Culture and Society

Ever since the globalization era began, companies have become more aware of the difference that exists between the cultures. Organizations around the world want to gain competitive advantage over their competitors to remain successful. To succeed they have to find new ways of doing work and make the workplace and the workforce enjoyable, flexible and appreciable. Understanding and respecting different culture and customs are very important for the organizations in order to prosper (Chen & Chou, 2004) This essay will first define the key terms, followed by the importance for international managers to appreciate and understand different cultural variances when managing overseas and also addressing the different means that are available for the managers to understand different cultures followed by a conclusion.

Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors, values that are common to the members of a particular group or a society. Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform to society's shared values, norms and contribute to society. Thus, culture includes many societal aspects: language, customs, values, norms, traditions, rules, tools, technologies, goods, organizations, and institutions (Duch, 2010) In our daily lives, a society is the place where we live. It is made up of the government, the education system, the health care and the many occupations that people have. Each and every person is an important part of a society because each one has something to contribute. It is the group of people who are related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. For example, people living in arctic climates developed different cultures from those living in desert cultures (Greig, 2011) (Nielsen, 2010)

Sociologists define society as the people who interact in such a way as to share a common culture. The...