Culture and Business

Unit - 4
Introduction
• Culture & Business:
• Introduction,
• Role & effect of culture on business,
• Social Responsibility of business
organization
Cultural Environment
• Business and culture are closely connected. Social and cultural
environment refers to the influence exercised by certain social
and cultural factors like family marriage, religion, education,
attitude of people to work, ethics, attitude to wealth and social
responsibility of business.
• In simple words culture refers to such activities as dance drama
music and festivals.
• In true sense culture is understood as that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and
other capabilities acquired by an individual as member of a
society.
Cultural Environment
• Culture is not confined to one particular period of time. It
has two phenomena:
• shared values and passage of time. Culture of society is
shared by its members.
• Secondly cultural ethos are passed on from generation to
generation.
Cultural Environment
• The concept of culture is as follows
• Characteristically human product of social interaction.
• Provide socially acceptable patterns for meeting biological and social
needs.
• Is cumulative as it is passed on from generation to generation in a given
society.
• Is learnt by each individual in the course of his development in a
particular society.
• Is therefore, a basic determinant of personality and 
• depends for its existence upon the continued functioning of society but is
independent of any individual or group.
Elements of Culture
Culture includes three basic elements:

• 1. KNOWLEDGE & BELIEFS

• 2. IDEALS
• 3. PREFERENCES
Cultural Environment
• Cultural environment is the activities of the human beings along with
the relationship and with the environment they are living is called
cultural environment.
• It is very important terminology at any aspect of the life, especially in
the business sector. If a proper environment is provided to the
employee in the organization the success of the organization is
guaranteed.
• The proper and happy environment in the organization facilitates the
employee to have communication with one another and thus their
motivation towards the task is increased.
Cultural Environment
• That is the reason that is most of the organization they provide a good
environmental structure and establish the culture environment to the
employees.
• Some of the main things includes in the cultural environment are; the
education, the people living in the surrounding, the way of life they are
living and the events they are celebrating.
• For countries or for the organization the culture has the same
importance as the economy has, without any of them there will be
certain failure in the sector and dissatisfaction will be rising in the area.
Cultural Environment
•  In today’s global world, there are wide cultural differences, and these
differences influence how people do business. Culture impacts many
things in business, including
• The pace of business;
• Business protocol—how to physically and verbally meet and interact;
• Decision making and negotiating;
• Managing employees and projects;
• Propensity for risk taking; and
• Marketing, sales, and distribution.
• There are still many people around the world who think that
business is just about core business principles and making
money.
• They assume that issues like culture don’t really matter.
• These issues do matter—in many ways.
• Even though people are focused on the bottom line, people
do business with people they like, trust, and understand.
• Culture determines all of these key issues.
• A simple issue, such as local flavor preferences, can
impact a billion-dollar company.
• The influence of cultural factors on business is
extensive.
• Culture impacts how employees are best managed
based on their values and priorities.
• It also impacts the functional areas of marketing,
sales, and distribution.
• When we are dealing with people from another culture,
we may find that their business practices,
communication, and management styles are different
from those to which we are accustomed.
• Understanding the culture of the people with whom we
are dealing is important to successful business
interactions and to accomplishing business objectives.
We will need to understand:
• How people communicate;
• How culture impacts how people view time and deadlines;
• How they are likely to ask questions or highlight problems;
• How people respond to management and authority;
• How people perceive verbal and physical communications;
and
• How people make decisions.
• Often the greatest challenge is learning not to apply our own
value system when judging people from other cultures. It is
important to remember that there are no right or wrong ways
to deal with other people—just different ways.
• Concepts like time and ethics are viewed differently from
place to place, and the smart business professional will seek
to understand the rationale underlying another culture’s
concepts.
Components of Culture
Values
Abstract ideas about what a group believes to be good,
right, and desirable • Reflect a person’s sense of right and
wrong or what “ought” to be.
Norms
Norms are the social rules that govern people’s actions
toward one another
Society
Society refers to a group of people who share a common
set of values and norms
Components of Culture
Values
Values forms the bedrock of a culture
• They provide the context within which a society’s norms are
established and justified
• They include attitudes towards –
Individual freedom, Truth, Justice, Honesty, Loyalty, Social obligations,
love, marriage, etc.
• Values are also reflected in the political and economic systems
Social Structure
• Social structure refers to its basic social organization
• Two dimensions that are particularly important include: –
The extent to which society is group or individually oriented
Degree of stratification into castes or classes
Religious and Ethical Systems
• Religion: a system of shared beliefs and rituals
• Ethical systems: a set of moral principles, or values, that are used to
guide and shape behavior Most of the world’s ethical systems are the
product of religions
Language
• Language is one of the defining characteristics of a culture
• Spoken language –
Language-based cultures or stratas –
Learning local language has considerable advantage
• Unspoken language –
Include body languages
Education
• Formal education plays a key role in a society.
It is the medium through which individuals learn many of the
language, conceptual, and mathematical skills that are
indispensable in a modern society – Also supplements the
family’s role in socializing the young into the values and norms
of a society
Education
Examples:
• Respect for others,
• obedience to authority,
• honesty, neatness, being on time.
• Schools teach basic facts about the social and political nature of
a society, as well as focusing on the fundamental obligations of
citizenship.
Benefits of Cultural Environment
• Through the culture environment the people sharing their views with
one another and thus proper solution of the problem can be ensure
and make possible.
• As most of the people live together thus they may need different
things which can be fulfill by adopting the cultural environment.
• In the business sector as all of the member working in the
organization work in order to achieve the same goal thus, they must
need to have the environment through which they can perform their
task easily and in the most suitable way,
Benefits of Cultural Environment
• This may also help the organization to achieve the goal
and on the other hand it can be said that the success of
the organization can be make possible.
• In addition to this in the cultural environment the
opportunity of the individual is also increased as he has
maximum no of people which can help them out to
perform the desire task.
• Through the cultural environment if there is any sort of
disaster it can be overcome easily.
Benefits of Cultural Environment
• As it provides the satisfaction to the residence thus it has a
lot of more impacts on the life of the people and everyone
work as he could in order to maximize their happiness and
satisfaction more.
• The effect of the cultural environment  is on a lot of the living
factors like the education system, jobs, relation with one
another and a lot more than this thus the importance of the
cultural environment may not be ignore at any aspect.
Benefits of Cultural Environment
• No one can dispute that culture affects how we think and how
we act as individuals. It affects our relationships. So
understanding the importance of culture, one can see that it
definitely has implications for business.
• Culture affects how we think and how we act as individuals
on our job.
• Culture affects our relationships with any of our business
associates.
Benefits of Cultural Environment
• And with the globalization of business through the ease of
communication and travel, understanding culture is increasingly
important in today’s world. You probably have heard the expression
that “… when in Rome, do like the Romans do.”
• We need to minimize the possibility of cross-cultural
misunderstandings so we can benefit from our differences.  This will
result in happier work environments and better business relationships.
Who knows, it may even lead to more tangible goals for the company
like higher sales or increased profits.
Conclusion
• The culture environment is very important whether it may
be the individual life, group, country or inside any
organization.
• If there is gap between the people and they may not have
the opportunity to communicate with one another than
the problem will increase and sometimes cannot be
possible to solve, although if they have better and proper
environment structure than it is easy for them to get rid of
most of the adverse situations easily.
Functions of Culture
• Culture distinguishes between one organisation and
another
• It conveys a sense of identity for organisation members
• It helps in creating a sense of commitment to do something
nobler than one’s own interest.
• It enhances social system stability.
Interface between business & Culture
• Culture creates people
• Culture & Globalisation
• Attitude to business
• Attitude to work
• Culture determines goods and services
• Ambitions
• Education
Interface between business & Culture

• Family
• Ethics in business
• Time Dimensions
• Religion & Business
• Marriage
• Cultural Resources