Model of cultures Essay

Organizational culture and national culture: The case of multinational companies: ZARA (outline) Defining concepts: What Is organizational culture? A system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. (Organizational Behavior, p. 546) Do organizations have uniform cultures? (Ibid, p. 548) Dominant culture and subculture How the culture ofa country influences the culture ofa business? Geert Hofstede identifies four cultural dimensions that can have a profound impact on the business nvironment: Individual level: individualism/collectivism Organizational level: power distance Occupational level: uncertainty avoidance Gender level: masculinity/femininity (Hofstede, Geert, Cultures and Organizations: Software ot the Mind, 3rd ed, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2010, p. 25). Organizational culture communication – media and social sharing Norms National culture Values social Behaviour The individual values of a country predict organizational culture and consumer behaviour (Hofstede) National culture cannot necessarily be used to predict rganizational culture and consumer behaviour The case of multinational company: ZARA Found by Inditex – ZARA present in 86 countries, a network of 1,770 stores (Inditex, http://www. nditex. com/en/who_we_are/concepts/zara) High standards – company culture is highly decentralized and flexible High standards – company culture is highly decentralized and flexible Workers organized in teams – positive results Competitions among teams continuous feedback ( ZARA: culture, http:mashlonworldwlde. wlklspaces. com/ Culture) Innovation and flexlblllty 200 persons In design team 82,8% of workers are women Satisfy customers’ needs from dfferent cultures and backgrounds – Store managers report the demands of customers and the sales trends to the headquarters on a daily basis Awareness of corporate responsibility: Social dimension. environmental dimension. product health and safety Marketing – Zara decided to move towards a geocentric orientation, allowing the company to adopt in some cases local solutions rather than merely replicate the OF2 nome mar et. K Lara sells a largely nomogeneous product Tor a glooal market (Havlan and Polo, 2000). Moreover, there are some adjustments in its marketing mix because of the customer’s size differences in Asian countries (Monllor, 2001), laws issued that require the availability of clothes for youth in all sizes in Buenos Aires (La Opinion de La Coruna, 2006), cultural differences in Arab countries where some clothes cannot be sold, and a different season in the other part of the world (Euromonitor, 2002a).