Case 8 - Sick Leave

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

The cultural behaviors of the “American” or “Japanese” in the video do not accurately reflect business behaviors in these countries so please do not generalize based on the video. The video is meant as a classroom exercise to analyze a specific cultural encounter. Total 20 points.

Considering the specific characteristics of Asian culture, the explanations can be drawn from two perspectives: what decreases the risk and what hides the risk. From general perspective to specific perspective, the following sections will compose the whole

When employees leave under the Family Medical Leave Act and use medical marijuana method to treat his or her treatment, the employer faces greater chances of conflict between workplace and state policy. For example, the employer who randomly drug tests, and upon an employee’s return from FMLA leave for treatment of medical illness such as cancer, employee tests show positive for marijuana. In that case, the employer, who is unaware of the specific treatments the employee took for her symptoms, terminates the employee for violation of the company drug policy. Although the employee took lawful FMLA leave and treated her symptoms lawfully under state law, her positive drug test directly conflicted with a lawful drug-free workplace policy. According

There are many laity use of the word culture that gets thrown around in day-to-day conversation amongst our peers. Culture is used to define certain aspects of our lives and how we live on a daily basis. There are some that believe that they do not possess a culture. There are others who feel that we all live our own individual unique culture in our lives. However, being that culture is such a broad subject, the only way to define it is to operationalize its context and attempt to try and understand it based on a universal definition. Sergiovanni and Corbally (1986) defined culture that includes a system of values, symbols, and shared meanings in a group that includes embodying these values, symbols, and shared meanings in ritualize practice. Using this particular definition of culture, the small island of Okinawa is enriched with it. Their way of day-to-day lifestyle, geographical terrain, as well as their military history can all be analyzed through their culture as well as provide information in terms of our current military jargon for the benefit of the United States Army.

There are significant cultural differences between Japan and the United Kingdom that need to be taken into account when doing international business. There are also a number of methods and systems by which these differences have been described. These include the Geert Hofstede cultural dimensions, Trompenaars seven dimensions of culture and the Globe Project's cultural dimensions. This paper will discuss these differences and similarities, and shed light as to the best approach to international business in these countries.

There was breach of faith by withholding information and not being upfront during the communication process between different parties. This situation was also caused by cultural differences like relationship building, “Guanxi”, emphasis on personal relationships versus factual-based legalistic approach, completely varied styles of doing business, and also

This first section of the article puts a focus on how in order to have a well-rounded understanding of the culture of the individuals around us, our assumptions as workers must be challenged. One way to do this is to determine how far back in history we really need to go to assess the underlying problems of the client’s situation. The first section talked about the Lee family and about how what they considered a normal routine in their family life was considered abusive and negligent in the U.S. theory. This family had used a yardstick to measure what

This paper provided an opportunity to take a deeper look into the country of Japan by conducting a Global Cultural Analysis. Throughout this paper the following four research areas were explored: 1.What is the major elements and dimensions of culture in Japan? 2. How are these elements and dimensions integrated by locals conducting business in Japan? 3. How does U.S. culture and business compare with the elements and dimensions of culture integrated by the locals conducting business in Japan? 4. What are the implications for U.S. businesses that wish to conduct business with Japan?

It is a complex social process which already becomes part and parcel of our society.

The Hofstede Centre (n.d.) defines culture as the “collective mental programming of the human mind which distinguishes one group of people from another.” Chipulu, Ojiako, Gardiner, Williams, Mota, Maguire, Shou, Stamai, and Marshall (2014), note that “culture can be at once tangible and observable; latent and unobservable; or even an abstraction altogether” (p. 367). Culture therefore has many dimensions. Some aspects of culture can be observed by analyzing symbols, ceremonies, dress, and other aspects. On the other hand, some aspects are not observable from the outside, but have to be experienced. Looking only from the outside gives us only a glimpse into the culture values. A large part of culture is the unwritten rules of how things are done. This part of culture is not necessarily observable to an outsider. To fully understand the cultural values of an organization, you need to be inside the organization with access to those with years of work experiences.

In this negotiation, we learned that it is important to research your opponent, to understand their culture, not only of their country or backgrounds, but also their company culture. When we are able to understand our opponent’s way of thinking about business and doing business we can then understand how to approach a negotiation situation with them. In this exercise, we learned that it is difficult for us to adjust when it involves breaking or acting in a way opposite of what we are accustomed to. We also learned that although my classmates live in the same country as we do, their upbringings may have similarities to their origin country and will therefore help them to communicate and adjust to that country’s norms and standards. We were surprised how we were able to stay in character although it was hard and it was surprising how people responded when they were unaware of your intentions and strategies. If we had to do this exercise again, what we can do is do more research on our opponents so that we would have an idea of what to expect in the negotiation table.

This paper will describe the problem that Kelly experienced with her new job with the sick leave policy. We will discuss if Kelly should call CLAIR, or discuss this further with Mr. Higashi? What is this main dispute about for Kelly? For Mr. Higashi? In these types of conflicts is a compromise possible? What are the tangible factors in this situation? What are the intangible factors in the negotiation Is saving face more important to Kelly or Mr. Higashi? Why? Which are more important, the tangible or intangible factors? Is this true for both Kelly and Mr. Higashi?

Culture and the environment affect a business in many ways. Culture is not simply a different language, a different shade of skin, or different styles of food. Culture, and the environment in which you are a part of, affect the running of day to day business operations of all companies’ day in and day out. This paper will assess how Linda Myers, from the article, “The would-be pioneer,” (Green, S., 2011) was affected by the huge culture shock of working for a global conglomerate from Seoul, South Korea. We will discuss what went wrong with Ms. Myers approach to business, Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture as it

When a business decides to venture internationally into different countries with its products, services, and operations, it is very important that the company gains an understanding of how the culture of the different societies affects the values found in those societies. Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most famous and most used studies on how culture relates to values. Hofstede study enabled him to compare dimensions of culture across 40 countries. He originally isolated four dimensions of what he claimed summarized different cultures — power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity (Hill, 2013, p.110). To cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm Hofstede has since added two more dimensions — Confucianism or long-term orientation and indulgence versus self-restraint (Hofstede, n.d.). Because of the way Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are given an index score from 0-100, it is easy for a company to get a general comparison between the cultures they are expanding into and the culture they are already in.