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Business culture in the Germanic Europe cluster
The Germanic Europe cluster includes Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and German speaking Switzerland (French and Italian speaking Switzerland are part of the Latin Europe cluster). Germanic societies are defined by: a low-context communication style; a monochronic approach to time management individualistic traits a doing orientation (Germanic cultures value productivity, efficiency, high-performance and competitiveness); a dislike for…
Category : Business culture around the world 19-10-2022 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Business culture in the Latin Europe cluster
The Latin Europe cluster includes France, Israel (considered by the Globe Project as part of this cluster because it was founded by Jewish people who migrated from Latin Europe to Eastern Europe to escape religious repression, but maintained their ties to Latin Europe over the centuries), Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland…
Category : Business culture around the world 18-10-2022 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The challenges of cultural diversity in international business
Dear readers, Following the introductions to cultural dimensions and culture clusters, it is now time to discuss about business practices (and business etiquette) around the world. As briefly mentioned in the post about the Iceberg Model of Culture, some elements of culture are visible and easily accessible to everyone, while some other…
Category : Articles 31-05-2022 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Overcoming the challenges of cross-cultural recruitment and selection
In some of our previous articles on global leadership we’ve discussed about the meaning of “effective leadership” across cultures, about local preferences for certain traits ideal leaders should possess in order to be successful in their role: to continue the conversation, this week we’re going to talk about the “ideal…
Cultural intelligence and intercultural sensitivity: the key elements of expatriate success
In a workplace scenario, cross-cultural competence can be defined as the ability to function effectively in a multicultural setting: a “culturally competent” employee is expected to be able to interact and communicate with people coming from different cultural backgrounds, and to understand (and contextualize) the impact of culture on their…
Category : Articles 11-05-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things - 7th Issue
Dear Reader, As anticipated in the fifth newsletter (Jan issue), I’m writing to share some exciting news: “Outside Business Hours” - the section dedicated to culture, society, and travels - is now live. *** “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ― Marcel Proust - *** While…
Category : Mudita's digest 09-04-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The Concepts of Happiness and Well-being Across Cultures
"Happiness is dependent on unhappiness, while unhappiness is hidden in happiness." - Chinese proverb - *** What ideas, thoughts, and feelings do you associate with the word "happiness"? Have you ever considered the possibility that the definition of happiness might depend on one's cultural background? Today we're going back to the topic of individualistic…
Category : Articles 04-03-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Forgiveness In Individualistic and Collectivist Cultures
Do not be concerned with the faults of other persons. Do not see others' faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others' faults, then naturally seniors and venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others' faults; just cultivate virtue. Buddha prohibited…
Category : Articles 09-02-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The curious case of the Iceberg of Ignorance, an "allegedly" relevant study (or so they say) - 6th Issue
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - *** Dear Reader, You might have noticed that lately, I’ve been writing about culture and leadership: while there’s quite a lot of interesting material…
Category : Mudita's digest 09-02-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The cultural context in business communication, a cross country comparison
One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you - Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language - *** To continue with the topic of cross-cultural differences in outsourcing…
Category : Articles 03-02-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Leadership styles across cultures, an overview
Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say 'We have done this ourselves'. - Lao Tzu - *** In last week’s article…
Category : Articles 26-01-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
West meets East: the impact of organizational culture on outsourcing projects
As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other - Marcel Duchamp - *** An article published by Software Mind indicates India…
The impact of cultural differences on visual perception
A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. - James Allen, As a Man Thinketh - *** If you were asked which three items of these five best belong together, which ones would you choose, and why? If you chose three items that share similar…
Challenges and misconceptions in intercultural negotiations
Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic. - Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty - *** Negotiation, “an interaction and process between entities who compromise to agree on matters of mutual interest, while optimizing their individual utilities”, has…
Category : Articles 11-01-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Cultural variations in responses to workplace incivility
Bıçak yarası geçer, dil yarası geçmez (Words cut deeper than swords) - Turkish Proverb - *** With regard to the ethnic/cultural group you belong to (for example: Anglo-American, Asian-American, upper-class Croatian, rural Thais, etc.), how would you choose to answer the following questions? 1. The concept of 'family' includes: - parents, spouse, and children; - all extended…
Category : Articles 04-01-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Challenges in cross cultural marketing and advertising
Understanding languages and other cultures builds bridges. It is the fastest way to bring the world closer together and to Truth. Through understanding, people will be able to see their similarities before differences. - Suzy Kassem - *** "The world’s worst advertising gaffe": a cross-cultural perspective on the "D&G Loves China" campaign. In two…
Category : Articles 15-11-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Time Tracking - Best Practices and Mistakes to Avoid
He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. - Victor Hugo - *** Maria ’s intro: The readers who have been visiting this blog over the past few months might have noticed that…
Category : Articles 01-12-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The Role Of Chronemics And Proxemics In Communication - 3rd Issue
"For negotiations or meetings, it is always wise to lure others into your territory, or the territory of your choice. You have your bearings, while they see nothing familiar and are subtly placed on the defensive." - Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power - *** Dear Reader, Welcome to the third issue of "Oddities &…
Category : Mudita's digest 08-10-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Global Leadership and Time Management Skills
Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first. - Angela Ahrendts - *** The findings of studies conducted over the years suggest that cultural diversity and the misunderstandings that often arise as a result of different temporal perspectives have an impact on staff retention: workers will either…
Category : Articles 29-09-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
ACAMS DUBLIN - Cross-cultural communication, the costly risk of misunderstandings
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw - *** One of the main characteristics of intercultural communication is that it usually takes place between "strangers": people born and raised in different environments, accustomed to often divergent sets of values and beliefs, which…
Category : Articles 25-09-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Buyer Personas and the role of lifestyle, values, and beliefs in market segmentation
If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half-fed! - Pearl S. Buck…
Category : Articles 03-09-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Filipino business ethics and the importance of cultural compatibility in outsourcing
Naim-imbág ti matáy ta malipátanen ngem ti agbiág a maibabaín; (“It's better to be dead and forgotten than to live in shame”) - Tagalog proverb - *** To quote Andrew Quartly, British outsourcing consultant with specialism in Sales and Marketing based in the Philippines, “Outsourcing is an attractive option to all businesses small and…
Category : Articles 09-03-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The Southern Asia cluster
India lives in several centuries at the same time. - Arundhati Roy, Power Politics - After the Anglo- and the Confucian-Asia cluster, this series about effective global leadership continues with the Southern-Asia cluster. - How important is hierarchy in Indian business culture? - What does the Filipino concept of “Pakisisama” (a term that comes from…
Category : Introductions to culture clusters 04-03-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Ethnocentrism, the biggest threat to global organizations
If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably—after careful considerations of their relative merits—choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and…
Category : Articles 27-02-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The Confucian-Asia cluster
The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. - Confucius - The shame-based Confucian-Asia cluster - that includes China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan - is home to high-context, polychronic cultures, that prefer an indirect communication style (context is more important than words) and that see time as…
Category : Introductions to culture clusters 24-02-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The Anglo Cluster
This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do. - Jack Kerouac, On The Road - As anticipated in the previous article , the Globe Project - a study on cross-cultural leadership - groups the societal cultures object of the research into ten major culture clusters,…
Category : Introductions to culture clusters 20-02-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Global Leadership, an introduction to culture clusters
Dear readers, Those of you who’ve been following this blog for the past few months might be already familiar with Hofstede’s framework and with the concept of cultural dimensions (infographics available here): let me now introduce you to Project GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research), a study about Leadership…
Category : Introductions to culture clusters 11-02-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Masculinity-Femininity (Tough-Tender)
I have an extremely strong, masculine mind and a feminine sensibility level, which is kind of an unusual combination. Both men and women tell me things and I can relate on two levels simultaneously - Truman Capote - According to Hofstede’s definitions, masculinity is “a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness…
Category : Introductions to cultural dimensions 18-11-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Power dynamics in the workplace and the hidden costs of fearful communication
In her book “Controlling Other People: The impact of power in stereotyping”, researcher Susan Fiske claimed that “Secretaries know more about their bosses than vice-versa; graduate students know more about their advisors than vice-versa” : what happens when communication in the workplace is ruled by power dynamics and the voice of one…
Category : Articles 15-10-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Cheap burgers are no laughing matter: McD's and the impact of cultural differences in outsourced marketing campaigns
In two previous posts - "Global Sales and The Customer Journey: The Effect of Cultural Values On Individual Choices", and "Consumer Segmentation: The Influence of Cultural Factors On Purchasing Behaviour" - we've talked about the cultural dimension known as Collectivims/Individualism to briefly explain the correlation between culture and consumer behavior: to…
Category : Articles 07-10-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Consumer segmentation: the influence of cultural factors on purchasing behaviour
Authors Thomas Petit and Alan Zakon once observed that "Advertising must be compatible with the values of the consumer if it is to influence behaviour. Advertising is an educating and not a forcing process. It interprets the want-satisfying qualities of the product for the consumer. To do this, it must…
Category : Articles 30-08-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Space planning: a cultural matter
According to anthropologist E.T. Hall, proxemics is "the spatial dimension of non verbal behavior", the study of man's perception and use of space : social research suggests that people from different cultural backgrounds do not share the same preferences in relation to space management, and that what may appear as…
Category : Articles 07-08-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Global Sales and the Customer Journey: the effect of cultural values on individual choices
Are individual choices truly “individual” and an indication of our own personal preference? In a study conducted for Stannford University in 1999, 29 Asian and 27 European-American citizens recruited at the San Francisco International Airport were asked to fill in a short questionnaire and told that afterwards they would receive a…
Category : Articles 30-07-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Time Management challenges in the global workplace
You're on a business trip to meet with some client. The meeting is delayed. Finally it begins, but then their phone rings and they walk out of the room. They come back, the meeting resumes, but later on someone walks in unexpectedly for some important matter that needs you client's…
Category : Articles 24-07-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Communication: High- and Low-Context Cultures
Always be careful, as they say, 'Text without context is usually pretext - Ted Mallory - In 1976, anthropologist E.T. Hall developed the iceberg analogy of culture: he theorized that if culture was an iceberg, some of its aspects (above the water line) would be visible and obvious to everyone, while most…
Category : Introductions to cultural dimensions 17-09-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
Monochronic and Polychronic Time
Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do - Jean-Paul Sartre - Chronemics is the term that indicates the study of the role and use of time in communication: it includes both individual perceptions about time, and the ways time affects interactions (e.g., punctuality, speed…
Category : Introductions to cultural dimensions 17-09-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino
The iceberg model
Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants. - E.T. Hall - *** What do people value the most, a legal document or an informal agreement? Words they can hear/read or the meaning in what is not said? How likely is…
Category : Introductions to cultural dimensions 17-09-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino