preview

Comparing Brazilian Business Culture with German Business Culture

Best Essays

What is culture?

Background

What is culture? How can culture be defined? How is culture influenced? Searching in books or on the Internet, hundreds of different definitions of culture can be found. Each person has his or her own opinion of how culture should be defined. The term somebody is “cultured” is often heard. But what defines actually a culture? Before comparing parts of the Brazilian business culture with German business culture, the idea of culture itself must be defined. After that, their business relationships can be scrutinized by using the technique of critical incidents.

In 1871, the anthropologist Edward B. Taylor was one of the first to define culture as “That complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, …show more content…

The following model from the anthropologist Edward T’Hall shows what is actually noticeable in a culture and how the first contact of a foreigner in a new culture feels. Like with an iceberg, only a small fraction of a culture can be seen.
The model shows that the most parts of our culture are actually hidden. The outward behavior is the visible part of a culture and can be seen by foreigners. Art, clothing, food, music and language are examples of the visible part.
The values, beliefs and norms of a society - for example friendship, the view on the world, and religious beliefs - are invisible and can be only understood through interaction. They can be only learned by interaction for example through interviewing the members of this particular society.

Four Cultural Dimensions by Geert Hofstede
In the 1960’s, the Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede did an opinion survey in 70 IBM subsidiaries around the world to measure the associates’ behavior and collaboration in such a large organization as IBM. In his research he found four cultural dimensions. These dimensions were: Power Distance, Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance and Masculinity. The fifth dimension, Long Term Orientation, was added from Michael Bond in the year 1991 with his research on Chinese Culture Connection and accepted by Geert Hofstede.

In the following picture you can seen the four cultural dimensions based on our

Get Access