Chapter 2: Cross-Cultural Business Flashcards
Culture
Set of values, beliefs, rules and institutions held by a specified group of people.
Sub-culture
A group of people who share a unique way of life within a larger, dominant culture.
Ethnocentricity
Belief that one’s own ethnic group or culture is superior to that of others.
Cultural literacy
Detailed knowledge about a culture that enables a person to work happily and effectively within it.
Components of culture
- Asthetics
- Valuest attitudes
- Social structure
- Religion
- Personal communication
- Education
- Physical and material environments
Social structure
A cultures fundamental organization including its groups and institutions, its system of social positions and their relationships, and the process by which its resources are distributed.
Social group
Collection of two or more people who identify and interact with each other. I.e. family and gender
Nepotism
In extended family cultures, managers and other employees often try to find jobs for relatives inside their own companies.
Social stratification
Process of ranking people into social layers or classes
Social mobility
Ease with which individuals can move up or down a cultures social ladder
Caste system
System of social stratification in which people are born into a social ranking, or caste, with no opportunity for social mobility.
Class system
A class system of social stratification in which personal ability and actions determine social status and mobility.
Brain drain
Departure of highly educated people from one profession, geographic region, or nation to another.
Communication
System of conveying thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and information through speech, writing and actions.
Lingua Franca
Third or “link” language understood by two parties who speak different native languages.
Body language
Language communicated through unspoken cues, including hand gestures, facial expressions, physical greetings, eye contact and the manipulation of personal space.
Material culture
All the technology used in a culture to manufacture goods and provide services.
Cultural trait
Anything that represents a cultures way of life, including gestures, material objects, traditions, and concepts. E.g. Bowing
Cultural diffusion
Process whereby cultural traits spread from one culture to another
Cultural imperialism
Replacement of one culture’s traditions, folk hero’s and artifacts, with substitutes from another.
Kluckhohn-Strodbeck framework
Framework for studying cultural differences along six dimensions, such as focus on past or future events and belief in individual or group responsibility for personal well-being.
Hofstede framework
Framework for studying cultural differences along five dimensions, such as individualism vs collectivism and equality vs inequality.
