Video Transcript: Lecture 3

So hello everybody. So welcome to lecture three, and today we're talking about  socio cultural forces. So this is a lecture where we're going to start with the  question, what is culture? And it's so funny that this is our opening question,  because I was actually having this discussion with a friend of mine recently who  asked me this very question, what is culture? And they gave him a very textbook answer, and I'm going to give you a very textbook answer, but, but in thinking  about culture, I just want you to pause for a second, and I'm going to go silent,  and I just want you to pause for a second and think about what you think culture  is. So I'm going to go silent for a second and you think about what you think  culture is. Okay. So some of you may have thought of your culture and your  family. Some of you may have thought of your national culture. Some of you  may have had other conceptions of culture. But let's start with a definition, and  this is again a formal definition, and certainly it's one that is all encompassing  and means different things to different people, but culture is a belief, rules,  techniques and artifacts that characterize a population. For example, culturally,  Americans are known generally for valuing inter independence and freedom,  and that's cultural standard of the United States generally. I mean, obviously  there are exceptions to that, but generally Americans value things like  independence and freedom. Culture is learned. It's interrelated, and there are  shared patterns that are constructed through social interactions that define the  boundaries of the group. So so an example of this in my office is that there is a  cultural expectation that's learned and that's shared, that people greet each  other's in emails so they don't just say, I need that report by 5pm It's greetings,  John. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Would it be possible to get me a  report by 5pm so these are the cultural values that are important to our  workplace and those are shared. And remember that culture is it can be  workplace related, obviously, family, really related, religious, religiously related. It can be country related. It can be within certain socio economic groups and  structures. There's cultural rules that that are at play there. So culture is  something that's ever present in and in and across different groups. So in  thinking about culture as an international manager or leader, one of the things  that we have to think about is the importance of learning the language and  learning the culture for which you're gonna going to operate. So having that  experience is critical. So I am going to Rome, specifically the Vatican City, in a  few months, and then I will be following on my trip to Nepal to go to the Mount  Everest and some of the other Himalaya, and I will be walking around and  interacting, you know, with with individuals in those two countries. And one of  the things that I need to keep in mind when I go is that I need to understand the  language, I need to understand the cultural norms. I need to learn what I need to learn what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, because the last thing I  want to do is offend somebody when I'm there. Now I am going as a tourist. I will be doing some volunteer work and some work and some things like that. But I'm

going as a primarily as a tourist. I'm not going as a business person. But  imagine if I was going representing we talked about Coca Cola last time. We're  talking about LEGO in this in this time. Imagine if I went and I represented Lego, and as Lego, I had this potential for $100 million deal with Lego in Italy, and I  went and I broke a cultural norm, or a cultural value, or I did something that  wasn't appropriate. Well, that would affect the entire business, and that would  affect the potential. Over 100 million so it's incumbent upon international  business managers and leaders to understand the culture and ensure that their  people understand the culture as well. So you may be asking, How does culture  impact business? And remember that culture impacts and affects all business  functions. For example, in marketing, different attitudes will require individuals to market their message to different groups differently. Certainly, you would market  a product to a very conservative market differently than you would to a more  liberal country, depending on the product, depending on the needs, those kind of things. So examples of that is also making sure that your message is spot on  and that you understand the language and the cultural nuances. So I have a  couple funny examples of that Kentucky Fried chicken and chicken who is  known throughout North America, somebody who sells fried chicken, and their  slogan is finger to licking good. They ran a campaign in China, and the message was wrongly translated to say, eat your fingers off. So that you can imagine that  that marketing campaign did not go very well, so understanding how to translate messages correctly that will resonate with your audience is critically important.  In human resources, you got to think about the reward structure. Is the culture  that rewards a rewards a group or an individual has authority. Understood is the  boss allowed to challenge, be challenged, or does the structure not allow for  that? Is the company hierarchical? Is it more flat? Is it allow you to make  comments, make bring up concerns, do those kind of things, or is are you in an  environment where it's very isolated, and that that may not work for certain  people in certain cultures. For instance, I prefer collaboration. I prefer working  together with people. So if I was in an organizational culture or in a country that  did not value those kind of things, then I probably would not be a good fit  accounting and understanding controls. You know you how your controls are,  says something about people. So if you have very, very, very tight accounting  controls, for example, needing a doctor's note to to have a certain diet and get  reimbursed for that diet would indicate a lack of trust, where loose controls,  assumes that a person will act honestly. That's a cultural thing as well, and  leadership styles will also vary by region. So you hear, you hear a lot of  especially in faith based companies and those kind of things. You hear the term  servant leadership a lot. And what does a servant leader mean? And what does  a values based leader mean? And those kind of things may work in certain  cultural settings, but may not be applicable to other cultural settings. So that's  something to keep in mind as well, is that leadership and culture and all these 

things work together. So how does culture show itself? So how is culture  relevant? So you can see culture in aesthetic so art, drama and the like. I think  that if you want to understand a lot of people have talked about this, that if they  wanted to understand American culture, then they learned it by watching the  films. So certainly watching films gives you an idea, or looking at the arts, or  looking at pictures, or looking at music or those kind of things, gives you an idea of listening to music, I guess, gives you an idea of what the culture is all about,  what the culture is like religion. So cultural and anthropologists study religion  and say it's responsible for most of the attitudes and beliefs that influence  human behavior within an organization and within a country. So understanding  the tenets of religion is helpful. If you owned a burger shop and only sold beef  burgers, you would have trouble in certain parts of the world who you know may  practice the term himsa, which is do no harm, and that may lead people to make food choices that are not a himsa. Make food choices that would not make your  burger shop very successful. Communication is one of the biggest. Distinctions  and distancing of a culture. So it's important to understand nonverbal  communication as well as verbal communication. So as an American, first time I  was in Middle East, I had to understand the sign of friendship and what it meant  for two gentlemen that were to walk down the street holding hands, and what  that meant for friendship, or why there were certain other behaviors that existed. That's something that I had to understand and also understand the proximity  between people as well. And just because somebody is right here, it is not a  threat, that is just a one, that's just a sign of closeness, and those kind of things.  And that's something that I had to learn as I traveled around the world and as I  travel around the world, and that's certainly something that as I prepare for my  Rome trip and prepare for my Nepal trip, that's something that I'm going to be I  have to understand and learn from as well. So communication, societal  organizing is important as well. So if you think about this, think about the role of  the extended family. Obviously, if you were selling a product and and you're  trying to sell a product in Latin America, or in South America, or in Central  America, and and your product ad makes fun of, let's say, a relative living with  you that probably will not be received well in certain cultures, where in the  United States, we kind of laugh about it. In certain parts of the United States and certain aspects of the United States, we certainly laugh about those kind of  things in other parts of the country that is taken very seriously, and it's an  obligation of duty. So understanding those kind of things is very important. Gift  giving is a is something that's misunderstood internationally, and understanding  the role of exchanging gifts, when gifts are appropriate, what gifts are  appropriate, what it means like, do you have to reciprocate those kind of things? Is important as well. Those are some all that's a lot, that's a lot that an  international business that is operating needs to understand. They need to  understand all those things as a company, and what those mean, and what the 

implications of that is. So there are some different frameworks for understanding culture, and I want to go through them extremely fast. You know, I'm trying to  introduce terms, introduce roles, introduce ideas and concepts and thoughts, but certainly not get into a lot of depth, because there's a lot of material to cover  over these 12 lectures. So I just want to introduce ideas, and in some ideas I will focus on in greater detail, and other ideas I will kind of define a term for you to  do some research and looking as well. So we'll, we'll talk about a couple of  these frameworks, but we're really going to focus on Garrett Hofstede and  Hofstede cultural dimensions, framework that we will spend some time on. But  Hall, the researcher named Hall, has a theory based on the concept of high and  low context. So high context is countries like China, Japan, some African  cultures and Latin America. And communication is often formed by long standing social ties, and communication is implicit and indirect generally. In high context,  like the United States, no, I'm sorry, the context is very important, and  communication is treated this way. I'm sorry. So in high context, communication  and context is very important. In low context, cultures like the United States,  communication is carried out in words, and social ties are shorter duration, and  communication is explicit. And I think that's something that you all can see,  certainly if you live in the United States, then you understand that concept well,  that that social ties and those kind of things are not as important as they are in  other places around the world. So I'm going to have trouble pronouncing these  names. I do every time, but I think the concept is important. So Kluckhohn and  Strodtbeck, they built up off of Hall's work. And what they said was that they had a cultural orientations framework. So there's a classification system for their  framework that's based on five different problems. So these problems are what  relationship. Should people have with nature? What sort of relationships exist  among people? What is the preferred modes of human activity? What is the best way to think about time, and what is the basic nature of humans? So they took  Hall's work of high and low context, and then they said, well, it's within the frame of these country these of these problems and these concepts. So along came  Geert Hofstede and Hofstede said that there are six dimensions, and these six  dimensions have been affirmed that there's been tons of research on Hofstede's work, including the globe study, which some of the prevalent researchers in that  study. Or you'll hear the name House and Javidan, which will actually talk about Javidan later, but you'll hear the people like Javidan or House or Dorfman who  have done work with with Hofstede dimensions. So what Hofstede says is that  there's this concept these six dimensions that most cultural cultures, and you  can break down my country prescribed you. So one is individualism and  collectivism. So that's the degree in which people are integrated in a group. So  in the United States, we tend to be more individualistic. We're not as integrated  in groups as say, China is. Who tends to be a more collectivist culture power  distance is about how power is distributed. So in some in some cultures, it's 

perfectly acceptable for there to be social classes, where in others, there is not  so another way to ask this question is, to what degree is your country or your  culture, in this case, country, if we're talking about the globe study, and what, in  what ways is your society okay with any inequity? So is inequity Okay, or is  inequity eschewed uncertainty? Avoidance is how comfortable a society is with  uncertainty. So there are countries that are certainly okay with unstructured  situations, and I think we can think of a few of those where there are some that  require a high degree of structure and certainty. Masculinity and femininity is  another Hofstede dimension, and that's the role between the sexes. So  assertiveness is considered generally a male function, and caring is considered  a feminine feature, feminine feature. So, so this describes the gap in general. So for instance, Japan is considered a very masculine, driven society, according to  Hofstede and the researchers I mentioned House and Javidan, Dorfman  indulgence versus restraint. So what this says, this is actually a newer  dimension, and what this says is how much of a society indulges versus  showing restraint. So if you are in the United States, I'm sure you know this, that we tend to be a very indulgent society. And then the final dimension is pragmatic versus normative, and that's how people deal with events in their lives. So in  Venezuela, for example, there's a strong desire to know and understand and  explain the truth. So Venezuela is a very pragmatic society. The final one is  these names I struggle with, so please forgive me, look up their theories and  pronounce them correctly. On behalf of me, please, I would appreciate that  Trompenaars is the final cultural theory, and his framework is similar to  Hofstede, that it looks at data and makes data driven decisions, but it's different  that it looks at observable behavior. So I'm not going to go through all these, I'm  just going to give you one or two so attitudes toward time, for instance, and the  question is, where is the primary focus? Is it on the past. Is it on the present? Is  it on the future? So East Asian countries tend to be past focus, where the US  tends to be present focused, and some, some EU it tends to be future focused.  So if you think about economic development, that is, that is, that is one way to  consider that. So EU would be future focused. US tends to be present focused,  and and Asia seems to be past focused. You can see that through some of the  policies that exist and some of the cultural frameworks that exist as well. So  Javidan as I mentioned earlier, he is one of my research heroes. I've seen him  talk a couple times. He is, at least, was at a school in Arizona, and he is, did a  lot of work on the globe study, as I discussed, but now he works on the global  mindset. You can google his work. If you look up global mindset, you will find a  bunch of stuff on it. In fact, I will go ahead and see if I can find that real quick,  just because I think it's good to show. Here we go. So if you wanted to see his  work, you can go to, you can go to globalmindset.info, and you will see the work  that they do around global mindset. So Skip Bowman is a founder, but Mansour  Javidan has done a lot of work in this area as well. So you have that. And then 

there's other ones as well, like the IMD talks about global mindset as well. So I  would encourage you to go and do a little research on the global mindset, and  specifically Javidan, who is at a at a school in Arizona, so coming, coming back  to this. So what is the global mindset say? So this is a mindset that deals with  complexity. And what this says is you have to map the cultural differences, and  you have to seek to understand them. So you got to build those gaps and  understand them, and then you got to seek to do research and things like that,  and integrate those gaps to make you have a global mindset and make you be  successful. So let's talk about my trip to the Vatican City in Rome and Nepal that will be upcoming, and I need to map the differences between my cultural  understandings and the cultural understandings of Italy and of Nepal. And then  once I understand those cultural differences, then I need to seek out and find  ways to bridge those gaps. So, you know, I have not begun that research yet,  but certainly that's something that I need to do. In order for me to develop a  global mindset, I need to assimilate some of the cultural beliefs and practices in  that I believe in into their culture as well not violating my own norms and  practices to make sure that I can communicate effectively. Again, when you're  talking about business deals, this is critically important, and it's not any less  important when you're talking about cultural situations and social situations and  vacation and things like that. But certainly when you're talking about business  you have to understand the cultural nuances and be able to address those. So  let's, let's talk about the bottom line. And the bottom line is in business, doing  your homework on where you are going and your approach for that foreign  market is critical, establishing trust, slowing down, understanding language,  respecting the cultural values of a country, and understanding the components  of that culture will be important to having a successful enterprise. If I were to go  today and just start a business in Nepal without understanding the culture, the  business would probably fail, but if I slow down and I take the time to really  understand what they're doing and what the cultural practices are, and then  make sure that my business is set up to not offend but to integrate within those  cultural practices, then I can have a successful company. One of the things to  think about. You hear this if you talk to people that have done a lot of business in Japan, is that it takes time practice and work to develop these kind of  relationships and countries and cultures. You can't go into Japan today cold and  expect to start a deal, because relationships are so important to the Japanese  culture. So you know, they need to get to know you, they need to develop a  relationship. And often that takes a lot of time and a lot of investment, a lot of  resources to make that happen, and that is okay, and we just need to realize  that and recognize that and be able to realize what the cultural needs are of.  Where we're going to operate. So as promised, we talk about, we talk about an  international company, and today I picked one of my favorite international  companies, which I have already told you about, and that would be Lego. So 

Lego, for those of you that don't know Lego has little blocks that you can make  things, or you can buy things, like, if you've ever seen a TV show Seinfeld, they  are doing a Seinfeld one. They obviously have R2D2, for those that may be  looking for flowers, for a special somebody, you could do a bouquet. Isn't this  appropriate for this class, the world map, and then, you know, obviously they  have other ones as well. So sneakers, flower bouquets, all that. So let's learn a  little bit about the company. Let's explore a little bit, and we can do that. We can  do that by looking at one thing, and we discussed this with Coca Cola. But they  have incredible sustainable practices. They believe in three areas children,  where they they give learning to 8 million children a year. They phase out.  They're going to phase out plastic in use of their boxes by 2025 and they have a very inclusive workplace, so they're big in diversity and diversity initiatives. Here  are some of the things that they are Oops, here are some of the things that they  are doing, so you can see those. And again, you know, when we're talking about these international companies and these international businesses, working in  the local community is critical. So one of the other things that I want to show you is the management and again, just I love this picture, just like with with our  friends at Coca Cola, you can see that it is a very, very, very diverse group that's International. This is not a US based company, but you can see that they have a Chief, Chief Financial Officer, their chief product officer, and then under each of  these are people who support this team. And you can see here, I picked her on  purpose. Julia has an MBA in international marketing and finance from Chicago.  So, so you can see that they obviously, as an international company, value.  They value international perspective. So there you go. So I just wanted you to  see some about LEGO. I would encourage you to go here, and I would  encourage you to I've always loved this picture. I wanted to show it in class. I  encourage you to go to this website and to check them out, and to spend some  time looking at this international business and kind of how they do things. So  before we go into lecture number four, which is sustainability, we're going to do  what we always do, and we're going to take a moment to pray. So please join  me in prayer. Heavenly Father. Again, we come to you and we thank you for the  individuals that are watching this lecture and for this class and just everything  that we're learning through Christian leaders. Lord, what an awesome  organization, and you are. Your work is happening through them. Lord, and just  want to take a moment to just acknowledge and pray for every single member of the team, for all the students, for the alumni, for the staff, for everybody that  works together to do your kingdom work. Lord, just want to thank you for them.  Lord, as we transition to sustainable sustainability in our next lecture, let's, let's  remember that we are all your people, that everybody is your child, and that that that you have given us the innate ability to understand each other, to work  together and to love each other, Lord and I pray that we will not forget that as we think about and assimilate some of the things we learned about, both from 

Hofstede and the global mindset from Javidan and the other material that we  learned about in this lecture regarding culture and what culture is, I pray that  you'll bless this class. You'll bless. Us, each individual, looking at this lecture and pray that that what they're learning will be a blessing and that they will be able to do it, to do use it to do Kingdom work in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. Thank  you so much, and I will see you back here for lecture four, which will be on  sustainability. So have a great day.