Globalization and Culture: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Accounting firms today provide services to multinational clients. In order to do so, accountants must not only understand the nuts and bolts of running businesses throughout the world but also the cross-cultural differences that appear when operating globally. The provision of adequate and effective service will require recognition of cross-cultural differences and the ability to incorporate this recognition into all client interactions and services rendered. Achieving an adequate understanding of cross-cultural differences, however, becomes somewhat problematic in that opinions differ as to the stability of such differences. Divergence theorists believe national cultural characteristics to be enduring with differences among countries remaining intact over time. Convergence theorists, on the other hand, believe worldwide homogenization to be occurring due to the effects of globalization on countries, cultures and people. Child's 1981 review of cross-cultural studies revealed that most studies concluding convergence focused on macro-level issues such as organizational structure and technology whereas studies that concluded divergence focused on micro-level issues - in particular, the behavior of people within organizations. We offer an exploratory study of micro-level issues. We propose that although there may be homogenizing effects of globalization at the macro level, people's values and behaviors are less likely to be affected. Our study examines current measurements of cultural characteristics from business people in Germany, Japan, and the United States (U.S.), three highly globalized countries. The results show that the three countries are different in certain cultural aspects and similar in others. The results of this study have important implications for accountants and others seeking to serve multinational clients as well as for the continually expanding field of cross-cultural research.