Culture in Ib

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CHAPTER | | TWO | |

Culture in Business | 2 | |

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Learning Objectives | | |

* Describe culture, and explain the significance of both national culture and subcultures. * Identify the components of culture, and describe their impact on business activities around the world. * Describe cultural change, and explain how companies and culture affect one another. * Explain how the physical environment and technology influence culture. * Describe the two main frameworks used to classify cultures and explain their practical use. | This chapter explains the significance of culture to international business. Culture is one of the most challenging elements that managers face in international business. Managers must have cultural literacy—detailed knowledge about a culture that enables people to live and work within it. The main components of culture are aesthetics, values and attitudes, manners and customs, social structure, religion, personal communication, education, and physical and material environments. A culture’s aesthetics is important to formulating strategies, as are people’s values because they influence attitudes toward time, work, achievement, and cultural change. Knowledge of manners and customs is necessary for avoiding offensive behavior. Knowing the basics of other religions helps managers understand behavior. The ability to speak the language and understand unspoken language allows managers to understand a people. A culture’s educational aspects are important to a company, as is its material culture. Several tools developed to help analyze and classify cultures include the Hofstede framework and the Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck framework. | |

Many PowerPoint Slides, including both the original text art and newly created images, have been developed and are available for you to coordinate with Chapter 2 materials presentation.

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ANNOTATED OUTLINE | |

1. INTRODUCTION...