Procter & Gamble, Euro Disney and many others failed to do business in the country after country. Why do you think such a big companies failed to do business? What new strategies were adopted by these companies to become successful?
A major challenge of doing business internationally is to adapt effectively to different culture. Such adaptation requires an understanding of cultural diversity, perceptions, stereotypes, and values. Doing business overseas has its challenges as well as it rewards. The problems faced by Multinational companies in coping with this process of globalization are accompanied by an increasing necessity to find cultural solutions to organizational problems in a world that has begun to resemble a global village. More specifically, there are some important differences across national boundaries on the nature of the managerial role. In fact, culture has an impact on the way people communicate and do business with each other.
Culture is defined as set of beliefs, values and patterns of behavior common to a group of people.
Ideas about national culture differences
The studies identify four independent dimensions of national culture differences:
1. Power distance, the degree of inequality among people which the population of the country considers normal. It ranges from relatively equal to extremely unequal.
2. Individualism the degree to which people in a country have learned to act as individuals rather than as members of cohesive groups: from collectivist to individualist.
3. Masculinity: the degree to which masculine values like – assertiveness, performance, success and competition prevail over feminine values like the quality of life, maintaining warm personal re ...