Tài liệu Bài dịch Chap 5 INTERNATIONAL CULTURE

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Bài dịch Chap 5 INTERNATIONAL CULTURE


Contents
Introduction 131
What is culture? 131
The importance of culture in different
business contexts 133
National stereotypes and key dimensions of culture 136
Cross-cultural management 144
Culture embodied in national institutions 151
■ Active Learning Case
Culture clash at Pharmacia and Upjohn 130
■ International Business Strategy in Action McDonald’s 135
Danone and Parmalat—going international, staying local 149
■ Real Cases
Do not throw your meishi! 154
Sport can be local and global: Manchester
United 155

Active Learning Case
Culture clash at Pharmacia and Upjohn
Despite being part of the same advanced, industrialized
world, Kalamazoo (Michigan, United States), Stockholm
(Sweden), and Milan (Italy) are worlds apart in many
important ways. Senior managers leading the merger
between two pharmaceutical firms, Upjohn Company of
the United States and Pharmacia AB of Sweden (with
operations in Italy), came to realize how significant these
differences were after the merger took place in 1995.
Swedes take off most of the month of July for their annual
vacation, Italians take off most of August. Not knowing
this, US executives scheduled meetings in the summer
only to have to cancel many because their European counterparts
were at the beach. As the more dominant US firm
began to impose its way of doing things on the newly acquired
European organizations, international relationships
became increasingly strained.
Neither the Swedes nor the Italians were happy with
impositions such as the drug and alcohol testing policy
brought in by Upjohn, or the office smoking ban. These
clashed with local ways of doing things and the more informal
work environment that these cultures prefer. Although
Upjohn later relaxed many of these work rules, allowing
some local practices and preferences to prevail, ill-feeling
and a degree of resistance had already developed among
European colleagues.
The additional bureaucracy and the command-andcontrol
style imposed by the Americans created more
significant problems for the 34,000 employees and
managers in Pharmacia and Upjohn Company. The Swedes
were used to an open, team-based style of management
where responsibilities are devolved; managers are trusted
and not strictly monitored or closely managed. Swedish executives
also tend to build up a consensus behind big decisions,
“getting everyone in the same boat” (alla aer i baten)
rather than handing orders down the hierarchy. As a traditional
US multinational, however, Upjohn was more used
to strong leadership and a centralized command-andcontrol
structure. Its CEO, Dr. John Zabriskie, quickly created
a strict reporting system, tight budget control, and
frequent staffing updates, which clashed with the Swedish
organization style. Swedish managers would leave meetings
disgruntled, having been overruled by US executives
keen to push their vision of the merged company.
The Swedes’ own ways of doing things had already
clashed with the Italian style of management, following the
takeover of Farmitalia (part of Montedison) by Pharmacia in
1993. Italians are used to a distinctive division between
workers (and their strong unions) and managers. Their