International management and culture summary

According to geert hofstede national culture is ´´ the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the member of one human group from another … Culture, in this sense , includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture.’’ Then it can change from one place to another, and according to the same author it is something that is learn, not innate, referring to the thesis that it is being transfer from one generation to the next one in a process that has its origins on the basic instinct of the human been to get adapt easily to the environment in which lives or develop. This theory states that a baby since get borne start to imitate the gestures of the people surrounding him or her in order to be accepted by them, especially with the mother and the father and because of that hostedes says that when a baby gets to the age of five, ‘’ is already an expert in using the language’’, ‘’ interacting with other members of the family, eliciting rewards and avoiding punishments, negotiation for what he or she wants and how to cause or avoid conflict’’

According to Nelson, D.L & Quick, J.C hofstede´s definition is not enough to describe neither the organizational culture or the national culture itself and becase of that they describe how Values and religion, but even thou they say express that believes and religion cannot be use to predict efficiently the human behavior because believes are based on attitudes and opinions while religion influence can change from country to country and as a clear example they compare Catholicism in Peru and Turkey, two totally different countries in which any one can be find Catholics, but in a dipper view they have very different life styles and national cultures and so on. Nevertheless values can be a good point, to focus attention when studying the organizational culture, because they remain in the society longer than other aspects of it.
Now using this information to prepare the international managers to do their best when facing activities within an international environment is necessary to understand and differentiate different variables and factors that must be consider when managing cultural diversity in order have tools to comprehend others behavior and implement strategies tending to avoid conflict, since the perspective of the cultural awareness being conscious of the different background of the team mates and employees , improving the manager skills and consecutively the organizational cultures in terms of uncertainty avoidance, because when the boss decides to run such an strategy like that with the proper tools to be aware of his or her employees background, adapting to the new environment is easy and the uncertainty avoidance level goes down. Just for the fact of accepting the otherness as something natural the team work will improve and its members will easily integrate
Dealing with Cultural Differences

Masculinity is one of the hofstede´s dimensions for the national cultural approach that applied to a company in terms of multicultural management can show a situation like this:
A German man goes to work on a Chinese company, the German culture in a general context there according to the research has a high masculinity level, and when doing business they go straight to the point in a very business focus way, while in the Chinese culture with a low level of masculinity, they are really concerned about establishing a close relationship with the other and creating safety, comfortable environment before even start with the real business negotiations, so if there is not cultural awareness the Chinese people could think that the German mate could be rude and disrespectful while in the other hand if a Chinese man would go to work in Germany is possible that his work mates could consider him as a bad worker, with a lack of focus and interest about the work

Corporate culture


‘’ within each hospital multiple styles of leadership and types of organizational culture existed’’. Charlotte Huff, this was a conclusion made as result of a study made in some united states hospitals, and for this particular case is the base to understand that there are different groups of people within the same, organizational culture, that at the same time have different types of needs, but sharing a common background that makes them share a lot of values and beliefs that have origins on the formal and informal aspects of the organization, as well as the history and CEO´s management style. In this sense the mission and vision of the company play important roles in contrast to the management style and the hierarchy structure. All this elements are there to give direction to all the organization members to the goal achieving.
For example nowadays the global context is strongly competitive, in terms of quality and price; as a consequence different organizational models have been created in order to establish ether formal an informal procedures with an specific goal. Six Sigma and Total Quality Management are clear examples of this; both of them establish policies and strategies in order to have competitive success involving several member of the company involve in the hole procedure acting as a new tendency for the internal culture. With the objective to implement such systems, the whole company gets touch by the new policies and in different areas of it, the personnel requires training and follow up of their results and commitment with the new policies, that at the and are changing the internal culture and so on.
In the same way, if a company desires to change it’s internal culture, is necessary to implement a whole campaing that includes, a communications plan impacts the target employees and that links the leader’s values to the corporate culture and the final goal to be achieve. Nevertheless this is not that easy, changing behavior takes time, motivation, training, coaching and real commitment starting from the managerial levels to production ones, sharing enough information among members.

“When I reflect on what makes an
outstanding organization,
I keep coming back to the
effectiveness of our people
individually and collectively.
Long-term success has to have a
solid foundation built on
principles and values
that act as a centre of gravity.”


John McFarlane, Chief Executive Officer,
ANZ Bank, Melbourne, Australia.

Can it be modify?





Case of Study : Collaborative Tools: Building a Culture of Knowledge Sharing


• Additional References:
• The New CEO: http: //proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.eafit.edu.co/pqdweb?did=2100654341&sid=7&Fmt=2&clientId=65927&RQT=309&VName=PQD
• http://www.skyisthelimit.org/ctt.html