The Interplay of Culture and Business: A Comprehensive Review

This literature review examines the critical relationship between culture and business, emphasizing how cultural factors influence a company's strategic direction and operational success. It explores the interconnectedness of organizational culture, values, and beliefs, highlighting the impact of culture on employee skills, productivity, and profitability. The review discusses the significance of understanding cultural differences in a globalized economy, including the impact of language, religion, and communication styles. It also delves into the Hofstede cross-cultural model, individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, masculinity vs. femininity, and uncertainty avoidance. Furthermore, the review underscores the importance of cross-cultural leadership, training, and the development of strategies to mitigate cultural clashes and leverage cultural diversity for innovation and growth. The paper concludes by stressing the need for businesses to adapt to local cultural specifications to succeed in the international market and avoid cultural blunders.

Running head: Cross cultural management and communication
Cross cultural management and communication

Cross cultural management and communication
(Literature review on “culture and business”)
The paper explains the relationship between culture and business. It discusses that how culture
influences the progress of the firm. The company cannot run its business operations without
analyzing and evaluating the culture of the different countries. Culture is a key component in
business and has a direct impacted on the strategic direction of business operations. Strong
culture helps to boost and develop the skills, capabilities and potential of the workers to carry
trade and business successfully. Further detail of the task is discussed below.
Culture and business are interconnected with each other to attain desired goals and objectives. It
shall be noted that organization culture is made up of the two major assumptions such as beliefs
and values. McLuhan (2015) defines that culture is a uniform perception of an organization
which has common features and aspects. Vom Brocke and Sinnl (2011) stated that organizational
culture is a set of commonly experienced stable characteristics of the company which indicates
that distinctive aspects of the firm which distinguish it from others. According to Wild, Wild,
and Han (2014), culture is the idea, skills, customs and arts of a given people in a particular time
period. The organizational cultural norms and values strongly influence all who are involved in
the firm. Those norms and values are mostly hidden, but if the firm likes to improve and enhance
the performance and profitability, norms and values are one of the first place to look (Ferraro and
Briody, 2013). Baird, Jia Hu and Reeve (2011) revealed that culture is a pattern of shared
assumptions that have been accepted by the team members in order to resolve and eliminate the
issues and problems. The favorable culture helps in improving and enhancing the productivity
and efficiency of the workers as it also maximizes the profitability and revenue of the company.
The culture is a phenomenon that is shared by the individuals of the firm and manages
unconsciously. Prajogo and McDermott (2011) said that culture is a set of values and norms that
are used by the individuals and group within the organization.
Skills and talents are significant part of any business; the organizational culture in the workplace
may affect the performance and productivity of the firm more than any other component.
Furthermore, culture plays an empirical role in the shaping the success and growth of the firm
and has a great influence on the workers. It is complex to say that company’s culture guarantees
the success and growth of the firm but the organizations with strong and dynamic culture always
have more chances to become effective and successful than their rivalries. The significance and
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role of organizational culture are also explained by Cameron and Quinn (2011) who stated that
culture serves as strength and weakness to the firm. Managers in the organization through norms,
values, and customs control and focus on the results and outcomes. The organizational culture
entails expectations of the firm, philosophy, experience, and values that they carry along and
shows the self-image of its inner works. Culture is multifaceted and encompassed various
elements including belief systems, values, attitudes, religion, art, ideas, morals, customs,
experiences, and ways of perceiving the world. Ang and Van Dyne (2015) argued that culture is
a sum of beliefs, habits, customs, behaviors, and symbols that are passed from generation to
generation.
There is a close relationship between the organizational culture and business. If the employees
feel represented of the company’s culture, they will be able to establish and maintain a favorable
relationship in the workplace. Furthermore, if they identify and analyze the values, and customs
then they are enabled to do work effectively and efficiently. It shall be noted that strong and
dynamic culture helps in building and developing trust and loyalty among the employees in the
workplace. Good and unique culture is imperative and vital for high levels of performance and
productivity. On the other hand, business leaders need to initiate the plans and policies to attain
long-term goals and objectives. In today’s era, the world is being influenced by the globalization
of the economy. Therefore, the company needs to maintain favorable culture to handle and
reduce the negative impact of globalization. Chhokar, Brodbeck, and House (2013) stated that
there are various components of culture that may influence the progress of the firm. One of the
significant factors of culture is language. Language provides significant clues about the cultural
norms and values. Religion is an effective and vital element of organizational culture and has a
great influence on the beliefs, values, attitudes, and lifestyles of the employees in the workplace.
Different employees follow different religion and culture so it is essential for the managers to
provide training to each and every employee for identifying and understating the culture and
religion.
The other element is communication that has a direct impact on the revenue of the firm. Every
company has its own distinct culture, thus managers must have good and strong understandings
of organizational culture to develop and build meaningful and effective strategies. The effective
organizational culture helps in maximizing the efficiency and financial position of the firm.
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Cross cultural management and communication
Hillson and Murray-Webster (2017) argued that a trade and business cannot rely on its current
methods and techniques of conducting business when it decides to take its trade and business in
the global market. Each and every country has a set of different variables like rules, taxation, and
legislation which will be new for an offshore firm. The organizational culture also helps in
maintaining cooperation and communication within the organization. The companies who do not
evaluate and understand the culture of target nation’s culture then they are unable to attract and
retain more and more consumers across the world. In addition, they are failed to make a good
image in the minds of the customers in the marketplace. Greater cultural distance in foreign
countries can have a direct negative impact on the firm which hurt the reputation and goodwill of
the firm and overall business in large extent. Along with this, it shall be studied by Moore (2016)
where he said that cultural blunder can result in loss of profit and customers as it creates
problems for the company in the international market. Loss of consumers means lesser returns
and profitability that have direct impact on the image of the Corporation. It shall be argued that
cross-cultural leadership is necessary to manage the cross-cultural differences and issues within
the organization. No company can survive and grow its business in international market without
using effective leadership styles. To manage the cross-cultural issues, the company needs to
conduct training and development coaching in the organization. The success of the firm is widely
related to the dynamic culture and leadership. Moreover, culture has a strong and unique impact
at the moment that affects the tastes, customs, and preferences of the consumers. This makes the
company adjust its promotions, product development, pricing, advertising and policies to the
cultural specifications of the local society. It shall be noted that culture influences the schedules,
ways, and manners of the group and individuals as well. The person who is accountable for the
management of the production needs to know about the local culture in order to avoid and reduce
culture clashing within the organization. On the other hand, culture is an important and vital
vehicle for initiating the organizational change in the workplace. Hofstede cross-cultural model
has been developed by Hofstede to understand and evaluate the culture of different countries that
have been stated below (Thomas and Peterson, 2017).
Individualism v/s collectivism: Individualism is based on the philosophy that one is the owner
of his or her life and they are right to live it according to their own desires and wishes. On the
other hand, collectivism means that a person has no rights to live their life alone thus, they
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maintain good relations with families and friends. For example, the United States is based on the
individualism whereas the Japanese culture based on the collectivism (Triandis, 2018).
Power distance: Power distance defines as the amount of power and authority which is
distributed by the culture between subordinates and management. Power distance helps to assign
tasks and duties among the employees at the workplace. It helps to gain competitive advantages
in the marketplace.
Masculinity v/s femininity: Masculinity refers a male dominant society, culture, and nation. On
the other hand, if the countries provide proper and equal rights to women, these countries are
called femininity based countries, culture, and societies. For example, western countries provide
equal rights and opportunities to men and women in the workplace. Therefore, these countries
are called femininity.
Uncertainty avoidance: Uncertainty avoidance stated that people avoid and ignore participating
in the activities and operations about which that are not sure that they will benefit them.
Long-term v/s short-term orientation: When someone focuses on the future, it is called long-
term orientation. On the other hand, many people focus on the short-term goals and objectives.
The short-term orientation provides significance to past and present than to the future. It shall be
argued that cultural framework helps managers and leaders to identify and analyze the culture in
the international market (French, 2015).
If an organization is doing business in abroad then success and growth of the company depend
upon that how the workers use their skills and talents in the different culture. It depends whether
the workers are capable or not for doing work in foreign country. Culture is transmitted through
the process of interacting and learning with one’s environment instead of genetic process. With
help of favorable culture, the people can use their knowledge and skills to reduce the issues and
challenges of the organization. Culture is an empirical source for the external and internal
organization. Culture provides several benefits to the company while initiating the business
activities in the international market (Hogan and Coote, 2014). By using dynamic culture in the
enterprise helps in motivating and encouraging the workers for performing tasks and duties
effectively and efficiently. Baird, Jia Hu, and Reeve (2011) argued that motivated employees
give their best efforts to fulfill the desired mission and vision of the firm, therefore; it plays an
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effective role in trade and business. The motivated employees also analyze and evaluate the
plans, policies, and strategies of the competitors to gain rivalries benefits. The leaders and
managers should identify the culture shock and barriers to carry out the business actions and
operations (Bird and Mendenhall, 2016). Effective training and development programs shall be
held by the firm to provide knowledge about the foreign culture and language. Apart from this,
feedback must be collected by the top management and leaders to satisfy the needs and
requirements of the employees. In addition, the company should give orientation to the new
workers about their culture and tell them about their custom, language, norms, and values of the
firm. Furthermore, HRM should identify and analyze the background of new employees while
selecting the potential and capable candidates. It will help to generate more profitability and
outcomes in the workplace (Ferraro and Briody, 2013). The favorable culture helps to eliminate
the negative impact of the globalization and global warming that helps to make a dynamic image
in the global market. Diverse culture inspires and encourages creativity and innovation within the
organization. Additionally, cultural diversity permits the company to attract and retain the best
and capable employees. Along with this, favorable culture provides various opportunities for
professional and personal growth as well. Absenteeism can be reduced by using an effective and
dynamic culture in the organization (Ahammad, Tarba, Liu and Glaister, 2016).
On the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that culture and business are interrelated
with each other. If any company wants to perform its business activities and operations in the
foreign market then it should understand and evaluate the culture of that market. Every
organization has a different culture and it is the duty of workers to understand and evaluate the
culture of an organization. Culture can also influence the decision-making process of top
management. Without understating and evaluating the culture of a country in which the company
wants to start its business, the firm cannot achieve success and growth.
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