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Assignment No. 1 Human Resource Management: Name: Moosa Rizwan Roll No: 70071471 Section: C Instructor: Sir Aasim Gill

The document discusses how to analyze and understand the cultural environment in a foreign country for business purposes. It identifies several key socio-cultural factors that affect business operations in other countries, including culture, language, religion, education levels, societal values, and attitudes toward foreign companies and goods. Understanding these cultural differences is important for multinational companies to adapt their business practices appropriately when operating abroad.

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Moosa Rizwan
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66 views6 pages

Assignment No. 1 Human Resource Management: Name: Moosa Rizwan Roll No: 70071471 Section: C Instructor: Sir Aasim Gill

The document discusses how to analyze and understand the cultural environment in a foreign country for business purposes. It identifies several key socio-cultural factors that affect business operations in other countries, including culture, language, religion, education levels, societal values, and attitudes toward foreign companies and goods. Understanding these cultural differences is important for multinational companies to adapt their business practices appropriately when operating abroad.

Uploaded by

Moosa Rizwan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Assignment no.

1
Human Resource Management

Name: Moosa Rizwan


Roll no: 70071471
Section: C
Instructor: Sir Aasim Gill
Question:
Comprehensively search how would you analyze and
understand cultural environment in a foreign Country?
Ans:
Cultural environment:
Cultural environments are environments shaped by human activities,
such as cultural landscapes in the countryside, forests, urban areas and
cities, fixed archaeological structures on land or water, constructions
and built environments from different ages, along with bridges, roads,
power lines and industrial and harbor areas.
European Heritage Days:
European Heritage Days are held every autumn, with the aim or
raising awareness of Europe's cultural diversity. The purpose of the
events is to rouse public interest and increase the knowledge and
appreciation of built heritage.

Cultural environment in a foreign country


Society and culture have an impact on every aspect of the overseas
business of multinational companies. Although society and culture are
not directly included in business operations, they indirectly appear as
key elements in shaping how the business is managed, from what
goods are produced, and how and through what means they will be
sold, to the establishment of managerial and operational patterns and
the determination of the success or failure of foreign subsidiaries.
Consequently, multinational companies should be aware of
predominant attitudes, values, and beliefs in each host country were
decided to expand their business activities. Differences in attitudes
and values among management of a parent company and expatriate
managers at the subsidiary level, on the one hand, and managers and
employees in host countries, on the other, can contribute to serious
functional problems.
The socio-cultural environment is important for multinational
companies. There are various socio-cultural factors that significantly
affect the economic activity as well as the performance of
multinational companies. The key socio-cultural factors that have a
major impact on the operation of the multinational companies.
These are the some factors:
1. Culture
2. Language
3. Religion
4. Level of education
5. Values
6. The attitude of the society towards foreign goods and services

Culture:
Culture may change in every country. Cultural diversity can be
analyzed in many ways. For instance, we can compare cultural
diversity within one country or company, or we can compare
cultures across units. That is, we can look inside a particular North
American firm and see employees who are Asian, black, Latino,
American Indian, white, and so forth. Clearly, these individuals have
different cultural backgrounds, frames of reference, traditions, and so
forth. Or we can look more globally and compare a typical American
firm with a typical Mexican, Italian, or Chinese firm and again see
significant differences in culture.

Language:
The importance of language differences cannot be overemphasized, as
there are almost 3,000 languages in the world. The diversity of
language among various foreign countries is a source of many
challenges for multinational companies. Although there is a tendency
of accepting the English language as a universal business language,
the companies are aware that it also provokes resistance by locals in
many of countries where they operate. Language differences cause
many problems for marketers in designing advertising campaigns and
product labels. Language problems become even more serious once
the people of a country speak several languages. For example, in
Canada, labels must be in both English and French. In India, there are
over 200 different dialects, and a similar situation exists in China.

Religion:
Religion is considered as “a socially shared set of beliefs, ideas, and
actions that relate to a reality that cannot be verified empirically yet
affects the course of natural and human events-a way of life woven
around people’s ultimate concerns”. The largest religion groupings in
the world are Christianity and Islam. Christianity numbers about 2.1
billion followers or approximately 33% of the world’s population. On
another hand, Islam is considered as the world’s second most
practiced religion with 1.3 billion followers or about 21% of the
world’s population.
In many countries around the world, religion plays a significant role
in people's life. Religion even determines the way people think of
work. Consequently, religion considerably effects on business activity
and corporate culture. Many companies adapt their working process
according to a predominant religion of a given country in terms of the
holidays, working hours, food habits, a way of dressing, etc.

Level of education:
Education significantly affects the lifestyle of a population of any
country in the world, the way of their thinking, their attitude toward
work, etc. The level of education varies among countries. However, in
many countries, the level of education has a tendency to increase.
Education level and level of literacy of population of a given country
are indicators of the quality of their potential workforce.
Countries with a well-educated population attract high-wage
industries. Every country that invests in education tends to create
high-wage industries that are known as “brain power” industries.
The level of education and the level of literacy of population in a
given country considerable determine the way of marketing research,
packaging and advertising conducted by multinational companies.

Values:
An individual’s values arise from his/her moral or religious beliefs
and are learned through experiences. For example, in America, we
place a very high value on material well-being and are much more
likely to purchase status symbols than people in India. Similarly, in
India, the Hindu religion forbids the consumption of beef, and fast-
food restaurants such as McDonald’s and Burger King would
encounter tremendous difficulties without product modification.
Americans spend large amounts of money on soap, deodorant, and
mouthwash because of the value placed on personal cleanliness. In
Italy, salespeople call on women only if their husbands are at home.

The attitude of the society towards foreign goods and services:


The social and government attitudes towards foreign business,
especially towards foreign companies and their products, are one of
the social factors that may have a significant impact on the
performance of multinational companies. The social and governments
attitudes of the particular country towards foreign companies and their
products can range from complete acceptance and trust to complete
distrust and antagonism. Analogously, if the society of a given
country is friendly towards foreign business, multinational companies
will certainly benefit from a supportive local environment.
The purpose of boycotts is to shout completely the companies out of
the particular market. The most publicized boycott campaign ever was
50 years boycott run by Arab countries against the companies that
were engaged in business activities with Israel.

Diverse Cultures and Different Concepts of Time  


 Be patient, few markets have a faster business pace than the
United States; many are slower.
 Be aware of direct vs. casual business styles. In some countries,
business people have a very direct style, while in others they are
subtler. Personal relationships may be more valued than is
customary in most U.S. business relationships. For example, in
the Middle East, indulging in small talk before engaging in the
business at hand is standard practice.  
 Take time to develop personal relationships. This is especially
true with distributors or large-volume buyers. Remembering
birthdays and other notable events is a good intercultural
business practice.           
 Find out the attitudes toward punctuality. For example,
Romanians, Japanese, and Germans are very punctual, whereas
people in many Latin countries have a more relaxed attitude
toward time. The Japanese consider it rude to be late for a
business meeting but acceptable even fashionable to be late for a
social occasion.     

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