ONION MODEL!!

During this class after the presentation about latin America and latin Europe, we saw a topic that calls my attention so much because even we heard all our career about Hofstede, the “Onion Model” was new for me, this model was creatd to understand the cultures from a visual perspective; Where the human behavior could be explain through layers (as the onion) by in terms of culture.

The outer layers are compose of the patterns of behavior, the more superficial chracteristics, The next layer encompasses the beliefs, norms and attitudes of that culture. The middle of the onion represents the underlying cultural assumptions and values. As the most hidden layer, these aspects of culture are much harder to recognise and understand, but all of the other layers are built upon the centre of the culture onion.

So, to understand cultures  and having it into account is very useful to know how those parts of the culture interact and their significance. Then, we can have a more holistic knowledge to negotiate, travel etc..

Hermeneutics

Understanding and interpretation of inguistic and non-linguistic expressions.  In the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, hermeneutics emerges as a crucial branch of Biblical studies. Later on, it comes to include the study of ancient and classic cultures. It important proponents are: Heidegger, Gadamer.

Human being, Gadamer argues, is a being in language. It is through language that the world is opened up for us. We learn to know the world by learning to master a language. Hence we cannot really understand ourselves unless we understand ourselves as situated in a linguistically mediated, historical culture. Language is our second nature.

Another cultural model

Iceberg: This model is also used to elucidate the concept of culture, The image of the iceberg with its small visible part on the surface of the water and the much bigger invisible part below the surface illuminates the different layers of culture. 

The upper portion is the first impression when we face a culture, the music, food, language, The portion below the surface stands for those elements which are not as obvious such as values, beliefs and attitudes.

The behaviour of different cultures may appear less foreign and possibly less threatening with an understanding of their particular worldviews, motivations, religious beliefs, attitudes to rules, and other cultural orientations.

Big companies and culture

Are big companies changing the typical customs of countries? As we discuss last class and watch the video of coca-colonization, i think the companies always are going to do their best to make people consume their products because is their goal, make money and make people happy and feel satisfy with their products. So, as we were talking about if coca-cola are changing, for example, french culture because of their wine or the tea in china, i think that the culture is in our blood and because of consuming coca-cola or other products of big brands doesn´t mean we are going to turn our culture, beliefs and costums. By the other hand, we have to understand that trends change and those markets also have to make their marketing investigations to compete and maintain theirselves alive. Globalization is about that, creating opportunities for all and the survivals are going to be those who take advantage of that.

Our minds changes but traditional industries are going to survive anyways because there are markets for everything , every people choises and lifestyles. So the issue now is how those companies are going to create new strategies to remind people what we are and what we use to consume before those companies and why is important to preserve that costums.

 GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURE

The current era of globalization, with its unprecedented acceleration and intensification in the global flows of capital, labour, and information, is having a homogenizing influence on local culture.

This influence of globalization promote the integration of countries and with that, countries has been loosing some of their roots because of the information and lifestyles received from others so, our minds are open to learn and received new ways of life and it may occur a loss of identity. This is especially true for traditional societies and communities, which are exposed to rapid ‘modernisation’ based on models imported from outside and not adapted to their context.

In my opinion this could be bad because as this article says people are loosing their escence but it also is all about balance, not being an excesive consumer but either closed to new things and technology. For me is important to be inform about things happening in other countries, learn about other cultures and  other languages. So, as everything has it positive and negative things we have to take advantage of th good things it can provede us.

qualitative method to identify cultures

IMPORTANT POINTS!

1. we learned about Spain that is a hierarchical culture, they like rules and they think changes causes stress.

They are a collectivist society due to they perceived teamwork as a natural, they tend to work this way. Confrontation is avoided.

Spain is defined as a normative country, they like t olive the moment without worrying about the future. Is not an indulgent society, which means they have a tendency to be pessimism.

So this class show us the qualitative way of a culture as Gannon´s metaphors, where he use a characteristic of the country to develop most part of their culture. What happens with this, is that those qualitative tools can take us to generalize about people behavior but still knowing of what their lives turn around on.

2. the second most important topic is that we cant really know a single way to describe a culture, there is not only one thing that describes it completely so, its better to have different opinions and point of view to makes us the idea of what a country could be.

 CULTURE AND NEGOTIATION

As an article from the business journal, written by Jeswald W. Salacuse where he say that “international business deals not only cross borders, they also cross cultures”, i think this is the 60-70% of the success of a negotiation. Understanding a culture, is to understand a different way of thinking, what influences the communication form and their behaviors, so if you can put “in others shoes” you can do better strategies to negotiate, know about what to talk, how tos ay hello, what to do and what don´t to be respectfully with the others.

He talk in his article about ten particular elements that can complicate intercultural negotiations:

1.negotiating goal: the different point of views parties have in the negotiation, the different interest they have. first and foremost, is a signed contract between the parties. Other cultures tend to consider that the goal of a negotiation is not a signed contract but rather the creation of a relationship between the two sides

2.negotiationg attitude: the intention of the negotiation could be for one culture win-win and for the other one win-lose.

3.personal style: how one negotiator talks to the other one, the way of dressing, of interact etc… all this issues are influenced by the culture how serious and important we think a negotiation is, how formal or informal.

4. communication: some cultures emphasize in direct methods of communication and others in indirect communication, being more complex when talking.

5. sensitivity to time: It is said that Germans are always punctual, Latins are habitually late, Japanese negotiate slowly, and Americans are quick to make a deal. This makes reference of how we estimate the time a negotiation is going to take or the time we need to invest in it.

6.emotionalism: According to the stereotype, Latin Americans show their emotions at the negotiating table, while the Japanese and many other Asians hide their feelings. ITs a tendency but not necessarily have to be like this. In the author’s survey, Latin Americans and the Spanish were the cultural groups that ranked themselves highest with respect to emotionalism in a clearly statistically significant fashion. Among Europeans, the Germans and English ranked as least emotional, while among Asians the Japanese held that position, but to a lesser degree.

7. formo of agreement: Cultural factors influence the form of the written agreement that the parties make.

Generally, Americans prefer very detailed contracts that attempt to anticipate all possible circumstances and eventualities, no matter how unlikely. Other cultures, such as the Chinese, prefer a contract in the form of general principles rather than detailed rules. 

8.building an agreement:  Does it start from an agreement on general principles and proceed to specific items, or does it begin with an agreement on specifics, such as price, delivery date, and product quality, the sum total of which becomes the contract? Different cultures tend to emphasize one approach over the other.

9. team organization: who has the authority to make commitments, and how decisions are made. Culture is one important factor that affects how executives organize themselves to negotiate a deal.

10. risk taking: In deal making, the negotiators’ cultures can affect the willingness of one side to take risks– to divulge information, try new approaches, and tolerate uncertainties in a proposed course of action.

SOURCE

http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/the-organization/negotiating-the-top-ten-ways-that-culture-can-affect-your-negotiation#.VEwjBouG8hq

DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS!!!

The most important points viewed in class:

1. Multicultural teamwork: Globalization is not just a facility to exchange goods and services, not just a way to make things quick, efficiency of information and so on, Globalization also allows the movement of people. Companies can look for their profiles not just inside their countries but also abroad, sometimes there are not people specialized in something inside a country or city and maybe in other countries people are much more stronger in this abilities that will make enterprises more competitive or will help them to grow.

This, as everything has its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

-    The company will have different perspectives in the  team work at the time of giving ideas or solutions because team members will have different cultures and because of that, different way if thinking, acting and strategies. This is call “group think” as told before, members of the group have different roots and perspectives so is going to be more innovative the solutions or ideas.

-    Having a customer service more sensitive to culture talking about multinationals where they have to face different clients around the world, so having members from these cultures in the team will be very useful.

-    Could reduce costs for the company if people coming from abroad make a good negotiation in their salary.

Disadvantages:

-    Could cause conflicts and misunderstandings in communication because of diversity in        language, high or low context misinterpretation.

-   Build a trust in team members is more difficult because we all trust in different ways  depending in how we grew and our interests. Also trust could be damage with a simple          misunderstanding.

-     Decision-making will take more time due to the way of thinking of members.

-     Cultural barriers could be challenging for individuals and the organization.

a

So, to conclude this topic, is important for companies to have into account that having members of different cultures in a team need a process where they can know better each other to have a stronger understanding of each other, to create synergy and trust between them to a better focus on common goals and more important, to reach them as a group.

2. Function of managers:

I think that one of the most important issue managers should have into account is the profile of the people they going to have into the team, being very careful, that people they select have an open mind, preferably an experience of working with people of other cultures, that everyone have different abilities to complement each other etc…

Another important challenge that managers have to face is making  them know each other, create a pleasant working environment and teaching them religion, politic and those things that tend to be topics of discussion are not important or doesn’t make the difference on them in the place they work, this, being the example as managers and creating an understanding that are more important the ideas or contributions they make than the differences between them.

Investigation

                                          

STARBUCKS AND IT DIVERSITY!

Starbucks is a company placed in more than 62 countries around the world and in all continents. Their corporate mission is “inspire and feed human spirit. Just one person, one cup of coffee and one place at the same time”.

This international coffee company was created in Seattle, the name is based in two elements: 1. Because of the first officer (Starbuck) of the vessel in Moby-Dick and the other one is because of the mines of Starbo in Mount Rainier.

This company has very strong focuses to be what they are now; they have strong points in sustainability, reduction of negative impacts in the environment and diversity.

In diversity, which is going to be the focus in this blog, they are characterized because they involve in their business core since the people whom work to obtain the best coffee to their distributors and different cultural clients and employees. Diversity is very important issue for them, actually is on their main values as a organization:

·    Partners (employees): they try to find and hire partners as diverse as the communities they provide services. 

·   Customers: they try to recognize and answer the preferences and needs from each client. One of their objectives is to provide them an exceptional experience adapting the company to their culture.

·   community: they invest in them through collaborative agreements and creating economic  opportunities  for them.

·    Suppliers: Through the diversity program, they work to increase their comercial relationships with companies which the owners are women and minority groups.

                         

Starbucks is focus on create a work place where it is valued and respect people from different places and where their employees can make their Jobs the best posible. They celebrate the unique mix of talent, experiences and perspectives from each partner that makes posible the success of starbucks . Thats why they believe these partners act with tolerance and sensibility to all customers to make Starbucks  cozy for all.

They define diversity as: inclusión, equity and accessibility

 http://www.starbucks.es/