteriorated. What the American had not realized was that Japanese feel most comfortable working in teams, with all sharing equally in decisions, workloads, and responsibility for
outcomes. As Anderson puts it, “The attempt at motivation, American-style,destroyed a
sense of harmonious cooperation the Japanese workers had cherished” (1985,54-55).
Just as inattention to the cultural context can result in some costly blunders in marketing and management, it also can affect seriously the success of international business
negotiations. Time, effort, reputation, and even contracts can be lost because of cultural
ignorance. Alison Lanier tells of one American executive who paid a very high price for
failing to do his cultural homework:
A top level, high priced vice president had been in and out of Bahrain many times, where
liquor is permitted. He finally was sent to neighboring Qatar (on the Arabian Gulf) to conclude a monumental negotiation that had taken endless months to work out. Confident of
success, he slipped two miniatures of brandy into his briefcase, planning to celebrate quietly with his colleague after the ceremony. Result: not only was he deported immediately on
arrival by a zealous customs man in that strictly Moslem country, but the firm was also
“disinvited” and ordered never to return. The Qatari attitude was that this man had tried to
flout a deeply-held religious conviction; neither he nor his firm, therefore, was considered
“suitable” for a major contract. (1979, 160-61)
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
9
These are only a few of the examples of the price paid for miscalculating–orsimply ignoring-the cultural dimension of international business. The most cursory review
of the international business literature will reveal many other similarly costly mistakes.
In 1974, Ricks, Fu, and Arpan published a compendium of international business miscues appropriately entitled International Business Blunders. Less than a decade later, an
entirely new collection was published (Ricks 1983), describing only those international
business blunders that have occurred since 1974. More recently, Ricks (1993, 1999) has
published his latest volumes of new and “improved” international business blunders. The
purpose here is not to demonstrate the folly and insensitivity of the American businessperson when operating overseas but to show that the world is changing faster than
most of us can calculate. IfAmerican businesspeople are to meet the challenges of an increasingly interdependent world, they will need to develop a better understanding of how
cultural variables influence international business enterprises. A healthy dialogue between cultural anthropologists and members of the international business communitywhich this book seeks to initiate-is an important step in achieving that needed
understanding.
THE NEED FOR GREATER AWARENESS OFTHE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
In recent decades, a growing tendency of business and industry has been to become increasingly more globally interdependent.To remain competitive, most businesses, both
here and abroad, needed to enter into international/cross-culturalalliances. The overall
consequences of this trend have been that more and more companies have engaged in
such activities as joint ventures, licensing agreements, turnkey projects, and foreign
capital investments. Since the end of the cold war in the late 1980s, however, world
economies have experienced dramatic changes, which collectively have been subsumed
under the term globalization. The term has become one of the most overused and poorly understood words in the English language. To be certain, there have been interconnections between countries and cultures for centuries, but when the Berlin Wall came
down in 1989, the world began to change in some dramatic ways. Forces were unleashed
that have had and will continue to have profound effects on all cultures of the world.
According to Thomas Friedman (1999), globalization is not just a passing trend but
a worldwide phenomenon that has replaced the cold war system. From 1945 until the
late 1980s, the nations and cultures of the world were compartmentalized into two major
camps, the “communist bloc” and the “free world.” However, with the demise of world
communism, so powerfully symbolized by the physical dismantling of the Berlin Wall,
the world is experiencing (at a very rapid pace) a new type of integration of markets,
technology, and information that is oblivious to both national and cultural borders. This
post-cold war globalization is driven by free-market capitalism and the idea that the
more a country opens up its markets to free trade, the healthier its economy will become.
The economics of globalization involves lowering tariff barriers while privatizing and
deregulating national economies. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
10
Cultural Anthropology and InternationalBusiness
What follows is just a few illustrations of how extensively the lives of all the world’s
peoples are interconnected:
The United States remains highly reliant on other countries for a number of important minerals. For example, the United States imports 100 percent of its
graphite, manganese, mica, columbium, and strontium and more than 90 percent of its bauxite and diamonds.
The hundred largest multinational corporations in the world own nearly $2 trillion of assets outside their home countries.
The United States has the fourth largest Spanish-speaking population in the
world. More than 60 percent of the people of Miami, for example, speak Spanish as their first language.
In the past quarter of a century, the percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign born has grown from 4.8 percent in 1970,to 6.2percent in 1980,to 7.9 percent in 1990,and to over 9 percent at the turn of the century.
A significant number of corporations make more than half their total sales in foreign markets. To illustrate, Coca-Cola sells more of its product in Japan than it
does in the United States.
Direct foreign investments in the United States have increased from $13.2billion in 1970 to $81 l .7billion in 1998,more than a sixtyfold increase in the last
quarter of a century (World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999).
U.S. direct investments abroad have increased from $335 billion in 1988 to more
than $980 billion in 1998 (World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999).
The near meltdown of many Asian economies in the late 1990s had profound if
temporary effects on the economies of the United States and Western Europe.
Foreign-owned firms operating in the United States employ over 5 million workers, approximately one in ten manufacturing jobs.
and the European Economic Union are two examples of the recent globalization of markets. The result of the globalization of markets is that goods and services from all over
the world are making their way into other cultures.
At the same time that world trade barriers are falling, a concomitant revolution is
going on in the world of information technology. In the mid-1980s only a handful of people in the world could operate a computer. Today, computers are nearly as common in
the home as the radio was in the 1940s. Moreover, the development of digitization, fiber
optics, satellite communication, and the Internet now enables people to communicate
with one another instantaneously. During the cold war days, grandparents in Pennsylvania had to wait several weeks to see a photograph of a new grandchild born in Istanbul. Today, however, a photo of the new baby can be taken in Istanbul with a digital
camera, loaded into your laptop computer, and sent via e-mail to the grandparents in a
matter of minutes. With the advent of e-commerce, anyone with a good product, a computer, a telephone, access to the Internet, a website, and a UPS account can become a
potential entrepreneur. Globalization has encouraged the participation of large numbers
of new players in the world markets. It is now possible to enter the global economy vir-
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
11
tually overnight, with very little capital outlay, and become a global competitor by the
next afternoon.
New York Times correspondent Thomas Freidman discusses the various dimensions
of globalization in The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999). He provides an insightll glimpse
into our very rapidly changing world, a world dominated by global business and the rapid
exchange of information. Friedman makes a number of interesting contrasts between the
cold war and post-cold war eras.
The defining symbol of the cold war era was the Berlin Wall, an immovable presence that
functioned to separate people and ideas; the hallmark of globalization, on the other hand, is
the Internet that functions to integrate people by facilitating communication.
The concept of weight has been replaced by speed. During the cold war, the operative question was “How big is your missile?’The mantra for the new millenium is “How fast is your
modem?”
The mentality during the cold war was “us” versus “them,” but the emerging globalized
world sees all people as competitors.
To make a sports analogy, the cold war era was like two sumo wrestlers trying to knock
each other out of the ring; the era of globalization is like sprinters racing one another continually to be the first to get their share of global markets.
Clearly, the end of the cold war helped facilitate this new era of globalization, but
it did not, in and of itself, cause it to happen. Several other monumental changes since
the late 1980s also have defined globalization. First, the world has experienced a revolution in computer technology, which has made communication faster and cheaper for
a rapidly growing segment of the world’s population. To illustrate, the speed of computers
12
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
during the 1990s has doubled every eighteen months, and the space on disks has increased 60 percent every year. Moreover, voice, music, videos, and photos can be digitized and sent cheaply and quickly over fiber-optic cable. Second, fundamental changes
have occurred in the way we invest our money. During the cold war era, investing was
done by the large banks, insurance companies, and investment firms; today it is, to a
much larger degree, in the hands of individuals.At least in the industrialized world, individuals, not multibillion-dollar firms, are managing their own investments through
mutual funds and 401K pension accounts. The ability to move one’s personal investment funds around has been made even easier by e-trading on the Internet, which eliminates the need for a broker. Third, there has been a fundamental change in the flow of
information all over the world. The walls and barriers so prominent during the cold war
era allowed governments to control their populations through systematic control of information. As recently as the mid-1980s, copy machines in Russia and China were unavailable to anyone other than government officials because they posed a threat to
government monopolies on the flow of information. Today, however, the availability of
“b
b @ and
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Cultural Anthropology and International Business
13
the Internet permits the spread of ideas (and ideologies) across national boundaries with
little government interference.
It has become a clichC to say that the world is becoming a global village. Rapid
technological developments in transportation and communications in recent decades
have brought the peoples of the world closer together in ways that we could barely imagine just a decade ago. The globalization of many companies has made it difficult to determine the home country of certain brands. Nike running shoes are made in Taiwan,
BMWs are made in South Carolina, and some computer parts are manufactured in as
many as a half-dozen different countries. Swissair has moved its entire accounting department to Bombay, India, to take advantage of lower labor costs of a highly educated
workforce. Even the Carolina Panthers football team plays in a stadium named after a
Swedish cell phone company. Moreover, businesses in a number of countries are gaining prominence in certain markets. To illustrate, India has become the world’s leading
producer of tractors, just as the French have dominated world markets in glass and the
Europeans have taken ownership of most of the publishing industry in the United States.
Unfortunately, despite the growing world interdependency,a concomitant revolution in
cross-cultural understanding among all the peoples of the world has not occurred. And,
of course, no one could argue that we have witnessed any degree of cultural homogenization of world populations. Instead, this rapid globalization of world economies is
making the need for understanding the cultural dimension of our business enterprises
increasingly more imperative, not less. Working, as many of us do today, with ultra highspeed technology in the world of e-commerce does not absolve us from having to understand the cultures (values and behaviors) of our customers, suppliers, or business
partners. The cultural differences found in today’s world are every bit as important in our
cyber-businesses as they were a mere ten years ago when few people had even heard of
the Internet.
During the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, companies lived or died
by the availability of physical resources, such as steel or plastics, which were used to manufacture their products. Commerce, as we have known it up until a few decades ago, was
largely the exchange of material goods from producer to consumer. With the rapid globalization the world has experienced since the 1980s,however, a major shift has taken place
away from physical commodities toward knowledge. In this new information age that is
developing, it is people and the knowledge they possess that constitute the real competitive advantage. The organizations that will thrive in the twentieth century are those willing and able to mobilize, develop, and reward their key resources: people. They will need
to develop what Robert Rosen refers to as “globally literate leaders,. . . who manage their
own culture and the cultures of others” (2000,24).
How well the United States will fare in this increasingly interdependent world in
the decades to come is not altogether predictable. During the quarter of a century immediately following World War 11, the United States enjoyed unprecedented and unparalleled economic success. Our postwar technologies gave rise to products that the
world wanted, and we were very willing and able to supply everything from atomic energy and microelectronics to Levis and Big Macs. The United States, owing to its technology, managerial techniques, and investment capital, was in the enviable position of
14
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
being the “only game in town.” During this period our world market shares were large,
and we enjoyed a healthy balance of payments. Then, in the early 1970s, the trade surpluses that we had enjoyed for so long disappeared, and we began to have trade deficits.
Ironically, it was in 1 9 7 h u r bicentennial year-that our trade accounts moved into
a negative imbalance. The substantial trade deficit of over $9 billion in 1976 has risen
dramatically since then.
Some have argued that this serious, negative trade imbalance is largely the result
of unfair trade practices by some of our trading partners. However we might choose to
explain it, the inescapable conclusion is that we are not selling our goods and services
to the rest of the world as successfully as we did during the past. American businesses
must realize that-despite what may have occurred in the past-the product will no
longer sell itself. Since there are so many good products on the market today, the crucial factor in determining who makes the sale is not so much the intrinsic superiority of
the product but rather the skill of the seller in understanding the dynamics of the transaction between oneself and the customer. A large part of that dynamic involves understanding the cultural differences and similarities operating in the global marketplace.
Unfortunately, because of our relative success in the past, we are not particularly well
equipped to meet the challenges of the international economic arena during the twenty-first century.
Part of the problem lies in the fact that many U.S. companies, particularly middlesized ones, have not attempted to sustain sales and production by venturing into the international marketplace. Although there has been an increase during the 1980s in the
number of U.S. firms that export, it remains that fewer than 1 percent of all U.S. companies are responsible for 80 percent of all U.S. exporting activities. Even though most
U.S. corporations have competed successfully in domestic markets, with a unified language and business practices, they have not been very adept at coping with the wide
range of different languages, customs, and cultural assumptions found in the international business arena. For many of the firms that do enter foreign markets, success has
One of the most eloquent statements of the need for international businesspeople
to become better attuned to other languages and cultures was made by William
Rugh, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and the United Arab Emirates:
As the U.S. Ambassador to a wealthy country in the Persian Gulf for the past three years,
I saw a constant stream of U.S. company representatives passing through our embassy
on their way to try to sell their goods and services to local importers and local government
officials. In an embarrassing number of cases, the businessman was woefully ignorant of
even the basic rules of successful marketing in the Middle East. Seeing a number of lucrative opportunities snatched from us by sawy British or French or Japanese businessmen, who had taken the time to learn about the local culture and even some of the local
language, I realized that some of my compatriates were very naive, and assumed that
the sales pitch that worked in the United States would work anywhere abroad. Not necessarily. Some U.S. firms, which have been doing business in the region for a while, have
learned the ropes, but many have not. (1995)
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
15
I
been inconsistent at best. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the area ofAmericans
!living and working abroad.
Statistics on Americans returning from overseas working assignments before the
end of their contracts vary widely throughout the international business literature. Estimates of attrition rates in the late 1970s ran as high as 65 to 85 percent for certain industries (Harris 1979,49; Edwards 1978,42). More recent figures, while not as high, still
serve to illustrate how difficult it is for Americans to live and work successfully abroad.
For example, Shari Caudron (1991, 27) cites premature returns of Americans living in
Saudi Arabia to be as high as 68 percent; 36 percent in Japan; 27 percent in Brussels; and
18 percent in London, a city that one would expect most Americans to adjust to easily.
Regardless of whether we are dealing with attrition rates of 68 percent or 18 percent, the
costs are enormous. Considering that it costs a firm between three and five times an employee’s base salary to keep that employee and his or her family in a foreign assignment
(Greengard 1999,106), the financial considerations alone can be staggering. These costs
refer only to premature returns; there is no way of measuring the additional losses incurred
by those firms whose personnel don’t become such statistics.Those personnel who stay
in their overseas assignments are frequently operating with decreased efficiency and,
owing to their less than perfect adjustment to the foreign cultural environment, often cost
their firms enormous losses in time, reputation, and successful contracts.
INTERNATIONAL COMPETENCY-A NATIONAL PROBLEM
The situation that has emerged in the 1990s is that as the world grows more interdependent, we Americans can no longer expect to solve all the world’s problems by ourselves,
nor is it possible to declare ourselves immune from them. If our nation is to continue to
be a world leader, we must build deep into our national psyche the need for international competency-that is, a specialized knowledge of foreign cultures, including professional proficiency in languages, and an understanding of the major political, economic,
and social variables affecting the conduct of international and intercultural affairs.
At the same time that we are faced with an ever-increasing need for international
competency, the resources our nation is devoting to its development are declining. This
problem is not limited to the area of business. It is, rather, a national problem that affects
many aspects ofAmerican life, including our national security, diplomacy, scientific advancement, and international political relations, in addition to economics. Future generations of American businesspeople, however, must be drawn from the society at large, and
it is this society, through its educational institutions, that has not in the past placed central importance on educating the general populace for international competence.
When compared with other countries, the United States does not stack up very
well in terms of international or intercultural competence. A Gallup poll conducted for
the National Geographic Society in the late 1980s revealed that Americans between the
ages of eighteen and twenty four scored lower on geographic and cultural knowledge
than did similarly aged young adults in the eight other industrialized nations in the study
(Gallup, 1988). A Department of Education report in 1990 showed that one in six high
16
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
school seniors in the United States thought that the Panama Canal shortened travel time
between New York and London. The bad news continues. In a more recent study of 313
students at a major public university in the southwestern part of the United States, Raymond Eve, Bob Price, and Monika Counts (1994) found that only 43 percent were able
to correctly identify Australia as the continent with coastlines on both the Pacific and Indian Oceans; only 42 percent correctly placed Libya in North Africa; and fewer than 50
percent knew that Portuguese was the primary language of Brazil. Moreover, the United States continues to be the only country in the world where it is possible to earn a college degree without taking any courses in a foreign language. Most American university
students in fact graduate without any functional knowledge of a language other than English.
Given the relatively low priority that international competency has had in our educational institutions in recent years, it is not surprising that those Americans who are expected to function successfully in a multicultural environment are so poorly prepared for
the task. If the international dimension is weak in our general education programs today,
it is even weaker in our business school curricula. To illustrate, in the majority of M.B.A.
programs in the United States, it is still possible to earn a degree without ever taking a
single course in international business.
Although graduate schools in business have increased their international offerings
over the past decade, courses on the cultural environment of international business have
received relatively little attention. This basic neglect of cross-cultural issues in business
education is generally reflected in the attitudes of the international business community. To illustrate, in a study of 127 U.S. firms with international operations, respondents
showed very little concern for the cultural dimension of international business. When
asked what should be included in the education of an international businessperson, respondents mentioned-almost without exception–onlytechnical courses. In other words,
very little interest was shown in language, culture, or history of one’s foreign business
partners (Reynolds and Rice, 1988, 56). As we enter the new milleniurn, however, evidence suggests that some companies are beginning to take these cultural considerations
more seriously.
However we choose to measure it, Americans are poorly equipped to deal with the
numerous challenges of our changing world. Whether we are talking about language
competence, funding for international education, opportunities for foreign exchange, or
simply the awareness of global knowledge, the inadequacies are real and potentially
threatening to many areas of our national welfare, international business in particular. The
Whenever Westerners believe that other cultures have nothing worthwhile to offer,
they are engaging in a type of cultural arrogance that can be self-defeating, as Professor Howard Perlmutter of the Wharton School of Business reminds us: “If you
have a joint venture with a Japanese company, they’ll send 24 people here to learn
everything you know, and you’ll send one person there to tell them everything you
know. . . .”(Kupfer 1988, 58)
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
17
problem referred to in the literature as a national crisis has no easy solution. What is required initially is broad public awareness of the problem, followed by concerted actions
on a number of fronts.
One way of helping to meet the challenge is by creating a dialogue between (1) people whose professions are directly and negatively affected by the problem and (2) cultural
anthropologists, whose major objective is the comparative study of cultural systems. As
a long-overdue corrective, this text focuses on how cultural variations can affect the conduct of international business.
C H A P T E R
Culture
and International Business
A Conceptual Approach
As mentioned in Chapter 1, anthropologists do more than simply accumulate and catalog information on the world’s exotic and not so exotic cultures. Like other scientists,
they attempt to generate theories about culture that apply to all human populations.
Since it is impossible for any individual to master every cultural fact about every culture in the world, a more theoretical approach can be instructive; that is, a number of
general concepts about culture can be applied to a wide variety of cross-cultural situations, regardless of whether one is dealing with Nigerians, Peruvians, or Appalachian coal miners.
In this chapter we explore what is meant-and what is not meant-by the term
culture. In addition to defining this central anthropologicalconcept, we also examine six
important generalizationsconcerning the concept of culture and their significance for the
U.S. businessperson operating in the world marketplace. Being equipped with such general concepts can facilitate the adjustment to an unfamiliar cultural environment.
CULTURE DEFINED
In everyday usage, the term culture refers to the finer things in life, such as the fine arts,
literature, and philosophy. Under this very narrow definition of the term, the cultured
person is one who prefers Handel to hard rock; can distinguish between the artistic styles
of Monet and Manet; prefers pheasant under glass to grits and red-eye gravy and twelveyear-old scotch to beer; and spends his or her leisure time reading Kierkegaard rather than
watching wrestling on television. For the anthropologist, however, the term culture has
a much broader meaning that goes far beyond mere personal refinements. The only requirement for being cultured is to be human. Thus, all people have culture. The scantily
clad Dani of New Guinea is as much a cultural animal as is Isaac Stern. For the anthro-
Culture and International Business
19
pologist, cooking pots, spears, and mud huts are as legitimate items of culture as syrnphonies, oil paintings, and great works of literature.
The term culture has been defined in a variety of ways. Even anthropologists,who
claim culture as their guiding conceptual principle, do not agree on a single definition
of the term. In fact, A. L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn (1952) identified over 160 different definitions of culture. One of the earliest widely cited definitions, offered by Edward
Tylor over a 125 years ago, defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by
man as a member of society” ( 1 871, 1). More recently, Clyde Kluckholn and W. H. Kelly
have referred to culture as “all the historically created designs for living, explicit and
implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational, which exist at any given time as potential
guides for the behavior of men” (1945, 97). M. J. Herskovits spoke of culture as being
“the man made part of the environment” (1955,305),and James Downs defined culture
as being “a mental map which guides us in our relations to our surroundings and to other
people” (1971,35).
Running the risk of adding to the confusion, here is still another definition: Culture is everything that people have, think, and do as members of their society. The three
verbs in this definition (have, think, and do) can help us identify the three major structural components of the concept of culture; that is, for a person to have something, some
material object must be present. When people think,ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs
are present. When people do,they behave in certain socially prescribed ways. Thus, culture is made up of ( 1 ) material objects; (2) ideas, values, and attitudes; and (3) normative, or expected, patterns of behavior.
The final phrase of our working definition, “as members of their society,” should
serve as a reminder that culture is shared by at least two or more people. Real, live societies are of course always larger than that. In other words, there is no such thing as the
Anthropologist Hendrick Serrie has provided an excellent example of how an anthropological understanding of local cultural patterns in southern Mexico prevented the costly mistake of mass producing a solar cooker developed for this area
(1986, xvi-xvii). Designed to reduce the use of firewood for cooking by encouraging the use of solar energy, these solar stoves, with the assistance of a four-foot
parabolic reflector, produced levels of heat comparable to a wood fire. Although
initial demonstrations of the cooker caught the interest of the local people, a number of cultural features militated against the widespread acceptance of this technological device.To illustrate, (1) the major part of the cooking in this part of Mexico
is done early in the morning and in the early evenings, at those times when solar
radiation is at its lowest level, and (2) although the solar stove was very effective
for boiling beans and soup, it was inadequate for cooking tortillas, a basic staple in
the local diet.Thus, for these and other cultural reasons, it was decided not to mass
produce and market the solar cookers because, even though the cooker worked well
technically, it made little sense culturally.
20
Culture and International Business
culture of a hermit. If a solitary individual thinks and behaves in a certain way, that
thought or action is idiosyncratic, not cultural. For an idea, a thing, or a behavior to be
considered cultural, it must be shared by some type of social group or society.
In addition to this working definition, a number of features of the concept of culture should be made explicit. In the remainder of this chapter, we briefly examine these
features that hold true for all cultures, and discuss why they are valuable insights into the
cultural environment of international business.
CULTURE IS LEARNED
Culture is transmitted through the process of learning and interacting with one 5 environment, rather than through the geneticprocess. Culture can be thought of as a storehouse
of all the knowledge of a society. The child who is born into any society finds that the problems that confront all people have already been solved by those who have lived before. For
example, material objects, methods for acquiring food, language, rules of government,
forms of marriage, and systems of religion have already been discovered and are knctioning within the culture when a child is born. If a male child is born into a small country village in Spain, for example, during his lifetime he will likely acquire his food by
farming, pay allegiance to the Spanish government, enjoy bullfighting, and be a Catholic.
If a male child is born into an East African herding society, in contrast, he will probably
acquire his food from his cattle, obey the laws of his elders, spend his leisure time telling
tribal folktales, and worship his ancestors as gods. Although these children will grow up
to behave quite differently, one basic principle concerning culture is clear: Both children
were born into an already existing culture. Each child has only to learn the various solutions to these basic human problems that his culture has set down for him. Once these solutions are learned, behavior becomes almost automatic. In other words, culture is passed
on from one generation to another within a society. It is not inborn or instinctive.
If the power of cultural learning needs documentation, one only has to cite the
cases of extremely isolated children. Today, there are a number of tragic yet well-documented instances of infants who have been shut away in closets or attics with only the
barest minimum of human contact during their formative years. One such case was that
of Anna, who at nearly six years of age was found tied to a chair in the attic of her grandfather’s house in a condition that was barely human. According to Kingsley Davis, “She
had no glimmering of speech, absolutely no ability to walk, no sense of gesture, not the
least capacity to feed herself. . . and no comprehension of cleanliness” (1947,434). At
age eight and a half, after spending three years in a home for retarded children, Anna had
made dramatic progress in developing human characteristics. She could bounce and catch
a ball, she had become toilet trained, she could feed and dress herself, and she had developed a speech proficiency of about a normal two-year-old.
Since Anna had received virtually no socialization or meaningful human interaction during the first six years of her life, her early motor and mental retardation was
clearly the direct result of this human deprivation. She had few, if any, opportunities
to learn her culture. In the absence of such learning, infants cannot hope to develop into
Culture and InternationalBusiness
21
The learned nature of culture is dramatically illustrated by Amram Scheinfeld, who
writes of an American-Chinese man:
Fung Kwok Keung, born Joseph Rhinehart (of German-Americanstock), who, at the age
of two, was adopted by a Chinese man on Long Island and three years later taken to
China, where he was reared in a small town (Nam Hoy, near Canton) with the family of
his foster father until he was 20. Returning then to New York (in 1928), he was so completely Chinese in all but appearance that he had to be given “Americanization” as well as
English lessons to adapt him to his new life. A few years later, after the outbreak of World
War II, he was drafted into the American army and sent to Italy. In many ways he was
alien to the other American soldiers and tried continuously to be transferred to service in
China, but army red tape held him fast in Italy until the war’s end. Back again in New York,
Rhinehart-Fung at this writing works as a compositor on a Chinese newspaper (an intricate job which few but Chinese could handle), and stills speaks English very imperfectly,
with a Chinese accent. (1950, 505)
functioning humans. The significance of this tragic case demonstrates how little one’s
biological resources, when taken alone, can contribute to one’s humanness.
Despite the enormous variations in the details of cultures throughout the world, all
people acquire their culture through the same process: learning. It is sometimes easy to
fall into the trap of thinking that since the Australian Bushman and the Central African
Pygmy do not know what we know, they must be childlike, ignorant, and generally incapable of learning. These primitives, the argument goes, have not learned about calculus, Shakespeare, or the Los Angeles Dodgers because they are not as intelligent as we
are. Yet no evidence whatsoever suggests even remotely that people in some cultures are
less efficient learners than people in other cultures. What the comparative study of culture does tell us is that people in different cultures learn different cultural content-that
is, different ideas, values, behavior patterns, and so on-and they learn that content every
bit as efficiently as anyone else. For example, despite the inability of the average Kikuyu
of East Africa to solve a problem by using differential equations, they would be able to
recite exactly how they are related (step by step) to a network of hundreds of kinspeople. Kikuyu farmers have mastered what to us is a bewildering amount of kinship information because their culture places great emphasis on such knowledge if the rather
complex Kikuyu marriage and kinship system is to work. The Bushman hunters in Namibia are at ease in determining which direction the wounded impala traveled when the herd
they have been tracking split and went in two different directions. Such a problem for them
is certainly no harder to solve than a typical verbal problem found on the S.A.T. exam:
“A is to B as B is to?’ And it is more relevant to their everyday survival. Hence, people
from different cultures learn those things that contribute to adjusting to their particular
environments.
This notion that culture is acquired through the process of learning has several important implications for the conduct of international business. First, such an understanding
can lead to greater tolerance for cultural differences, a prerequisite for effective intercultural communication within a business setting. Second, the learned nature of culture
22
Culture and International Business
Even though these children have very different life styles from children in the
United States, they acquire their culture through the same process-learning.
serves as a reminder that since we have mastered our own culture through the process of
learning, it is possible (albeit more difficult) to learn to function in other cultures as well.
Thus, cross-cultural expertise for Western businesspeople can be accomplished through
effective training programs. Finally, the learned nature of culture leads us to the inescapable conclusion that foreign workforces, although perhaps lacking certain job-related skills at the present time, are perfectly capable of learning those skills in the future,
provided they are exposed to culturally relevant training programs.
CULTURE INFLUENCES BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES
If we stop to consider it, the great majority of our conscious behavior is acquired through
learning and interacting with other members of our culture. Even those responses to our
purely biological needs (eating, coughing, defecating) are frequently influenced by our
cultures. For example, all people share a biological need for food. Unless a minimum number of calories is consumed, starvation will occur; therefore, all people eat. But what we
eat, how often and, how much we eat, with whom we eat, and according to what set of rules
are all regulated, at least in part, by our culture.
Clyde Kluckhohn, an anthropologist who spent many years in Arizona and New
Mexico studying the Navajo, provides us with a telling example of how culture affects
biological processes:
Culture and International Business
23
I once knew a trader’s wife in Arizona who took a somewhat devilish interest in producing
a cultural reaction. Guests who came her way were often served delicious sandwiches filled
with a meat that seemed to be neither chicken nor tuna fish yet was reminiscent of both. To
queries she gave no reply until each had eaten his fill. She then explained that what they had
eaten was not chicken, not tuna fish, but the rich, white flesh of freshly killed rattlesnakes.
The response was instantaneous-vomiting, often violent vomiting. A biological process is
caught into a cultural web. (1968,25-26)
This is a dramatic illustration of how culture can influence biological processes. In fact,
in this instance, the natural biological process of digestion was not only influenced but
also was reversed. A learned part of our culture (the idea that rattlesnake meat is a repulsive thing to eat) actually triggered the sudden interruption of the normal digestive process. Clearly, there is nothing in rattlesnake meat that causes people to vomit, for those
who have internalized the opposite idea-that rattlesnake meat should be eaten- have
no such digestive tract reversals.
The effects of culturally produced ideas on our bodies and their natural processes
take many different forms. For example, instances of the voluntary control of pain reflexes
are found in a number of cultures throughout the world. Among the nineteenth-century
Cheyenne nation, as part of the religious ceremony known as the Sun Dance, young men
were taught that self-inflicted pain was a way to achieve supernatural visions. One popular method of self-torture was to remain suspended from the top of a high pole, supported
only by leather thongs attached to wooden skewers inserted under the skin of the chest
or back. The Cheyenne believed that by remaining in what must have been an excruciatingly painful position for long periods of time without showing signs of pain, the young
men were able to communicate more directly with the deity. The ritual firewalkers from
Fiji are similarly motivated to control pain reflexes voluntarily, for they believe that the
capacity to not show pain brings people closer to those supernatural forces that control
their lives. The ethnographic examples are too numerous to cite, but whether we are looking at Cheyenne men engaged in the Sun Dance ceremony, Fiji firewalkers, or U.S. women
practicing the Lamaze Cpsychoprophylactic) method of childbirth, the principle is the
same: People learn ideas from their cultures that when internalized can actually alter the
experience of pain. In other words, a component of culture (that is, ideas) can channel
or influence biologically based pain reflexes.
Those nontangible parts of culture, composed of ideas, values, beliefs, and so on,
can have powerful effects on the human body. For anyone familiar with the pages of National Geographic, the variety of forms of bodily mutilation found throughout human populations is vast. People alter their bodies because their cultures teach them that to do so
will make them more attractive, healthier, or more socially acceptable. For instance,
women in the Padaung tribe in Burma elongate their necks by wearing large numbers of
steel neck rings; Masai men and women in East Africa put increasingly larger pieces of
wood through their earlobes, thereby creating loops in their ears; men in New Guinea put
bones through their noses; traditional Chinese women had their feet tightly bound as
young girls to retard the growth of their feet; Nubians in the Sudan scar their faces and
bodies in intricate geometric designs; Pacific Islanders practice elaborate body tattooing;
and the Kikuyu of Kenya circumcise both men and women as part of the rite of passage
24
Culture and International Business
into adulthood. It has even been reported that a group of people living between Canada
and Mexico engage in the somewhat barbaric practice of putting holes in their earlobes
for the purpose of hanging pieces of jewelry from them. And they practice this type of
bodily mutilation for the very same reason that people tattoo their bodies, scar their faces,
or put bones through their noses-because their cultures teach them that it is the acceptable thing to do.
The effects that cultural ideas have on our bodies and our bodily processes are not
always as benign as the piercing of ears. For example, many of the forms of bodily mutilation-such as circumcision, tattooing, and scarification-can have deleterious effects
on one’s health, such as the spread of infection. As reported by W. Cannon (1942), individuals whose cultures include witchcraft can be so thoroughly convinced that they are
being bewitched that the resulting severe disturbances of bodily functioning end in death.
In the United States it has been suggested that a possible explanation for the greater incidence of urinary tract infections among women is that, for purely social purposes, they
avoid urinating more than do men, thereby causing greater stress on the bladder and the
greater likelihood of infection. Moreover, the cultural idea of associating slimness with
feminine attractiveness in the United States, when taken to excess, can lead to the lifethreatening condition of anorexia.
The basic anthropological notion that culture channels biological processes can
provide some important insights for the international businessperson when confronted with cross-cultural managerial or marketing problems. For example, in Bombay
such a concept should be a reminder not to serve beef noodle soup in the company
cafeteria, for to do so might cause a mass exodus to the infirmary. Or if we know that
strongly held cultural beliefs in, for example, witchcraft can produce physiological
maladies that can render the normally efficient worker dysfunctional, it would be reasonable for the company to have in its employ a local ritual specialist capable of counteracting the witchcraft. It is interesting to speculate if there would have been an infant
formula controversy had Western manufacturers of this product understood the connection between low-level technology in third-world cultures (lack of unpolluted water,
fuel supplies, and refrigeration) and the high mortality rates among those infants using
the formula.
CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
All cultures of the world–despite many dzfferences-face a number of common problems and share a number of common features, which we call cultural universals. Even
the most casual perusal of an introductory textbook in cultural anthropology leads us to
the inescapable conclusion that there are many societies with their own unique cultures.
The determination of how many different cultures exist today depends largely on how one
defines the problem, a definitional question on which there is hardly consensus among
the world’s anthropologists. We can get a rough approximation of world cultural variation by realizing that approximately 850 separate and distinct cultures (speaking mutually unintelligible languages) are on the continent of Africa alone. Rather than being
Cultural Anthropology and International Business
25
Here are two examples of
how cultural ideas
concerning beauty affect
how women adorn
themselves.
26
Culture and International Business
preoccupied with the precise number of cultures in the world at any one time, we should
emphasize the significance of the variability; that is, the great number of differences between cultures illustrates how flexible and adaptable humans are in relation to other animals, for each culture has arrived at different solutions to the universal human problems
facing all societies.
As we encounter the many different cultural patterns found throughout the world,
there is a natural tendency to become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the differences
and overlook the commonalities. Even anthropologists, when describing “their people,”
tend to emphasize the uniqueness of the culture and only infrequently look at the similarities between cultures. But all societies, if they are to survive, are confronted with
fundamental universal needs that must be satisfied. When cultures develop ways of
meeting these needs, general cultural patterns emerge. At a very concrete level, differences in the details of cultural patterns exist because different societies have developed
different ways of meeting these universal societal needs. Yet at a higher level of abstraction, a number of commonalities exist because all cultures have worked out solutions to certain problems facing all human populations. Let’s briefly examine the needs
that all cultures must satisfy and the universal cultural patterns that emerge to satisfy
these needs.
Economic Systems
One of the most obvious and immediate needs of a society is to meet the basic
physiological requirements of its people. To stay alive, all humans need a certain minimal caloric intake, potable water, and, to varying degrees, protection from the elements
in terms of clothing and shelter. No societies in the world have access to an infinite supply of such basic resources as food, water, clothing, and housing materials. Since these
commodities are always in finite supply, each society must develop systematic ways of
producing, distributing, and consuming these essential resources. Thus, each society
must develop an economic system.
To illustrate this principle of cultural universals, we can look at one component
of economic systems-namely, forms of distribution. Besides working out patterned
ways of producing basic material goods (or procuring them from the immediate environment), all societies must ensure that these goods are distributed to all those members
of the society whose very survival depends on receiving them. In the United States,
most goods and services are distributed according to the capitalistic mode, based on
the principle of “each according to his or her capacity to pay.” In such socialist countries as the People’s Republic of China, Albania, and Cuba, goods and services are distributed according to another quite different principle-that is, “each according to his
or her need.”
These two well-known systems of distribution hardly exhaust the range of possibilities found in the world. The Pygmies of Central Africa distribute goods by a system
known as “silent barter,” in which the trading partners, in an attempt to attain true reciprocity, avoid face-to-face contact during the exchange. The Bushmen of present-day
Culture and International Business
27
Namibia distribute the meat of an animal killed in the hunt according to the principle of
kinship- each share of meat is determined by how one is related to the hunter. But whatever particular form the system of distribution might take, there are no societies-at least
not for long-that have failed to work out and adhere to a well-understood and systematic pattern of distribution.
Marriage and Family Systems
For a society to continue over time, it is imperative that it work out systematic procedures for mating, child rearing, and education. If it fails to do this, it will die in a very
short time. No society permits random mating, for all societies have worked out rules for
determining who can marry whom, under what conditions, and according to what procedures. All societies, in other words, have patterned systems of marriage. And since
human infants (as compared with the young of other species) have a particularly long period of dependency on adults, every society needs to work out systematic ways of meeting the needs of dependent children. If the basic needs of dependent children are not
satisfied, they simply will not survive to adulthood; consequently, the very survival of the
society is in jeopardy. Thus, we can say that all societies have patterns of child rearing
and family institutions.
Educational Systems
Along with ensuring that the basic physical needs of the child are met, a society
must see to it that the children learn the way of life of the society. Rather than expecting
each new child to rediscover for himself or herself all the accumulated knowledge of the
past, a society must have an organized way of passing on its cultural heritage from one
generation to another. This universal societal need for cultural transmission gives rise to
some form of educational system in every society.
Social Control Systems
If groups of people are to survive, they must develop some established ways of
preserving social order; that is, all societies must develop mechanisms that will ensure that most of the people obey most of the laws most of the time. If this need is not
met, people will violate each other’s rights to such an extent that anarchy will prevail.
Certainly, different societies meet this need for social order in different ways. In the
United States, behavior control rests on a number of formal mechanisms, such as a
written constitution; local, state, and federal laws; and an elaborate system of police,
courts, and penal institutions, among other things. Many small-scale, technologically
simple societies have less formal means of controlling the behavior of their members.
Regardless of the specific methods used, one thing is certain: Every society has a system for coercing people to obey the social rules, and these are called social control
systems.
28
Culture and International Business
Supernatural Belief Systems
All societies have a certain degree of control over their social and physical environments. All people in a society can understand and predict a number of things. For example, a heavy object when dropped into a lake will sink to the bottom; if I have $5 and
give you $2, I will have only $3 left; the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west.
However, we cannot explain or predict with any degree of certainty many other things: Why
does a child develop a fatal disease, but the child’s playmate next door does not? Why do
tornadoes destroy some houses and leave others unharmed? Why do safe drivers die in auto
accidents and careless drivers do not? Such questions have no apparent answers, for they
cannot be explained by our conventional systems of justice or rationality. Therefore, societies must develop supernatural belief systems for explaining these unexplainable occurrences. The way people explain the unexplainable is to rely on various types of
supernatural explanations such as magic, religion, witchcraft, sorcery, and astrology.
Thus, despite the great variety in the details of cultural features found throughout
the world, all cultures, because they must satisfy certain universal needs, have a number
of traits in common. This basic anthropological principle, known as cultural universals,
can be an important tool for helping international businesspeople more fully understand
and appreciate culturally different business environments. Greater empathy for cultural
differences-a necessary if not sufficient condition for increased knowledge–can be
Culture and International Business
29
attained if we can avoid concentrating solely on the apparent differences between cultures
but appreciate their underlying commonalities as well. According to Richard Robinson,
The successful international manager is one who sees and feels the similarity of structure of all
societies. The same set of variables are seen to operate, although their relative weights may be
very different. This capacity is far more important than possession of specific area expertise,
which may be gained quite rapidly if one already has an ability to see similarities and ask the
right questions–thosethat will provide the appropriate values or weights for the relevant variables. Such an individual can very quickly orient himself on the socioculturalmap. (1983,127)
In other words, we will be less likely to prejudge or be critical of different practices, ideas,
or behavior patterns if we can appreciate the notion that they represent different solutions
to the same basic human problems facing all cultures of the world, including our own.
CULTURAL CHANGE
All cultures experience continual change. Any anthropological account of the culture of
any society is a type of snapshot view of one particular time. Should the ethnographer
return several years after completing a cultural study, he or she would not find exactly
30
Culture and International Business
the same situation, for no culture remains completely static year after year. Early twentieth-century anthropologists-particularly those of the structural/functiona1 orientation-tended to de-emphasize cultural dynamics by suggesting that some societies were
in a state of equilibrium in which the forces of change were negated by those of cultural conservatism. Although small-scale, technologically simple, preliterate societies tend
to be more conservative (and thus change less rapidly) than modern, industrialized, highly complex societies, it is now generally accepted that, to some degree, change is a constant feature of all cultures.
Students of culture change recognize that cultural innovation (the introduction of
new thoughts, norms, or material items) occurs as a result of both internal and external
forces. Mechanisms of change that operate within a given culture are called discovery and
invention. Despite the importance of discovery and invention, most innovations introduced into a culture are the result of borrowing from other cultures. This process is known
as cultural dzfusion, the spreading of cultural items from one culture to another. The importance of cultural borrowing can be better understood if viewed in terms of economy
of effort: Borrowing someone else’s invention or discovery is much easier than discovering or inventing it all over again. Anthropologists generally agree that as much as 90
percent of all things, ideas, and behavioral patterns found in any culture had their origins
elsewhere. Individuals in every culture, limited by background and time, can get new
ideas with far less effort if they borrow them. This statement holds true for our own culture as well as other cultures, a fact that Americans frequently tend to overlook.
Since so much cultural change is the result of diffusion, it deserves a closer examination. Keeping in mind that cultural diffusion varies considerably from situation to
situation, we can identify certain regularities that will help us make some general statements that hold true for all cultures.
First, cultural diffusion is a selectiveprocess. Whenever two cultures come into contact, each does not accept everything indiscriminately from the other. If they did, the vast cultural differences that exist today would have long since disappeared. Rather, items will be
borrowed from another culture only if they prove to be useful andlor compatible. For example,
we would not expect to see the diffusion of swine husbandry from the United States to Saudi
Arabia, the predominant Muslim population of which holds a strong dietary prohibition on
pork. Similarly, polyandry (the practice of a woman having two or more legal husbands at
a time) is not likely to be borrowed by the United States because of its obvious lack of fit
with other features of mainstream American culture. Successful idternationalmarketing requires an intimate knowledge of the cultures found in foreign markets to determine if, how,
and to what extent specific products are likely to become accepted by these foreign cultures.
According to a study by Everett Rogers (197 1,22-23), the rapidity with which an
innovation is adopted–or, indeed, whether it will be adopted at all-is affected by the
following five variables:
1 . Relative advantage: the extent to which an innovation is thought to be superior to whatever it
replaces
2. Compatibility: the extent to which an innovation is perceived to be congruous with the existing cultural values, attitudes, behavior patterns, and material objects
Culture and International Business
Culture historian Ralph Linton reminds us of the enormous amount of cultural borrowing that has taken place in order to produce the complex culture found in the
United States:
Our solid American citizen awakens in a bed built on a pattern which originated in the
Near East but which was modified in Northern Europe before it was transmitted to America. He throws back covers made from cotton, domesticated in India, or linen, domesticated
in the Near East, or wool from sheep, also domesticated in the Near East, or silk, the use
of which was discovered in China. All of these materials have been spun and woven by
processes invented in the Near East. He slips into his moccasins, invented by the lndians
of the Eastern woodlands, and goes to the bathroom, whose fixtures are a mixture of European and American inventions, both of recent date. He takes off his pajamas, a garment invented in India, and washes with soap ihented by the ancient Gauls. He then
shaves, a masochistic rite which seems to have been derived from either Sumer or ancient Egypt.
Returning to the bedroom, he removes his clothes from a chair of southern European
type and proceeds to dress. He puts on garments whose form originally derived from the
skin clothing of the nomads of the Asiatic steppes, puts on shoes made from skins
tanned by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern derived from the
classical civilizations of the Mediterranean, and ties around his neck a strip of bright-colored cloth which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by the seventeenthcentury Croatians. Before going out for breakfast he glances through the window, made
of glass invented in Egypt, and if it is raining puts on overshoes made of rubber discovered by the Central American lndians and takes an umbrella, invented in southeastern Asia. Upon his head he puts a hat made of felt, a material invented in the Asiatic
steppes.
On his way to breakfast he stops to buy a paper, paying for it with coins, an ancient
Lydian invention. At the restaurant a whole new series of borrowed elements confronts
him. His plate is made of a form of pottery invented in China. His knife is of steel, an alloy
first made in southern India, his fork a medieval Italian invention, and his spoon a derivative of a Roman original. He begins breakfast with an orange, from the eastern Mediterranean, a canteloupe from Persia, or perhaps a piece of African watermelon. With this
he has coffee, an Abyssinian plant, with cream and sugar. Both the domestication of
cows and the idea of milking them originated in the Near East, while sugar was first made
in India. After his fruit and first coffee he goes on to waffles, cakes made by a Scandinavian technique from wheat domesticated in Asia Minor. Over these he pours maple
syrup, invented by the lndians of the Eastern woodlands. As a side dish he may have the
egg of a species of bird domesticated in Indo-China, or thin strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in Easte…
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