CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT – KEY MOMENTS

¢ Hofstede's Model

¢ Power distance

¢ Masculinity Vs. Femininity

¢ Uncertainty avoidance

¢ Individualism vs. Collectivism

¢ Long-term Orientation

¢ Influence of Culture on Consumption

¢ Influence of Culture on Thinking Process

¢ Influence of Culture on Communication Process

¢ Non-verbal communication

¢ Managing Cross Cultural Differences

¢ Locating Relevant Cultural Information

¢ Time Sensitiveness

¢ Flexibility

¢ Ethnocentrism

¢ Culture Shock

UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURE

¢ Understanding the culture of a particular country and respecting its customs and traditions plays an important role in international business.

¢ There are various elements of culture, like customs and traditions, mannerisms, values and attitude, religion etc. that are of importance to international business. All these elements have to be thoroughly understood before entering new markets.

¢ The culture of the country influences the culture at the workplace

HOFSTEDE'S MODEL

¢ Hofstede's cultural dimensions help in understanding the various dimensions under which culture can be classified.

¢ They are power distance, individualism vs collectivism, masculinity vs femininity, uncertainty avoidance, individual vs collectivism and finally, long term orientation.

¢ Culture has a major influence on the consumption patterns. Marketers have to study clearly the acceptability of the product and its advertisements in a particular culture.

¢ Advertisers can achieve positive consumer responses by developing advertisements with culturally congruent appeal.

THINKING PROCESS

¢ Culture also has an influence on the thinking process.

¢ According to Maletzke the major paradigms for thinking that can have an influence on culture are logic and pre-logic, inductive and deductive, abstract and concrete and alphabetical and an-alphabetical thinking.

¢ All these concepts of thinking are interconnected

COMMUNICATION

¢ Communication is an important part of any business. Especially in international business, any mistake in communicating will prove costly for a firm.

¢ Apart from taking care while advertising, which is an important part of any business, firms have to be careful when negotiating business deals and using non-verbal communication.

¢ The various forms of non-verbal communicationare kinesics, proxemics, appearance, posture, eye contact, paralanguage, symbolism etc.

INTER-CULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS

¢ Another important aspect of culture in international business is managing cross-cultural differences.

¢ The best way is to locate relevant cultural information.

¢ Culture shockcan be avoided by striving to be more flexible and forming effective inter-cultural relationships.

ІНФОРМАЦІЙНО-ТЕХНІЧНЕ СЕРЕДОВИЩЕ

Аналіз технологічного середовища передбачає оцінювання очікуваних змін у процесі науково-технічної конкуренції, прогнозування можливості появи принципово нових технічних засобів і технологій або можливості нетрадиційного використання відомих технологій і т.д

¢ Technology development need not always occur in a single organization. It can occur in inter-connected networks of organizations such as industry-university cooperative research centers, R&D consortia, and R&D limited partnerships also.

¢ Universities and firms are increasingly entering into collaboration to conduct joint research. This type of research generally involves several corporations and universities.

¢ R&D consortiahave been replacing other inter-organizational alternatives such as licensing arrangements, acquisitions, and joint ventures since the early 1980s.

¢ An R&D consortium can be defined as a group of firms linked together by cooperation agreements and conducting their R&D together.

¢ R&D limited partnerships are formed between a general partner and a group of limited partners.

¢ Organizational networks represent some geographical characteristics based on which we can classify them into industrial parksor industrial clusters.

¢ An industrial park is an area designed and zoned for manufacturing and associated activities. This is developed and managed as a single unit.

¢ Clusters rarely come into existence because of government initiatives.

¢ Silicon Valley was not a result of any government policy. The government does however have an important role to play in nurturing clusters.