Exploring Culture and Business: A Literature Review on Key Concepts

This literature review explores the relationship between culture and business, highlighting the benefits of a strong organizational culture in enhancing productivity and achieving organizational goals. It defines culture through various perspectives, emphasizing its role in shaping employee behavior and organizational performance. The review discusses how a positive culture fosters morale, confidence, and loyalty among team members, while also reducing decision-making costs. Effective management of diversity, strong leadership, and alignment with customer needs are identified as key factors in maintaining a favorable culture. The Hofstede cross-cultural model is mentioned as a tool for averting workplace issues. The review also addresses potential issues arising from poor culture, such as language barriers and stress, and concludes that a well-developed culture contributes to employee retention, profitability, and a strong brand image.

Running head: Cross cultural management
Cross cultural management

Cross cultural management
(Literature review on “Culture and business”)
The main objective of this literature is to demonstrate the relationship between two variables
culture and business. The paper also explains the benefits of strong and dynamic culture in the
workplace. It describes that how the firm can maintain a positive culture within the organization.
The strong and unique culture can increase the productivity towards attaining the overall
organization goals and objectives.
Culture plays an empirical role in each and every company to conduct the business activities and
operations successfully and effectively. Zheng, Yang, and McLean (2010) define that culture
includes habits, symbols, assumptions, languages, values, beliefs, and norms. The culture is the
way through which things are done effectively. It is argued by Linnenluecke and Griffiths (2010)
where they define that culture is the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual
achievement regarded collectively ideas, customs, and social behavior. Culture includes the
activities of arts and philosophy that are important to accomplish the goals and objectives. Çakar
and Ertürk (2010) argued that culture refers to a specific set of routine, morals, codes, beliefs,
values, and traditions from a particular time and place. In addition, culture may be defined as a
high degree of tastes, knowledge, literature, and interest in arts and other scholarly fields. In
other words, culture is a way of thinking, material objectives, and the way of acting that together
shape a people’s way of life. The organizational culture plays a fundamental role to determine
the roles and responsibilities of the employees in the workplace. It shall be analyzed by Tseng
(2010) where he defined that organizational culture is an underlying belief, values, customs,
attitudes, assumptions, and ways of interacting that participate to the dynamic social and
psychological environment of the firm. The organizational culture is civilization in the
workplace. Hu et al (2012) suggested that organizational culture may be defined as philosophies,
values, customs, behaviors, attitudes, and practices that define the image of the company.
Zheng, Yang, and McLean (2010) suggested that organizational performance and productivity
can be improved and enhanced by strong shared values and culture. The organizational culture
also boosts and develops the morale, confidence, and loyalty among the team members at the
workplace. Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez, and Sanz-Valle (2016) stated that culture must
evolve and develop for the firm to stay in a changing and dynamic environment. Furthermore,
encouraging and motivating employees helps to create a healthy and favorable culture. Training
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Cross cultural management
and development coaching is provided to all workers to help them understand and identify the
new processes, systems, and expectations. It has been analyzed that organizational culture is the
common and effective value of the firm which develops and boosts an understanding of both the
company’s constraints and opportunities. Furthermore, culture can be initiated to attain internal
control and gain competitive benefits in the marketplace. The strong and dynamic culture is
originated of habits, values and working beliefs. The Hofstede cross-cultural model is developed
by Hofstede to avert and reduce the issues and hurdles related to the workplace and culture. He
distinguished one company from another and indicated the features and aspects of the firm.
O’Reilly III et al (2014) argued that organizational culture is a collection of beliefs, values,
customs, and norms shared by its group members and reflected the company’s goals and
practices. This culture also facilitates the innovation in order to trigger the desires and needs for
the members within the organization. It has been evaluated that culture and norms of the
organization play a critical role towards the efficiency and productivity of the company which is
necessary to generate a competitive edge in the challenging world. The main of the firm behind
the maintaining of favorable culture in the workplace is to enhance the financial and
management productivity of the organization. Osland, Devine, and Turner (2015) indicate that
strong and heavy culture also can eliminate and reduce the cost of decision making. The
organization can get a great and high return if they maintain a unique and strong culture in the
workplace. The firm that does not propagate the culture and values always get less revenue and
return. On the other hand, effective management of diversity is based on the identification of
commodities and awareness of the differences. Managing and handling the cultural diversity
includes the identifying the best practices. Organizational culture is affected in the way that
employees in the firm perform tasks and duties, set goals and administer resources in order to
achieve the objectives. Culture also influences the recruitment and selection process of HRM. If
the organization maintains a strong culture at the workplace then it will help to attract more
applicants in the organization. As a result, the company can utilize the resources and capital with
the help of the potential team. It has been noted by Kuipers et al (2014) where they observed
that culture is also associated with leadership. If the leadership is strong and leaders use dynamic
leadership styles in the organization then it will help to promote the strong culture in the
workplace. This culture is more important for every company to increase the number of
consumers in the marketplace. Culture is a vital component in both strategy implementation and
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Cross cultural management
strategy creation. The leaders may deal with various obstacles and issues that are raised in the
organization by maintaining a unique culture (Barak, 2016). Strong and heavy organizational
culture helps to fulfill the needs, demands, and requirements of the customers in the marketplace.
The corporate culture makes the formation features of the organization, this one improve and
enhance the visibility of the firm and competitive strength. It is also based on the customer's trust
and loyalty. So the company’s culture needs to be shown, the show will help increase and
enhance the visibility of the firm and encourage the firm competition ability. For example, Wal-
Mart maintains very excellent culture in the workplace (Jonsen, Maznevski and Schneider,
2011). The unique and dynamic culture also influences the CSR practices and sustainability in
the organization. It will help to retain the more clients within the organization. It also affects the
risk direction of strategic decisions. It has been evaluated that employee’s behavior in the
organization is affected by three different cultures such as national, occupational and
organizational culture. Along with this, organizational culture encompasses a set of routines,
structures, rules, norms, and values that constrain and assist the behavior of people (Ang and Van
Dyne, 2015).
There are various factors affect the culture of the firm include age, sex, gender, religious and
custom. Furthermore, job contentment is one of the significant variables in the managerial
culture and behavior. The job satisfaction is also influenced by several external and internal
factors such as principles, values, personality, expectations, and norms. It has been measured that
managerial culture can be promoted and motivated to assist the attainment of organizational
goals and job satisfaction (Lynch, 2017). It is noted that a well developed and strong company
culture, can be a powerful recruiting point in the organization. High morale and loyalty is a key
to success and growth. It is closely related to faith, purpose, team loyalty, and trust in the
leadership. Therefore, all these qualities are needed to improve and enhance the culture of the
firm. It is observed that supply chain efficiency is also dependent on the corporate culture and
efficiency of the employees. The culture improves and enhances the cooperation and
coordination among the team members. The supply chain becomes more effective and efficient
with the help of dynamic culture (Ang and Van Dyne, 2015).
As the culture builds and develops, managers and leaders learn to better handle the quality of
everyone’s experience inside the organization and with outsiders includes clients, suppliers,
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Cross cultural management
customers and other entities. In this way, the organizational has been able to provide a unique
quality of products and services to the consumers by initiating the strong and heavy corporate
culture. A well developed and strong culture helps to accept the challenges and organizational
changes within the organization. Leadership also plays a heavy role to attract and inspire the
workforce for doing work effectively and successfully. Leadership is significant in maintaining
and codifying an organizational principle, standards, and vision of the firm. Leaders set the
examples by living the factors of culture such as behaviors, procedures, actions, and values.
Values are worthless without other factors. It is essential that workers at all levels in the union
notice and validate the factors of culture. The companies with codified and strong cultures enjoy
great customer and employee loyalty. It has been analyzed by Linnenluecke and Griffiths (2010)
that culture is one of the significant factors that determine the success of the company. If the
company develops and boosts an effective culture at the workplace, then the organization has
been able to eliminate and avert the absenteeism within the organization. A strong and unique
culture moves away from the adversarial relationships and towards the coordination. Cooperative
and reciprocal relationship creates few grievances and issues in the workplace. In this way,
strong and unique culture offers enormous benefits for the company as well as business. This
culture also helps to know and understand the customs and religious of different countries in the
world. It shall be stated that safe and secure workplace with fewer injuries and claims increases
and enhances the outcomes of the Corporation. Due to poor culture, various issues can arise at
the workplace that can affect the sustainability and position of the firm negatively. One of the
significant issues that occurred due to lack of culture is language that can influence the
operations and activities of the firm. As a result, the employees are unable to understand the
languages of different cultures. Misunderstandings between employee and employer also arise in
the workplace due to the poor and ineffective culture within the organization. In addition,
employees are failed to maintain strong communication in the workplace as it influences the
efficiency and productivity of the followers (Linnenluecke and Griffiths, 2010). A big issue with
a poor cultural fit at the work is stress that affecting a large number of areas in the employee's
life. It should be analyzed by Ang and Van Dyne (2015) that a good and strong culture fit for the
employees to reduce the stress and anxiety of the workers. It also reduces poor performance and
turnover of the employees. To overcome the cultural issues, Hofstede cross-cultural model has
been initiated by Hofstede. This model explains the interaction between national culture and
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Cross cultural management
organizational culture. This model reduces the conflicts and barriers of the workers that are
raised in the workplace. The Hofstede cross-cultural model includes the 6 dimension such as
power distance index, masculinity versus femininity, individualism versus collectivism,
pragmatic versus normative and indulgence versus restraint (Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-
Jiménez, and Sanz-Valle, 2016).
It shall be noted that employees take full roles and responsibilities in the workplace if the firm
maintains a unique culture in the organization. In a safe workplace, the workers are able to
speak freely and openly without any hesitation (Zheng, Yang, and McLean, 2010). The leaders
and managers always try to improve and enhance the safety standards and norms within the
organization (Bird and Mendenhall, 2016). Moreover, employee retention can be done by
initiating the safe and secure workplace. Profitability and productivity rise at the organization
with strong and dynamic cultures. A well-developed culture determines the brand of the firm. On
the other hand, it has been noted by Tseng (2010) that a strong and unique culture includes a
well-defined mission, corporate values, vision that makes easy the decision-making process.
With the help of unique culture, decisions will be better aligned with organizational goals and
enhance the chances of attaining growth. Focusing on culture might be new and innovative task
for the business. However, it is essential to cope with the rivalries in the international market.
Building and developing well-developed cultures creates an enjoyable, inspiring and
encouraging work environment in the workplace. This culture helps to make happy the workers
and they put their efforts more to maximize the outputs of the company (Zheng, Yang, and
McLean, 2010).
On the above-mentioned study, it has been concluded that organizational culture affects the
performance and productivity of the workers as well as organization positively. It is effective
both financial and nonfinancial measures are initiated to get more outcomes and results. The
literature on organizational culture and business stated that how the companies develop their
culture in an effective way. The strong culture also helps to analyze the strengths and weaknesses
of the competitors.
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Cross cultural management
References
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Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
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Çakar, N.D. and Ertürk, A., 2010. Comparing innovation capability of small and medium‐sized
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