Chapter 3 Cultural Environment

INTRODUCTION  International business and hospitality services are to a great extent influenced by the cultural values and norms of different societies.  In this people-oriented industry, international hospitality managers have to manage, interact, negotiate, and compromise with people of different cultural backgrounds.

DEFINING CULTURE  Culture has been defined in many different ways by social science scholars. In this book, culture is defined as the ways of living built up by a group of people and passed on from one generation to another.  In other words, culture encompasses the learned patterns of behavior common to the members of a given society. The shared ways of life consist of beliefs, knowledge, law, custom, institutions, and artifacts.

DEFINING CULTURE (Cont’d)  Culture has four distinctive characteristics: 1. Culture is not innate, but learned. 2. The various aspects of culture are interrelated. 3. Culture is shared. 4. Culture defines the boundaries of different groups.

CULTURAL VALUES AND NORMS  The essence of a culture is its value system, upon which a society’s norms are established and justified.  Values are the beliefs a society holds in regard to right and wrong, good and bad, ethical or unethical.

CULTURAL VALUES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON MANAGEMENT  It is essential to identify and study the cultural values influencing international hospitality management styles and service practices, and to distinguish the differences among cultures.

Group Affiliations  People are commonly grouped into various categories either by birth or by affiliation.  Grouping by birth consists of ascribed group memberships, which include age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and caste. These are the basic demographic profiles for market analysis.

Group Affiliations (Cont’d)  Grouping by affiliation consists of acquired group memberships, which include religion, political affiliations, professional, and social associations. These groupings place people at the different levels of the society, and their places in the social stratification system reflect their class or status positions. These groupings have a direct impact on international hospitality operations.

Individualism and Collectivism  A society’s attitude toward individualism and collectivism is clearly reflected in the way in which people perceive themselves and relate to one another in social and business settings.  These cultural values influence people’s behaviors and aspirations in workplaces in different cultural settings.

Individualism and Collectivism (Cont’d)  This cultural emphasis on individualism has been the driving force for entrepreneurship in Western societies and has resulted in the high level of entrepreneurship, due to continued innovations and inventions.

Individualism and Collectivism (Cont’d)  Collectivism is valued, as in group achievement and decision making by consensus, in many Asian societies.  In the value systems of these societies, the group is considered the primary unit of business organization.

Superior and Subordinate Relationship  The hierarchical superior-subordinate relationship seem universal.  Most executives and managers in the hospitality industry in the United States take an open-door management approach by constantly consulting subordinates’ opinions, even from the frontline employees, for improving service quality and operating more effectively.

Superior and Subordinate Relationship (Cont’d)  Ritz-Carlton employees share leadership with the management and are vested with the authority to solve hotel guests’ complaints. For instance, each employee at the front desk has a $2,000 budget per occurrence to spend for solving a guest problem.

Mobility and Loyalty  The attitude toward employment mobility and loyalty is closely associated with the attitude toward individualism and collectivism.  A high degree of employment mobility is common in countries where individualism is highly valued.

Work and Play  Another dimension for examining a society’s culture is its attitude toward work and play.  This is a very important factor for developing international hospitality business.  “Work hard and play hard” has become the norm in many Western societies as a result of growing prosperity and shortening of work days.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS  Language, both spoken and written, is the primary tool for communication within a particular culture. Language is described as a cultural mirror since it reflects the content and nature of the culture it represents.  But cultural meanings can also be conveyed through nonverbal and nonwritten forms, such as body language, the use of colors, or personal space.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS Spoken Language:  An ability to speak the local language can not only enable a manager to communicate with the local managers, staff, and guests directly and effectively, but also gives the manager a key to the local culture.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS Eye Contact:  Eye contact signifies interpersonal communication and carries messages. Many cultural variations are found in eye contact. Keeping good eye contact is an expected normal behavior in many Western societies.  However, in Japan, children are told at young age to only look at the shoulder level of their teachers. Young Japanese always lower their eyes when speaking to an older person or a superior to show respect.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS Gestures:  The motion of hand and arm can mean something different to people from separate cultures, or it can mean nothing to the person of different cultural background.  For example, joining one’s thumb and index finger in a circle means A-OK in the United States, an obscenity in Brazil, money in Japan, zero in France, and “I will kill you” in Tunisia.

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS  Time concept  Personal space  Colors  Numbers

LEARNING CULTURE  Culture is rich and diverse. Different cultures make our world colorful and meaningful, and stimulate people’s desire to travel.  An effective manager needs to have a good knowledge of the host culture and its influence on the behaviors of the local employees and guests.  Culture is learned.