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Business culture in the Germanic Europe cluster

The Germanic Europe cluster includes Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and German speaking Switzerland (French and Italian speaking Switzerland are part of the Latin Europe cluster). Germanic societies are defined by: a low-context communication style; a monochronic approach to time management individualistic traits a doing orientation (Germanic cultures value productivity, efficiency, high-performance and competitiveness); a dislike for…

Category : Business culture around the world 19-10-2022 by Maria Antonietta Marino

The challenges of cultural diversity in international business

Dear readers, Following the introductions to cultural dimensions and culture clusters, it is now time to discuss about business practices (and business etiquette) around the world. As briefly mentioned in the post about the Iceberg Model of Culture, some elements of culture are visible and easily accessible to everyone, while some other…

Category : Articles 31-05-2022 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Three tips to write inclusive job descriptions that will attract diverse candidates

In recent years, many organizations seem to have realized the importance of implementing diversity and inclusion policies and initiatives to attract and retain diverse applicants. The attraction stage begins with writing inclusive job postings: no applicant should feel excluded and/or inadequate when they are considering to apply for a job. “Those…

Category : Articles 10-12-2021 by admin

The Concepts of Happiness and Well-being Across Cultures

"Happiness is dependent on unhappiness, while unhappiness is hidden in happiness." - Chinese proverb - *** What ideas, thoughts, and feelings do you associate with the word "happiness"? Have you ever considered the possibility that the definition of happiness might depend on one's cultural background? Today we're going back to the topic of individualistic…

Category : Articles 04-03-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Challenges and misconceptions in intercultural negotiations

Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic. - Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty - *** Negotiation, “an interaction and process between entities who compromise to agree on matters of mutual interest, while optimizing their individual utilities”, has…

Category : Articles 11-01-2021 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Time Tracking - Best Practices and Mistakes to Avoid

He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. - Victor Hugo - *** Maria ’s intro: The readers who have been visiting this blog over the past few months might have noticed that…

Category : Articles 01-12-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Narcissism and competitive communication in individualistic cultures

"When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realization turns into self-absorption, other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfilment of our needs and desires." - P.M. Forni, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude- *** Conversational Narcissism, described by sociologist Charles Derber…

Category : Articles 04-11-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

ACAMS DUBLIN - Cross-cultural communication, the costly risk of misunderstandings

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw - *** One of the main characteristics of intercultural communication is that it usually takes place between "strangers": people born and raised in different environments, accustomed to often divergent sets of values and beliefs, which…

Category : Articles 25-09-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Buyer Personas and the role of lifestyle, values, and beliefs in market segmentation

If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half-fed! - Pearl S. Buck…

Category : Articles 03-09-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

The Germanic Europe Cluster

I remember learning German - so beautiful, so strange - at school in Australia on the other side of the earth. I liked the sticklebrick nature of it, building long supple words by putting short ones together. Things could be brought into being that had no name in English -…

Category : Introductions to culture clusters 04-08-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Gift Giving Etiquette in the Confucian-Asia cluster: the luxury fruit culture

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift. - Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur - *** In a previous article we’ve discussed about the importance of guanxi in Chinese business: as explained by the author (Calipe Chong), guanxi - that literally translates as “relationships” - is to be intended as the “mechanism that provides…

Category : Articles 22-07-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

The Nordic Cluster

The Swedish system is best understood not in terms of socialism, but in terms of Rousseau, he continued: Rousseau was an extreme egalitarian and he really hated any kind of dependence --depending on other people destroyed your integrity, your authenticity-- therefore the ideal situation was one where every citizen was…

Category : Introductions to culture clusters 08-06-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Introducing Mudita Consultancy new features

Those of you who have come to know Mudita well will know that community and communication live at the core of everything we do. This year, we’re looking to put all of you lovely people well and truly ‘on the map’. It’s a pleasure for us to announce that in the…

Category : Articles 08-06-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

The Latin America Cluster

Yes, Latinos dream more. When you live in poverty, when your president is imposed upon you, when they kill someone and no one gets indicted, and when only a few get rich, of course you dream more. It's no coincidence that magic realism happens in Latin America, because for us…

Category : Introductions to culture clusters 12-03-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Global Leadership, an introduction to culture clusters

Dear readers, Those of you who’ve been following this blog for the past few months might be already familiar with Hofstede’s framework and with the concept of cultural dimensions (infographics available here): let me now introduce you to Project GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research), a study about Leadership…

Category : Introductions to culture clusters 11-02-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

#AskMudita Current topic: Main cultural differences between Latin- and North America

Dear readers, This is an example of the messages I occasionally receive through the online form: “Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to ask if you could please point me in the right direction. I am South American and have a hard time understanding certain personality traits Americans have, especially in the workplace.…

Category : Articles 23-01-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

II/II. National culture, international business strategy and common misunderstandings between the East and the West

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other. - L.M. Montgomery - In the previous article we’ve briefly explored the theory behind social connections, harmony, consensus in the Confucian-Asian cluster: relationships founded on the principles of Confucianism tend to be characterised by continuity and reciprocation, hierarchy and preservation of…

Category : Articles 15-01-2020 by Maria Antonietta Marino

"Giving and losing "face": honour, social reputation and networking in Asian countries"

People will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou - While Maya Angelou’s quote is universal and likely to resonate with most people regardless of their cultural background, interactions between Westerners and members of Asian cultures may be negatively affected by the poor understanding of “face”, a concept relevant…

Category : Articles 27-12-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

"Where do babies come from?”: a tale of misunderstandings and corporate negligence

In a previous article we’ve discussed about ethnocentrism - “ technical name for this view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it.”- with regard to people management, this week we’ll look at the same…

Category : Articles 02-12-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Masculinity-Femininity (Tough-Tender)

I have an extremely strong, masculine mind and a feminine sensibility level, which is kind of an unusual combination. Both men and women tell me things and I can relate on two levels simultaneously - Truman Capote - According to Hofstede’s definitions, masculinity is “a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness…

Category : Introductions to cultural dimensions 18-11-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

A seat at the African-American table: how social eating connects a community

Article written by Tiffani Rozier: The dining table is a sacred space within the African American community. As with all cultures, the African American family table is a space to share, grieve, and celebrate, but upon closer inspection, you discover a more important story to tell. The practice of gathering to break…

Category : Articles 10-11-2019 by Tiffani Rozier

Food, values and entrepreneurship in diaspora communities

How a people eats is one of the most powerful ways they have to express, and preserve, their cultural identity...To make food choices more scientific is to empty them of their ethnic content and history (Michael Pollan - In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) What sort of information can we gather…

Category : Articles 06-11-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Space planning: a cultural matter

According to anthropologist E.T. Hall, proxemics is "the spatial dimension of non verbal behavior", the study of man's perception and use of space : social research suggests that people from different cultural backgrounds do not share the same preferences in relation to space management, and that what may appear as…

Category : Articles 07-08-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Global Sales and the Customer Journey: the effect of cultural values on individual choices

Are individual choices truly “individual” and an indication of our own personal preference? In a study conducted for Stannford University in 1999, 29 Asian and 27 European-American citizens recruited at the San Francisco International Airport were asked to fill in a short questionnaire and told that afterwards they would receive a…

Category : Articles 30-07-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Marketing Relativism: Glocalized Tea vs Globalized Coffee

The hallmarks of a potentially successful copywriter include: obsessive curiosity about products, people and advertising. A sense of humor. A habit of hard work. The ability to write interesting prose for printed media, and natural dialogue for television. The ability to think visually. Commercials depend more on pictures than words. - David…

Category : Articles 16-07-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Total Quality Management and its challenges in the global workplace

It is a mistake to assume that if everybody does his job, it will be all right. The whole system may be in trouble. Quality is everyone’s responsibility. W. Edwards Deming William Edwards Deming , the engineer, statistician and management consultant regarded by many as “the master of continual improvement of quality”,…

Category : Articles 02-07-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Power Distance

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln - "Power Distance ", one of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, indicates the extent to which societies and organizations accept power inequality among their members. In societies characterized by a high index of…

Category : Introductions to cultural dimensions 17-09-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

Context: High-and Low-Context Cultures

The frame, the definition, is a type of context. And context, as we said before, determines the meaning of things. There is no such thing as the view from nowhere, or from everywhere for that matter. Our point of view biases our observation, consciously and unconsciously. You cannot understand the view without…

Category : Articles 01-07-2019 by Maria Antonietta Marino

How cultural misunderstandings can hurt your business

Can any organization nowadays afford to be oblivious to the cultural background of its stakeholders in the global marketplace? In 2003 Mrs Wang Hui, a Unilever (owner of the Lipton brand) employee interviewed by the South China Morning Post, claimed that Lipton was getting ready for a new challenge: selling green tea…