Managers can gather considerable information on cultural variables from current research, personal observation, and discussions with people. From these sources, managers can develop cultural profiles of various countries-composite pictures of working environments, people's attitudes, and norms of behavior. As we have previously discussed, these profiles are often highly generalized; many subcultures, of course, may exist within a country. But managers can use these profiles to anticipate drastic differences in the level of motivation, communication, ethics, loyalty, and individual and group productivity that may be encountered in a given country. More suclvhomework may have helped the GM-Daewoo joint venture in Korea, which is coming to an end after years of acrimonious relations. Executives from both sides acknowledge that they seriously underestimated the obstacles posed to their three-continent car-making experiment by divergent cultures and business aspirations, not to mention the different languages.33
It is relatively simple to pull together a descriptive profile for American culture, even though there are regional and individual differences, because we know ourselves and because researchers have thoroughly studied American culture. The results of one such study by Harris and Moran are shown in Exhibit 3-7, which provides a basis of comparison with other cultures and thus suggests the likely differences in workplace behaviors.
It is not so easy, however, to pull together descriptive cultural profiles of peoples in other countries unless one has lived there and been intricately involved with those people. But managers can make a start by using what research and literature is available on a comparative basis. The following section provides brief, generalized country profiles based on a synthesis of research, primarily from Hofstede 34 and England35 as well as numerous other sources.36 These profiles illustrate how to synthesize information and gain a sense of the character of a society from which implications may be drawn about how to manage more effectively in that society. More extensive implications and applications related to
DEVELOPING CULTURAL PROFILES : Effects of Organizations article from Culture Management Catagory DEVELOPING CULTURAL PROFILES
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