Retail Industry

SESSION 1: CULTURE FUNDAMENTALS

Formation and learning of immediate culture:

• Immediate Envrnt (upbringing: parets)
• National Context (education, political and legal systems, economy, arts..)
• Indirect Influence (history, religion)
  

Culture can be difficult to understand: maybe because we don’t see everything: the iceberg of culture:

• we see behaviors and artefacts (architecture, use of space, decoration,… but also fashion, food organizational structures, work processes, chromatics, greetings, form of address, personal space, body language, age and gender issues, dress codes, status (education, situation, origins, social class..))
• but we don’t see values and assumptions

Organizational structures: pyramidal or flat

Interpreting culture: Observation → Interpretation (why do they do that?)

Barriers to cultural understanding:

• Ethnocentric thinking (do not discuss cultural ≠ and do not recognize their imp)
• Fear (leave your comfort zone, try new things, new food)

• We can be afraid by the barrier of the language.

Culture has an impact on teaching/at work. (ask questions in class, meet teacher for a drink, managers: precise answers to subordinates’s questions → imp?)

Culture makes sense to insiders, but can be learned by outsiders.

5 Key Values Level of Culture:

• Time (past, prst, futire // ST, LT // monochromic, polychromic)
• Success (results, profits VS relationships // competition VS solidarity)
• Change (tradition VS progress // risk taking attitude: feasible ?)
• Money (financial security, shareholders’ wealth // reward systems)
• Work (work to live or live to work? // values: challenge, achievement, autonomy..)

SESSION 2: CULTURAL DIMENSION MODELS

3 types of culture in OB and MCD 
National culture MCD / Organizational culture / Personality

The Hofstede Framework: Assumption Level of Culture

Power distance: Hierarchy VS Equality (to power)

• The degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally → how a society handles inequalities among people
• HIGH PD = accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification.
• LOW PD = people strive to equalise the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of power.

Uncertainty avoidance: Rules/Caution VS Initiative (to risk)

• The degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity → how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen?

• HIGH UAI = maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour // intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas // stress level
• LOW UAI = societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles.

Individualism/collectivism: “Me” VS “WE” (to others)

• Individualism: preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families
• Collectivism: preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular in-group to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

Masculinity/femininity: Things VS Relationships (to success)

• Masculinity: preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material rewards for success // Society: more competitive.
• Femininity: preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life // Society: more consensus-oriented

Long term/short term orientation: ST VS LT (to time)

• The degree to which people consider long-term issues and demonstrate patience
• HIGH LTO: pragmatic approach: they encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future // persistence, ordering relationships by status, possibility of having many truths, thrift, sense of shame
• LOW LTO = STO: maintain time-honoured traditions and norms while viewing societal change with suspicion // respect for tradition, absolute truths

(EX: money: spend or save?, promotion: slow (loyalty) or fast (results)?)

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