Influence Of National Culture Research Articles

Cultural convergence through web-based management techniques? The case of corporate web site recruiting

This paper empirically analyzes the influence of national culture on the comprehensiveness to which companies in different countries make use of corporate web site recruiting. Based on Hofstede's 4-Dimensions model of culture, four hypotheses are developed and tested against data from 420 companies in 14 countries. The results indicate that cultural effects are relevant even though a management technique is provided on the World Wide Web. Particularly, individualism has a strong influence on the use of corporate web site recruiting in different countries. Thus, the results lend support for the divergence approach in international management research.

On the Discursive Construction of ‘The Chinese Learner’

Characterisations of ‘the Chinese learner’ in education and applied linguistics have frequently taken a ‘large culture’ approach, which involves describing the values, attitudes and learning practices of individuals in terms of fixed, homogeneous, reified national cultures. A shared Confucian cultural heritage is offered by way of explanation for supposedly consistent Chinese behaviours in Western classrooms. This paper examines some features of the deficit model of Chinese learner discourse attributed to Confucian cultural heritage (passive, lacking critical thinking, reliant on simplistic rote memorisation strategies resulting in surface learning, unwilling to participate in classroom talk), and refers to research findings which propose alternative characterisations and alternative explanations rooted in social and contextual factors. An alternative approach based on post-structuralist, critical pedagogy and cultural studies perspectives is considered which focuses on ‘small culture’ explanations for the behaviours of Chinese learners abroad. Situated identity is a key concept in this approach; the influence of national culture on individual values and behaviour through socialisation in shared educational practices is moderated or disrupted as the individual learner is transplanted into a different context. Agency is recognised as learners attempt to negotiate new identities for themselves in a more or less alien environment.

National Cultural Influences on Knowledge Sharing: A Comparison of China and Russia

abstract This paper presents a set of theoretical propositions regarding knowledge sharing in China and Russia. We argue that there are important national cultural similarities and differences between the two countries that result in certain similarities and differences in individual knowledge‐sharing behaviour in Chinese and Russian organizations. We claim that vertical collectivism and particularistic social relations in China and Russia lead to intensive social relations among organizational members, which facilitate knowledge sharing between in‐group members in organizations in both countries. We also maintain that differences in the essence of collectivism as well as in the extent of collectivism in the two cultural contexts lead to different intensities of knowledge sharing in Chinese and Russian organizations. Finally, we discuss theoretical and management implications of this research.

Leader–member exchange (LMX), paternalism, and delegation in the Turkish business culture: An empirical investigation

Although businesses increasingly operate across cultures, there is a paucity of research that examines the influence of national culture on leadership practices. This study uses a structural equation modeling approach to investigate relationships among leader–member exchange (LMX), delegation, paternalism, and job satisfaction in Turkish business organizations. Results from a survey study of N=185 full-time employees from Turkish companies support the relationship of LMX to delegation and job satisfaction. However, the effect of LMX on job satisfaction is mediated by paternalism, an emic cultural dimension. Results suggest that delegation might not be an effective management tool in the Middle Eastern context.

The Role of Behavioral Factors and National Cultures in Creating Effective Performance Management Systems

Many organizations install performance management systems (PMS), based on critical success factors, key performance indicators and the balanced scorecard, to improve their results. In practice many organizations have difficulty implementing a PMS because the influence of behavioral factors and national cultures is not taken into account enough. This article describes the findings of a study into the role of behavior and national culture in setting up an effective PMS at a multinational.

Learning from Experience in a Changing Foreign Environment: Analysis of National Culture's Influence on AVON's Operations in Bulgaria

Learning from Experience in a Changing Foreign Environment: Analysis of National Culture's Influence on AVON's Operations in Bulgaria

Cultural Bias in Information Systems Research and Practice: Are You Coming From the Same Place I Am?

This article summarises an ICIS panel discussion held on December 2005 in Las Vegas on the influence of national (or ethnic) culture on IS research and practice. Based on the views of the panel members and the question and answer time with the wider audience, it was generally agreed that culture has a tremendously significant influence on IS research and practice. This influence is expressed in a bias in how research is conducted and published and how practice is conducted. The bias is usually in favour of the dominant cultural perspective. The effects of these biases, both positive and negative, are discussed and possible solutions discussed.

Catharine Sedgwick and the Circles of New York

Although Catharine Maria Sedgwick lived and wrote in New City nearly half her adult life, her status as notable New Yorker has become involved in ambiguities and contradictions. In 1846, Edgar Allan Poe situated Sedgwick in Knickerbocker circles with Irving, Cooper, Paulding, Bryant, Halleck, and one or two others as one our literary pioneers of national reputation, but Poe set critical precedent in discrediting her metropolitan status along with absolute merit of her writing: Strictly speaking, Miss Sedgwick is not one of the literati of New city [sic] (Literati 1200, 1204). A century later, Tremaine McDowell, in the influential Literary History of the United States, linked her status as a distinguished authoress who wintered in New York only decline in her art. After her first fictions portraying New England domestic manners, McDowell claims shift New settings and focus on of her ... smothered Miss Sedgwick's innate realism and made her ... an apostate her region and purveyor of sentimental romance genteel females (290). Recent criticism continues discount Sedgwick in representing her as New England woman in isolation from the circles that literary men and women frequented in the city. (1) Yet, while critical tradition diminishes Sedgwick's accomplishment through repressing her relations New York, no one has yet detailed her city residence or her ties contemporary urban culture as that culture determined its own shape and the shape of national literature. In 1800, Sedgwick first visited New as an eleven-year-old obtain the polish necessary reproduce her mother's station among the ruling elite. She lived with Frances Watson, her sister, and Frances's publisher husband and circulated with her brother Theodore, law student, who very ambitious that his sister should be an adept in the polite (Sedgwick, Autobiography 92). She loved the culture and society of the young urban center, where she met other daughters of the elite likewise sent to be perfected in the arts and graces of young ladies (Autobiography 93). Yet despite the designs of her family and an education that immersed her in elevating society in New and other cities, Sedgwick resisted becoming conventional, despite years of her brother's dreaded criticism and her later long social life (Autobiography 92). (2) Consequently, she was not publicized, as was her mother, in Elizabeth F. Ellet's Queens of American Society. Ultimately, Sedgwick's city experience instead facilitated her becoming writer and involved her in the struggle determine the shape that the American social formation would take, including the positions it would afford women and its fostering of literary culture. The three-and-a-half decades that Sedgwick worked as New writer, beginning in the mid-1820s, coincided with what Thomas Bender describes as the city becoming the national economic center, then a base for national political and cultural influence, the country's leading publishing hub, and site of significant religious and social reform (146). In this essay, I begin outline ways that engagement with the city's overlapping conversational communities involved Sedgwick in these events and how this involvement factored in her entire literary career--its motives, its thematics, and its forms--as well as in the history of publication and reception of her written works. Following sketch of her claims on New society and her urban ideals of conversational culture, the essay traces Sedgwick's connections with several of these circles: Knickerbocker writers and artists, Democrats, Unitarians, reformers, and literary salons. Examining such circles can open up the sphere of the social, where ladies' chitchat signifies and engages more public conversations and thus enlarges our understanding of Sedgwick's significance, now muted by critical tradition that largely defines her in relation New England domesticity and Puritan past. …

Organising R&D in Globalised Context: Convergence or Divergence? The Relative Influence of Dutch and Foreign Cultures on the Organisational Structure of R&D in Multinational Corporations

eBook: Organising R&D in Globalised Context: Convergence or Divergence? The Relative Influence of Dutch and Foreign Cultures on the Organisational Structure of R&D in Multinational Corporations (ISSN0935-9915) von aus dem Jahr 2006

The Influence of National Culture on the Adoption Status of Innovations:: An Empirical Study of Firms Across Europe

Firms, like consumers, differ in their likelihood and speed to adopt innovations, i.e. new products, systems or services. Differences in adoption status are generally explained by scholars based on (i) particular characteristics of the firm and of the new products (micro factors) and (ii) the type of industry the firms are in (meso factors). This study adds to the literature by investigating if national culture (a macro factor) adds to the explanation of differences in adoption status for firms operating in different countries. A large-scale empirical study was carried out in 10 European countries concerning the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software by medium-sized companies. Key finding is that variables describing national cultural highly significantly explain variance in adoption decisions in addition to the traditional micro and meso variables. These findings support the proposition that cultural differences between countries, even within the EU, are still so large that they impact the likelihood of adoption by companies operating in different countries. The findings have important implications for business-to-business companies expanding in foreign countries with new products and services.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRUST IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPS: A COMPARISON BETWEEN KOREA AND AUSTRIA.

We examine the influence of trust building mechanisms (communication quality, fairness and conflicts) and national culture on actual trust development. Our hypotheses are tested with data on 103 vertical new product development partnerships in Korea and Austria, two countries we consider culturally very different. We find that communication quality, fairness, conflicts, and national culture all significantly influence the level of trust developed in these partnerships. However, the impact of the three trust building mechanisms is much stronger than that of national culture, indicating that trust formation might be rather universal than country-specific. We also find moderating effects of national culture on the importance of communication quality and conflicts. However, these effects deviate significantly from our predictions and the literature on national culture and trust, thus opening up interesting avenues for future cross-cultural research.

An Exploratory Examination of the Influence of National Culture on Cross-National Product Diffusion

This study examines the direct influence of national culture on the cross-national diffusion of innovations. Focusing on seven technological innovations across 13 European countries, the authors use Hofstede's multidimensional approach to culture to investigate this relationship. They find support linking four cultural dimensions—individualism, masculinity, power distance, and long-term orientation—to cross-national product diffusion. The findings suggest that national culture explains a relatively sizable amount of variation in cross-national diffusion rates. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications of these results, including prescriptive guidance with respect to product launch strategy and tactics.

The negotiation of minority ethnic identities in virtually all-white communities: research with children and their families in the South Wales valleys

This paper draws on qualitative interviews with 19 children and nine of their parents or carers in the South Wales valleys to discuss the effect on the social identities of minority ethnic children of living in virtually all-white communities. There is discussion of minority ethnic identities, local identities and Welshness, and the paper concludes with consideration of the theoretical and policy implications of the research. Interviews with the children showed them to be using a variety of creative strategies to negotiate their identities in a challenging and highly racialised context. Diverse individual histories and family relationships interact with available minority cultural identities and local and national cultural influences. The children have to construct their own identities in the context of dominant discourses of ‘Wales’ and ‘Welshness’ and also class-based notions of what it means to come from this particular region. Some maintain minority ethnic identities with pride and for others the maintenance of a minority ethnic identity is put under extreme pressure.

The Influence of National Culture on the Level and Outcome of IS Development Decisions

Would the outcome of a Global multinational organization's decision be the same if the same decision were to be made in different countries throughout the world? Within the same organization, we propose that national cultural differences can influence decision making in different countries and cultural clusters. While much work has been done on organizational cultural influences, this study examines the influence that national culture has on organizational decision making in respect to the evolution/redevelopment decision that organizations may face at a point in time. Building on findings from the GLOBE research program, we show by empirical testing of a theoretical model that national cultural dimensions are significantly associated with a) the outcome of the decision to enhance or re-develop a system, and b) the organizational level at which such decisions are made. This research is significant as a means to improve management decision making, particularly with regard to the enhancement versus redevelopment decision. The research suggests that a relatively uniform sub-culture exists across the global IS project level but that national cultural dimensions play a more important role in determining the organizational management level at which decisions are made. Our analysis also suggests that technical factors (Upper case tools and platform) carry more influence in the outcome of the decision at the project level (i.e., development or enhancement). However, human factors (national cultural dimensions) were seen to be more important at the management level (i.e., where the decision was made).

French versus American Consumers' Attachment of Value to a Product in a Common Consumption Context: A Cross-National Comparison

This article investigates the influence of French and American national culture on consumer perceptions of productrelated value. Employing means-end theory, hypotheses are developed to predict how French versus American national culture influences the content and structure of consumer value hierachies. Hypotheses are tested using data from in-depth laddering interviews with a matched sample of French and American consumers. The findings support the contention that differences exist in the meaning and relative importance of consumer value hierarchy dimensions across the two national cultures. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that consumption consequences are especially culturally sensitive.

ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURES IN ASIA: BUSINESS POLICY OR CULTURAL IMPERATIVE

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of national cultures and different business policy models on the degree of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship orientations of managers in the Asia-Pacific: East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The results indicate that an economic policy, which is open and supportive of business development, stimulates greater entrepreneurship.

A Cross-Cultural Case Study of a Multinational Training Program in the United States and Taiwan

The purpose of this study was to understand the influence of national culture on international training program development. Implementation of the selected training program was analyzed by a qualitative case study to examine how training practitioners in the United States and in Taiwan pursue standardized learning outcomes in different cultural contexts. Findings indicate that in multinational program development, leaving room in course design increases the cultural adaptability of a multinational program. Regarding teaching strategies, the teaching techniques in the selected training program provide instructors with the flexibility to integrate the context of local culture into the curriculum. By applying the course contents to their own actual lives, learners have opportunities to incorporate the context of their life experience into the learning process.

The influence of national culture on dissolution communication strategies in Western versus Asian business relationships: a theoretical model

Identifies the communication strategies available to companies when dissolving cross‐cultural inter‐organisational relationships to achieve effective (cooperative) outcomes. First, addresses the importance of communication dissolution, and proposes a typology of available communication strategies. Second, emphasises the importance of understanding cultural diversity in business relationships in general and dissolution in particular. Third, proposes two related theoretical frameworks. The first addresses different conflict management styles that bridge the gap between dissolution communication strategies and the cultural context in which the actors are embedded. The second is a theoretical model for analysing dissolution process in a cross‐cultural business relationship context. Proposes the independent variable, culture, as providing a frame of reference by which meaning and intent are assigned by the foreign company to the communications of the terminating company (disengager), thus affecting the choice of dissolution strategy.

Determinations of cultural adaptation in Chinese‐U.S. joint ventures

The study examined cultural adaptive behavior in international joint ventures, its key relationship contexts (e.g. relationship commitment and relative dependence), and influence of national culture. The hypotheses are tested with Chinese and US joint venture managers. Survey results show that cultural adaptation is driven by relationship commitment and relative dependence among both Chinese and US joint venture partners. However, the association between relative dependence and cultural adaptation is stronger among the Chinese than among the US managers. The findings have important implications for relationship management in international business.

Cross‐cultural tourist behaviour: a replication and extension involving Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension

AbstractHofstede's five cross‐cultural dimensions have been broadly applied in the literature. Money and Crotts recently applied the dimension of uncertainty avoidance to a matched sample comprised of low uncertainty avoidance German and high uncertainty avoidance Japanese tourists, finding their behaviours consistent with those behaviours predicted by Hofstede. This study both replicates and extends their research across a representative sample of first time leisure visitors to the USA representing 58 nations. It was found that visitors from high uncertainty avoidance cultures exhibited behaviours consistent with those of the Japanese in the Money and Crotts research, whereas visitors from low‐uncertainty avoidance cultures behaved similarly to their German subjects. Such findings, across a broad sample population, validate the original research through a more rigorous test of its propositions, provide increased confidence regarding their generalisability, and further contribute to our understanding of the influence of national culture on tourist behaviour. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.