Izzah Nabilah Binti Suhaimi

BBA15041020

MBB3713 International Business

A Tale of two Cultures (Tutorial 2)

1. If your international firm were doing business in Asia, is there anything that your
company could do to ease the tensions these cultures are experiencing? Be specific.
In this situation that we are involving international firm that doing business in Asia, we
have to look in the scope of the social trend. Firstly, we must know the element in the Asian
Culture that related to the social trend. Therefore, we must concern the belief of Asian people
toward value of business. By value means abstract idea about what a group believes to be good,
right and desirable. Put differently, values are shared assumption about how thing ought to be. It
is all about perception or mindset of people regarding the product from the outside country
which they preferred more satisfying their need and expectation. The important under the social
trend is about sensitivity of the people toward the product. For example, the brand of Gucci that
originated from Italy is becoming the common symbol of success. Therefore, if the Gucci
produced any type of product it would be choice by the people.
Secondly, we must avoid the cross-cultural illiteracy because the ill informed about the
culture will lead to the failure when we dealing with the international business. To avoid this
issue occurs the company must influence the local people by several ways. The main way to
influence the local people is by hiring the local people itself. Through this way, the company
eventually can gain the benefits including the cost of time to adapt their culture before we carry
out the business strategy.

Thirdly, the company could send the worker cultural awareness training. It is crucial part when
the company doing the business in global scale. When working with colleagues from other
countries and cultures are fundamentally different to your own. Perhaps our culture would be less
priority compare to them. Therefore, the role of cultural awareness training is important these
different attitudes and behaviors are more than likely to be conditioned by culture, values,
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assumptions and perceptions that are instilled early on in life and are expressed in the way we
behave and interact. These cultural influences are so deep that we act upon them instinctively in
everything we do, from the way we stand and talk, to the way we deal with superiors, conflict
and decision-making. By attending the training, it will ease the tension in doing the business
when we have prepared for thing. We absolutely can avoid the misunderstanding and
miscommunication when dealing with the people from different cultures.

2. In your opinion, is globalization among the causes of the increasing incidence of divorce,
crime and drug abuse in Asia? Why or why not?

In my opinion, yes, the globalization among the causes of the increasing incidence of
divorce, crime and drug abuse in Asia. This causes happen because of the application of cultures
itself is wrongly used. It happens because of several reasons.
The first reason is the culture is shared. The culture is shared by the social interaction
may take in many forms to transmit the beliefs, values and expectation of the human society. The
exchange of social ideas may provide understanding and learning the human culture and
tradition. The culture works by social dynamism using language, communication technologies
and commercial trade. It can be proved that in the India cultures they strongly stand behind their
principle when talking about the relationship between girls and boys. According to the case
study, Roppa is trying to explain to his parent about someone that she called a boyfriend. But
then, she already predicted that her parent will disapprove. Through this situation, she was trying
to share her belief that modernization can lead toward the successful rather than retain the
traditional value. Perhaps when she makes a friend with boy it will lead toward the exchange of
idea with the different gender.
Secondly, the culture is learned. The cultural transmission or enculturation is the best way
to describe culture is learned. The people acquire information about the culture by many ways.
This is done by learning the language and other form of educational information of the society.
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The related idea regarding the culture is learned when the young female staffer start to work
rather than live at home. They learned how to make money, feel independence and freedom. At
the same time, they will go far away from Bangalore and Mumbai in learning new idea but
addition they learned the new idea from outside country such America. Therefore, they can learn
American accents and geography. Furthermore, they are learning new ideas about family,
materialism and relationship.
Thirdly, culture is adaptive. The cultural adaptation is the evolutionary process that
modifies the social life of the people in the given natural environment. Meaning to say that, the
people in India is looking for the job from its hometown to the city. It is because the only job that
they can do in their hometown is in agriculture based such plantation, farmer, livestock and other
traditional industries. When they move to the city, they will work in the manufacturing based
industry. It shows the new set of values emerging from traditional industries to modern industries
which are agricultures based to manufacturing based.
Lastly, culture is interrelated elements. All aspects of culture function as an inter-related
whole. It means if one part of a culture changes it tends to affect another part. By relating to the
case, when Roopa starting moves to Bangalore from her native Mysore with the accounting
degree qualification and works as call-center and back office services. Then, she now earned
$400 per month which is several times what her father earned before he retired from government
job. Next, she now wear s her hair short and adopted the name Dana as her telephone name.
Besides, she starts drinking and frequently go to pub as her new life activities. This examples
show, the culture was interrelated starting she move to Bangalore until she changes into the
modernization life. Therefore, this culture eventually will lead to the negative incident such as
drug.

3. Broadly defined, Asia comprises more than 60 percent of the worlds population- a
population that practices Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and numerous other
religions. Thus, do you think it is possible to carry on a valid discussion of Asian values?
Why or why not?
Clearly, there are important and significant differences between Asian societies. But some
values tend to be Pan-Asian, including the extended family concept in contrast to the nuclear
family concept in Western cultures. Also, respect for community elders is deeply ingrained
throughout Asia unlike the Western emphasis on youth and vitality (most pronounced in the
United States). Thus, certain cultural elements can be discussed as Asian just as we identify
certain concepts and behaviors as Western. But the validity of generalizing about Asian
values depends on the depth of the discussion. The deeper we explore Asian cultures, the more
differences we uncover.

4. Consider the following statement, Economic development and capitalism require a

certain style of doing business in the twenty-first century. The sooner Asian cultures adapt
the better. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
I do agree with the statement which Asian cultures adapt the better with the style of the
doing business using the economic development and capitalism advantage.
Firstly, in order to ensure business in the long term run and not suffer loss the practices of
capitalism is useful for measuring the demand and supply. The usefulness of capitalism in doing
business is come through its management techniques whereby the Asian companies will take as
an advantage in order to retain the competitive advantages. For example, during the Asian
economic crisis the governments passed laws forcing greater transparency among companies and
banks, and many U.S. and other Western companies were buying up bankrupt Asian companies
and radically altering how they were run. Therefore, through this speed of change Asian
companies will always retain practices that make them unique.

Next, by adapting the economic development and capitalism style, it more focus on the
individualism. When the Asian companies adapt this culture it will tend to have the very good
economic strength. This is probably attributed to the circular effect that societies breeding
individualism benefit financially from the high performance and productivity of their individuals
which are in turn get motivation and incentives to perform though the high compensations that
the system can afford and is ready to pay them. Furthermore, the low individualism will lead to
the collectivism. It is happen to the Asian companies which cannot strive and maintain their
strength during economic crisis. The worker in this culture will tend to loyal for the particular
company. As the consequences, the worker cannot develop their career development and it will
give effect to the economic as the whole.