The Concept of Cultural Clustering - Essay Example

Business 6
Q.1
Cultural clustering is an approach used to group countries with similar cultural values. This article will focus on the United States of America and China, which fit Anglo countries and Far East countries respectively.
Q.2
Geert Hofstede classifies culture into five dimensions, i.e., social, power, uncertainty, goal, and time orientations (Hofstede, 1993). Opposing cultural orientations about the United States and China include social, power, and uncertainty orientations. Social orientation addresses individualism versus collectivism. Individualism is exercised in free-market-based systems, such as the United States of America. In this social orientation, people are more self-focused and tend to put their interests before those of a group. On the other hand, China practices collectivism. This is whereby the group’s interests come before individuals’ interests. Power orientation categorizes cultures into power-respect and power-tolerant societies. Power respect societies respect the chain of command and accept power based on position in an organization or society. Authority is not usually questioned. This orientation is common in China. Power-tolerant societies question authority and do not necessarily buy what authority says as seen in the United States of America.
The third category of Hostede’s classification is uncertainty orientation, which focuses on people’s feelings toward vague or uncertain situations. This categorizes cultures into uncertainty acceptance and uncertainty avoidance. The United States tends to lean more on uncertainty acceptance because its cultures are undisturbed by change. Chinese cultural setups, on the other hand, tend to embrace uncertainty avoidance, which exhibits rigid systems based on rules (Ajami, Cool, Goddard, & Khambata, 2006).
Q. 3
China and the United States are among the leading economies in the world. However, the socio-cultural aspects of the two economies greatly differ. Chinese cultures tend to avoid uncertainty, favour power distance and are usually adapted to long-term feminism and collectivist orientations (Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996). On the other hand, Americans are more short-term-oriented and tend to favour individualism and masculinity. They are also not bothered by uncertainty and are more democratic (Fu & Yukl, 2000). In this regard, Americans and Chinese seem to differ in almost all aspects of their cultures.
Q. 4
Culture has a major influence on business both at domestic and international levels. Cateora and Graham (1999) observed that culture shapes the ideals and assumptions of people. It also determines peoples’ behaviours in society, therefore, influencing the behaviour of an organization. Cultural orientation influences the business of any company at local and international levels. For example, China tends to favour long-term orientation as opposed to short-term orientation favoured by the Americans. As a result, the Chinese will focus their businesses on long-term strategy, unlike the Americans who may strategize to achieve short-term goals. The target of every business is to attract as many customers as possible. Therefore, businesses strive as much as they can to respond to the needs of their customers. Customers’ needs are influenced by society, which borrows much from its culture. Therefore, it can be assumed that both markets tend to serve their local customer community satisfactorily. However, when competing in an international market, they will have to make some adjustments and show flexibility in their attitude and management to cater to the international clientele.