Comparative Analysis Of Cultures And Globalization

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The concept of culture is multifarious, and nowadays managers are constantly facing challenges in distinguishing cultural boundary lines and concepts over borders. Before globalization has embraced the globe, it was believed that cultures are monumental and could be easily conceived. Today, apprehension of employees’ values, behaviours and motivations might be not an easy task for the managers. Over the decades, or even centuries, multiple scholars and researchers resort to comparative analysis of cultures to find the system with the help of which it would be possible to predict human reactions to certain situations and conditions. So what is comparative analysis of cultures? According to Mead and Andrews (2009) “a comparative model measures one culture against another, and enables the manager or consultant to compare the behavior of one culture group with another”. Works on comparative analysis of cultures were done by many eminent scholars, such as Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) - who argued that members of the same group show constant “orientation” for others and the world, Hall (1976)- who stressed values in the culture, and Hofstede (1980)- who looked into cultural dimensions. Though widely accepted and used, the above mentioned works got a lot of criticism in today’s globalized world. The use of the nation state as the component of analysis is one of the reasons for criticism: it presumes that national borders and cultural limits match. But in present globalized world, where MNEs might be found in abundance, where people are moving across the borders due to multiple reasons (work, family etc), with the overabundance of subcultures (e.g. China), with the immigrants leaving their homelands for better places to live in (e.g. Mexican population is moving to US) etc, this criterion might be misleading as it doesn’t distinguish the above mentioned variances

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