Culture and Management Styles Quiz

Culture, Management Style, and Business Systems

• Imperatives, Electives, and Exclusives
  • Cultural Imperatives: Business customs and expectations that must be met and followed for successful relationships. A person's demeanor is sometimes more critical than in other cultures. Imperatives vary greatly from culture to culture.
  • Cultural Electives: Customs or behaviors that cultural individuals may choose to follow or participate in. An elective in one place may be an imperative in another.
  • Cultural Exclusives: Customs or behaviors reserved for locals; culturally exclusive practices

Management Styles around the world

• Authority and Decision Making

  • High Power Distance Index (PDI) Countries: Employees are less likely to contradict their boss and knowing a business partner's rank is crucial.
  • Low PDI Countries: Authority patterns are typically top-level management decisions (centralized), decentralized decisions, or committee or group decisions.

• Formality and Tempo

  • American business relationships are often characterized by informality and haste.
  • Europeans may not always be as informal as Americans or be as concerned with speed.
  • Higher PDI differences may cause business misunderstandings.
  • Haste and impatience are common mistakes for Americans in some Middle Eastern and Far Eastern countries.

• P-Time versus M-Time

  • Monochronic (P-Time): Focuses on one task at a time, divides time into small units, values promptness.
  • Polychronic (M-Time): Dominant in high-context cultures, characterized by the simultaneous occurrence of many tasks, allows for relationships and context build-up.
  • Most cultures use a combination of P-Time and M-Time, though.
  • Global markets are causing P cultures to adjust to M-time.

• Communication Style

  • High Context Culture: Values nonverbal communication. Relies on contextual cues (who said it, when, and how)
  • Low Context Culture: Relies heavily on explicit and verbal communication.

• Marketing Orientation

  • Extent of a company's market orientation is positively related to profits (profits are a byproduct of customer satisfaction).
  • Firms in several countries have difficulty making the shift from traditional product and sales-oriented approaches to market-based ones.
  • It can be challenging to promote a marketing orientation through diverse global business units.

Business Ethics

• Corruption

  • Corruption is a difficult concept.
  • Criticism of Barbie: Sales declined after global standardization.
  • Gifts as part of the culture: the decision to pay a bribe creates a conflict between ethical practice and profitability.
  • Organizations working to combat bribery: OECD and Transparency International.

• Bribery: Variations on a Theme

  • Bribery: a voluntarily offered payment by someone seeking unlawful advantage.
  • Extortion: payments extracted under duress.
  • Lubrication (greasing the palm): relatively small sum given to lower-ranking officials.
  • Subornation: large sums of money to high-ranking officials to commit illegal actions.
  • Agent's fees: When uncertainty exists with a country's rules and regulations, an agent is hired to represent the company.
  • Transparency International Bribe Payers Index: Ranks countries according to perceived tendencies to engage in bribery.

Ethical and Socially Responsible Decisions

• Difficulties in decision-making: employment practices, consumer protection, environmental protection
• Ethical principles: Distinguishing between ethical versus unethical practices. Utilitarianism (common good). Rights of parties (human rights). Fairness or justice (fairness to all parties).

This quiz explores the relationship between culture, management styles, and business systems in different regions. It covers cultural imperatives, electives, and exclusives, as well as authority and decision-making processes across varying power distance indexes. Test your knowledge on how culture influences management.