Business Culture of Spain - Research Paper Example

Business Culture of Spain Business Culture of Spain International Business Human Resource Management is a that is applied throughout the whole world. It is wise therefore to take a research in a country like Spain which represents the entire Europe continent. The following study therefore centers on the business culture of the Spanish community as a whole. It covers business ethics, policies, compliance laws, beliefs, ethics management and employee behaviors and company and labor relations. It also contains the state of human resource practices currently. This is a wide and deeply researched paper due to the nature of the international business human resource management as a course. Policies can be defined as those objectives which have been declared by the government and seek to realize and reserve the national community interest. In a country like Spain therefore, there must be policies which guide the conduct of business practice. These policies may be appealing or unappealing before the business community. The commercial laws and regulations of Spain were modernized in 1986 immediately after its entry into the European Union. Its policy framework is fairly compared with other countries that are from within Europe. There has been the streamlining of bureaucratic procedures and elimination of the red tape. (Ibpus.com, 2012) There is the existence of quasi-independent bodies which regulate several sectors of the economy. In the real sense, they are not independent as they are still fighting and struggling to be. One of the processes which have been steady but slow is the switch from monopolies which are state-owned to full competition that is open. Spain is not formal as is the United States of America in the comment procedure for the projected rule-making changes. This is due to the fact that most laws and guidelines are published as drafts before they are effected. (Ibpus.com, 2012) For one to start a company in Spain, they will be supposed to work under certain simple procedures. To start, they are supposed to acquire a certificate of uniqueness of the proposed company name from the Office of Mercantile Register. The next step is to open a bank account for the company or business you intend to start and then deposit the principal you have in that bank. After that, you have to be given a certificate of deposit. All these are again followed by surrendering a public deed of incorporation before a public notary, it takes a day and charges approximately €500 depending on the share capital amount you have and the complex nature of the process. Submit the declaration certificate and obtain the Tax Identification Number (Bruton, 1994). In addition to the above procedures, obtain a tax declaration exemption from the responsible authorities in Madrid, which can be done in a day. File the company’s public deed of incorporation in order for it to be registered in the Mercantile Registry. This may take between 6 and 15 days and costs between EUR 155 to EUR 300 depending on the transaction complexity and the amount of the share capital. The next step is to legalize the company’s books of account and takes around 10 days to complete. Here, the charges are around EUR 25 to purchase and EUR 22 to legalize the two books. You are again required to send a notification that allows you start operating to one of the private agencies that have authority from the municipality. You are then required to file for the social security and associate all your employees with the local treasury of the social security. You notify the delegation for industries on your completion and with that you are ready to go (www.doingbusiness.org). Dropping of interest rates in recent years in Spain has been as a result of implementation of the euro due to the convergence of monetary policy. In Spain, investors especially those from outside the country are never discriminated against. That is the country’s foreign policy. They maintain good relations with them and encourage all the citizens to do the same. They have an act on giving and receiving bribes. There are therefore stiff laws on corruption in the country. The constitution of Spain guarantees anyone to strike or call a strike. (OECD, 2013) There are various institutions as is the case in other countries that are tasked with legal compliance in Spain. The police are rather complicated in structure here. There are two national police forces and other two units responsible for the regional and local level. The Civil Guard, the military and the national police are responsible for the security of the state. There exists therefore adequate law enforcers who can arrest and take before a court of law those found on the wrong side of business law. The prosecution service is operational in Spain as there is a public prosecutor who is responsible for the enforcement of the law on the society’s behalf. Article 124 of the constitution of Spain has the Prosecution Service which under the Chapter called “Regarding the Judicial Power”. The members of the public prosecution team are competitively recruited like professional judges (Bachmaier, 2010) Business and general ethics are applied in the whole business community of Spain. For instance, the procurement sector receives importance from the ethical issues. Business people in Spain are more sensitive to the social responsibilities and ethics of business. Corporate citizenship in a country, corporate social responsibility, business ethical issues, and sustainable business management have in the recent years become very significant challenges especially to European countries Spain included. The Spanish government has an extensive legislation on the rights of employees, consumerism, and employee regulations. This is regarded as part of fostering corporate social responsibilities and ethics. There are efforts being done by the companies to foster business ethics and promote social responsibility (Flynn, 2008). Every society in the world tends to believe in something and so do the Spanish way. Majority of the people of Spain are Christians though in different religions. Majority tend to be in the Catholic Church although their constitution grants them freedom to belong to any religion. Other religions therefore that are practiced there include Hinduism, Islam, Protestantism, and Judaism. A close examination of this shows that these people believe in God. This is a belief that tends to guide the Spanish way of running business as they associate what religion says and the rules surrounding commerce (Schroeder, 2007). The management in Spain rather behaves in a way that outsiders might not understand. A lot stress is usually put on the characteristics of the person rather than the technical brilliance. Here, the respect and discipline which the manager is given by his/her juniors is mostly proportionate to the personal features of the manager. The juniors in this case look at the manager in terms of his/her trustworthy, courage, seriousness and the way they handle the leadership role. In most cases, Spanish managers have been seen as “benevolent autocrats” which gives outsiders a hard time as they are used with the consensual methodology from their seniors. Seniors who consult are perceived as weak and that are not courageous enough (Tencati, 2011). In Spain, indicators that one understands proper business behavior are measured through cues such as maintaining direct eye contact, underemphasizing your accomplishments, and a firm handshake. The role of a manager towards an employee in this society is where the manager’s concern for the employees goes beyond the workplace and those strict professional concerns. It is believed that supervisors are usually chosen due to their vast experience than their subordinates. The management in the Spanish culture is tasked with various tasks. These tasks include performance, measurements, and rewards. This is brought about by the variable pay that seems to be on the rise in Spain. In this country, there has been a growing number of companies that apply the different systems of variable pay since 1994. Presently, 71% of the companies use it unlike 49% in 1994. The managers are also tasked with the process of recruitment and selection. Several methods are used here in order to improve the recruitment, retention, increasing pay, improving the image of the organization, and relocation. The managers for recruitment help each other including the human resource managers in this context (Brewster, 2004). In the field of Human Resource Management in Spain, employees are trained further for various reasons. In most cases, the training is international. To start with, training these employees equips them with the ability to think and therefore act globally. This makes them be able to tackle critical markets of the world. The second reason is to ensure the employees focus on economic system more so global, and not parts. This widens their span of exposure, thus improving Spanish economic system. Also, this training makes the employees reinvent themselves and bring new ideas aboard to the economic think-tank of Spain (Ferner, Quintanilla & Varul, 2001). The human resource department in Spain is designed so as to manage the cross-cultural factors. The managers in their firms meet people from different cultures and nationalities and therefore it is designed to handle this situation. It has worked and today, there are a lot of foreigners working in Spanish corporations both in the public and private sectors (Briscoe, 2012). In conclusion, the above paper has been enriched with all the facts about the business community of the Spanish, including their culture, business relations, employee-management relations, beliefs and almost all the information anyone wanting to do business in SPAIN would want to hear. References Antonio Tencati, F. P. (2011). Business Ethics and Corporate Sustainability. Edward Elgar Publishing. Bruton, K. (1994). The business culture in Spain. Butterworth-Heinemann. Chris Brewster, W. M. (2004). Human Resource Management in Europe: Evidence of Convergence? Routledge. Dennis Briscoe, R. S. (2012). International Human Resource Management: Policies and Practices for Multinational Enterprises. Taylor & Francis. Ferner, A., Quintanilla, J., & Varul, M. Z. (2001). Country-of-origin effects, host-country effects, and the management of HR in multinationals: German companies in Britain and Spain. Journal of World Business, 36(2), 107-127. Flynn, G. (2008). Leadership and Business Ethics. Springer. Ibpus.com. (2012). Spain Country Study Guide: Strategic Information and Developments. Intl Business Publications. Lorena Bachmaier, A. d. (2010). Criminal Law in Spain. Kluwer Law International. OECD. (2013). Specialised Anti-Corruption Institutions Review of Models: Second Edition: Review of Models: Second Edition. OECD Publishing. Susan Schroeder, S. P. (2007). Religion in New Spain. UNM Press. Read More