HC2121 Comparative Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

The global environment and the economy often participate in forcing company heads to make changes within their companies. Forced changes present opportunities that might have been ignored in the past. This may result in increased employee morale and hence increased performance, and, ultimately increased revenues. The most crucial thing is to understand how to respond to the changing global economy as it determines one's survival and success in that environment. Hofstede explores different drivers of the Australian culture about the other cultures of the world. They include individualism, masculinity, among others.

Individualism 

Hofstede refers to this dimension to the extent a society can go in order to maintain its members’ independence. In this aspect, people only look after themselves and their direct family members. The Australians embrace a culture of individualism where the expectations are individuals be their keepers and that of their immediate families. The Australian individualism is similarly compared to the Spanish, American, British and the French societies who are deemed to display high individualism status. In contrast, societies such as the ones originating from Hong Kong, Greece, India, and Portugal display low individualism.

Under the business perspective, the employer requires employees to be independent and display the ability to assess and initiate tasks self-sufficiently. Furthermore, promotions and demotions at a workplace are majorly dependent on one's ability to perform required tasks. Mullins (2007, p. 27) states that individuals are expected to understand, predict and control human behavior and structural patterns to improve the company’s performance and effectiveness.

Masculinity

Hofstede defines masculinity as the masculine characteristics such as assertiveness and competitiveness that pushes one to become the best; or the feminine character such as caring or liking one's performance. Masculinity is associated with competition and success and its reverse means a society that cares for others and values quality of life. Based on the survey, Australia is considered as a highly masculine society. Mullins (2007, p. 27) highlights some of the countries that scored highly on masculinity: They include the United States of America, Germany, Italy, and Japan including the Britain. On the contrary, the Scandinavian and the Netherlands societies appeared to be more feminine with a low score on masculinity.

The high score masculine societies are proud of their achievements and successes in life. In an organizational setting, competent employees are promoted to the next bigger position, and a subsequent tremendous performance in that position results to another promotion to a higher position (Mullins 2010, p. 18). Therefore, the achievements and successes in the company perspective are the basis upon which promotions are awarded. Conflicts and misunderstandings are resolved at individual levels, and the aim is to win. In an organizational setting

 The Australian Culture Survey Results

The Australian culture survey results can be perceived as true. The results show the core determinants of the Australian culture. Also, the results are relative to the cultures of the world’s different countries.

Application

According to Way and Lieberman (2010), innovation is highly correlated with cultural individualism. Studies have shown that individualism promotes technological innovation and scientific research which, in turn, leads to the growth of an economy. At the workplace, we always face challenges on how to handle ourselves. Independence is crucial in realizing individual’s dreams and objectives. Chui, Titman, and Wei (2010) noted that individualistic people tend to protect their self-esteem. Embracing individualism will, therefore, foster prosperity.  

Building a Cross-Cultural Web Design for a Wider Audience

There has been an increase in the number of people going online. This translates to an increase in the number of people from different cultures and ethnic groups using the internet; hence, there shall be an increased number of multilingual pages on the web. Since web designers would be taking into account the wide range of individuals expected to access the websites they create. According to Arno (2010), cultures influence how human beings process information. This has called for web designers to develop websites while taking into account the cultural differences.

Application of the Concept of Marketing and Advertising  

High context cultures are cultures that their communications rely heavily on implications and the context. On the contrary, low context cultures rely more on specific verbal communication. In a business setting, high context cultures are intrigued with situations and respond effectively to ambiguity; they prefer images to words contrary to the low context cultures (Active marketing 2013). Butler (2012) argues that recognizing cultural diversity is important in marketing because different cultures communicate, think, and process information in different ways.

It is a kind of strategic marketing aimed at ensuring that all the customers receive the information about a particular product in the exact way they would want to. Therefore, when building ads for high context cultures, it is important to include features such as large pictures, color, dramatic angles of product and even endorsements by celebrities (active marketing). Furthermore, when creating ads for low context cultures refrain from ambiguity, you may consider the following preferences; more words, clear image of the product, clean and straightforward (active marketing). Understanding the language of the target market is important because language is influenced by cultures which influence how people perceive information.

Application of High and Low Context Cultures in Public Relations

Any form of communication should take place in a social context, and the form of context is determined by the culture. In a transaction, where the sender and receiver both come from the same culture context, there is a high possibility that they will derive similar meaning to the message. In some cultures, one has to consider what was said and not said in order to come up with a substantive meaning (Chmielecki 2011, p. 236). Under a business set up low context culture work style is individualistic and the work ethic is task-oriented. On the other hand, high context culture features a cooperative business outlook, teamwork, and a relationship work ethic.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is evident that the more the world progresses in technology the more people and different cultures embrace the technological reality. The internet has made the world a global village. Therefore, it’s important to incorporate more different cultural languages in website building. As it has been stated that culture influences how people perceive information, it is critical to have the culture in mind when designing website content. This shall enable more effective business performance and communication.

 List of References

Active marketing. 2013, April 10. Cultural Boundaries in Internet Marketing: High-Context & Low Context Marketing Strategies. [Online]. Available at:  http://www.activemarketing.com/news/strategy/context-marketing/

Arno, C., 2010, June 22. Building a Cross-Cultural Web Design for a Wider Audience [Online]. Available at: https://onextrapixel.com/building-a-cross-cultural-web-design-for-a-wider-audience/

Butler, D. S., 2012, May 25. Cultural Targeting: The Key to Online Consumer Receptivity [Online]. Available at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2012/8001/cultural-targeting-the-key-to-online-consumer-receptivity

Chmielecki, M., 2011. The importance of culture in global public relations. of Intercultural, 3(2), pp.229-240.

Chui, A.C., Titman, S. and Wei, K.J., 2010. Individualism and momentum around the world. The Journal of Finance, 65(1), pp.361-392.

Hofstede, G., n.d.  What about Australia? https://geert-hofstede.com/australia.html

Mullins, J.L., 2007. Management & organizational behavior (7^th ed.). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education limited.

Way, B.M. and Lieberman, M.D., 2010. Is there a genetic contribution to cultural differences? Collectivism, individualism and genetic markers of social sensitivity. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 5(2-3), pp.203-211.