Social organization of society: stratification, individualism/collectivism, educational and technological level essay
Social organization of society as a variable of cross-cultural issues examines the role of kinship in making everyday decisions, the degree of population gradation and the differences between high, middle and lower classes, the predominance of individualism or collectivism in the society (Usunier, 1998).
When entering into a new cultural and social environment it is always necessary to consider the relationship in small social groups and, above all, in the family. Family is an important associated consumer on the market. It is important to study the so-called “standard family” (the definition of the consumer basket), and determine the leadership, which is different in different cultures (Sшderberg & Holden, 2002). Dominance of male or female principle in the culture results, respectively, in radicalism or conservatism (Gelade et al., 2008). Masculine cultures give priority to the determination in action, and the desire for material prosperity, while feminine cultures chose living comfort, and care for the weak (Denmark and USA) (Hofstede, 2001). Similarly, the social stratification of society to some extent corresponds to the segmentation of markets, and social mobility to changes in this segmentation (Thomas, 2008).
In international business, the importance of social aspects is great. It is the social organization that determines whether the business partners represent a family firm, in which family relations determine the nature of daily decisions and succession (e.g., China), or extremely professional partners in the Western sense (Silverthorne, 2005; Rollinson, 2008).
In addition, the prevalence of individualism or collectivism has a great influence on the behavioral responses of consumers. Individualism implies a person’s actions determined in the first place by his interests, which increases the risk. Collectivism, in contrast, leads to the standardization of the interests in the market of needs, involves man’s desire to adhere to certain modes of behavior in the group, which restricts his freedom, but reduces the risk. A priori there are two types of individualism (1 and 2) and collectivism (1 and 2) (Hofstede, 2001; Gelade et al., 2008).
For example, Japanese culture should be attributed to a combination of individualism type 2 and flexible collectivism. The cultures like Scandinavian can be regarded as favorable for the realization of democracy, industrialism, mass society. Care for reciprocity typical for the individualism type 2 is very effective for the emergence of ideas about social equality, and “flexible collectivism” that recognizes the active participation of individuals provides a basis for commitment to social equality. Such combination allowed Japan to succeed in the highly developed organization of mass society and maintain a high level of internal cultural stability. And at the same time, since Japanese culture is based on a combination of derivative rather than pure types of individualism and collectivism, its internal stability is not effective enough to withstand external pressures (Gelade et al., 2008).
A typical example of culture formed by “atomistic individualism” (type 1) and “flexible collectivism” is the United States. This culture is characterized by a mixture of anarchy and democracy complemented by the pronounced tendency of competition and freedom (Hoecklin & Payne, 1995).
We can conclude that collectivism encourages the tendency to adaptive (Russia) and integrative (Japan) behavior, while individualism encourages the desire to create and achieve new goals and maintain latent social values (the USA, Europe) (Robert & Wasti, 2002).
It is interesting to note that American and Western European authors always point to a favorable position of the Japanese manager in contrast to his Western European and American counterparts. Firstly, Japanese managers simply do not have to deal with such sore points like absenteeism, poor discipline, staff turnover, etc. This is explained by the special moral and psychological climate, which helps Japanese companies to achieve great practical success (Jackson, 2011).
In Japan, it is difficult to link the requirements to improve the overall efficiency of the organization with individualism. Each employee is originally included in a group. The requirement to improve efficiency of the organization is associated with the traditional collectivism and aims to improve the performance of the group, which includes the given employee. In general, the group takes such an internal structure, which links all its members to strictly ranked hierarchy (Robert & Wasti, 2002).
In Western societies, on the contrary, the desire for unity in the organization is weak. Management focuses on the individual and the evaluation of this management is based on individual performance. Business career is caused by personal results and accelerated promotion. The main qualities of leadership in the management of such a model are professionalism and initiative, supervisor’s individual control and clearly formalized control procedure. Other features are formal relationships with subordinates, payment for individual achievements and individual responsibility (Browaeys & Price, 2011; Cateora et al., 2010).
International business rarely takes into account the orientation, studied subjects, the level and profile of education in any country. Comparative data with foreign markets can help in understanding, for example, the level of literacy and its impact on technical training and the establishment of market linkages.
The level of education in the country has a huge influence on the technical capacity of the state (French, 2010). For example, studies have proven this fact and found that only Japan and Germany (countries with the highest level of technical education) possess the technical capacity to produce a specific device. This device consists of a half-meter steel cylinder with a ball inside. This ball is so tightly fitted that if to pour in the water, not a drop will leak to the bottom of the cylinder. Moreover, the ball under the force of its weight should slide down to the bottom of the cylinder in exactly 24 hours (Holden, 2001).
The value of formal education is required when recruiting personnel and conducting discussions with customers and partners. It is also important to know how local firms carry out in-service training for its staff.
