Экономические науки/ 16.Макроэкономика

Estekova Gylzira - cand.econ.sci.

University of International Business, Kazakhstan

National Culture Impact on Business Culture of Company under Conditions of Globalization of International Economic Relations

At the present moment, study of particular features of business cultures of certain nations stimulated scientists to raise problems of the degree of national and corporate cultures interpenetration and interaction. At that, approach to solution of this problem, which implies interaction and interdependence of these cultures on the one part and emphasizes dominating role of national culture is the most accepted and wide spread.

Specialists in the sphere of social psychology have established that managers in the developing and south-west European countries put satisfaction of social needs before all else (i.e. “pyramid of demands” for them, in essence, ends at the third-fourth level), which, by the way, is indicative of importance of use incentive means such as raising of status, social respect and recognition with relation to them [1].

Same as with the difference in behavior in different countries, principles of ethical behavior in business are also different, though there are some things in common that can be mentioned: expectation of honesty, integrity, respect to interests of business partner, competence.

In Oriental countries, individualism very often is considered as a threat to society. In oriental culture, a group of individuals is considered a social unit and not an individual as the case is in the western culture. In this particular case, an individual identifies him/herself with a group first of all and least of all as an individuum, personality. Putting self interests first in Japanese business environment is considered impolite and touches on indecency. Thus, high quality of Japanese appliances is well-known throughout the world and at that, names of scientists, inventors, business leaders ensuring leadership of Japan are practically unknown to global public.

Straightforwardness of western culture is perceived by Japanese as impoliteness. If Americans have no hesitation in rejecting proposal of no interest to them, in Japan there is no such word as "no". Japanese consider it impolite and try in every possible way to back out of an outright refusal [2].

Determination of Americans is manifested in readiness to make decisions in negotiations (and not prior to or after negotiations as the case is with Japanese). Japanese and Chinese come to negotiations in group and with already made decisions. Compromise is also understood differently understood in the West and East. Compromise in the Western culture is the evidence of good will and actual intent to solve the problem. In oriental culture compromise is rather of negative nuance. Settling for a compromise there means to show a lack of determination and inability to hold one's own ground. By agreeing to compromise representative of oriental culture “looses face”.

Deep, exceptionally difficult and contradicting to a large extent but historically unavoidable transformations of economic environment in Kazakhstan caused an active interest to management.

There can hardly be found a manager or a businessman in Kazakhstan who would not consider doctrines of American and less frequently – Japanese management. Globalization of business clearly showed that business activity is effected not only by so-called hard factors such as land, climate, equipment, but also by soft ones that cannot be touched or measured but influence of which is rather sensible. Attitude to work and formation of business culture are among such soft factors. In aggregate, soft factors form culture inherent to people of one country or another understood as standards of behaviour and habits that have been developed over centuries. Managers are interested in business culture first of all.

Till the present moment there was no study focused on particular features, advantages and weaknesses of Kazakhstani business culture. With the same, knowledge of national business culture may be useful for management in identification of causes and probable consequences of many managerial decisions and decisions made by colleagues and subordinates as well as those made by top management and shareholders.

There are three levels of culture in business: First level – national culture; second level – organizational level, culture of a given business organization; third level – managerial culture. This managerial culture in our country is also called as “manager’s style”: the way a manager acts in different circumstances.

National culture has strong effect on organizational culture which, in turn, has its effect on managerial one. Nevertheless, strong, subject to presence of a forceful manager, managerial culture may determine organizational one and organizational systems in aggregate may change national culture.

There are two major problems in Kazakhstan, namely: problem of power, since a manager in system without power is not a manager, and the problem of attitude to work. In most Kazakhstan business organizations, power is built on the principle of a bunch of grapes: first of all – from top downwards, and, secondly - by clusters – closed groups. Though there are certain information and other connections between such groups, detachment of each group is clearly pronounced. Does it make sense to keep such situation on and whether it is effective for business economy - these are the questions that each organization should answer.

When a person joins a company, it is very important to understand whether he or she sees a group as protection or joins this team as a group of like-minded fellows. It is manager’s responsibility to analyze this in order to prevent any possible conflicts with employees and within a group of employees.

Unlike western world, team work in our country is not arranged well enough and duties and functions of each employee are insufficiently well outlined. In team work Kazakhstan employees are usually concerned about somebody flubbing the dub and doing less work though, as a matter of principle, people like to work together. This concern is greater with Kazakhstan employees than, for example, with American ones.

In addition, due to better structured ness and formality of job duties and responsibilities and better system of each employee’s performance assessment, it is easier in the western world to pinpoint an employee who does his/her work worse or better than others, i.e. an individual task and individual responsibility are at the heart of organization of work. Therefore, team work is more effective there.

Much depends on manager. Manager must be able to share his/her success and the better he/she can do this the greater are chances that his/her subordinates will do their job duties better and will follow him/her.

Participation in management is impossible without undertaking certain obligations and responsibility by employees. This work is done first and foremost in the interests of system and not personal ones. In Kazakhstan, participation in managerial work is understood differently: a person tries to "creep" up to management level and comes up with some suggestions in order to make a statement of him/herself to come in view but not to undertake any responsibility for implementation of such suggestions in entirety or in any part thereof.

Americans, on the contrary, are not afraid to assume responsibility. It is very important to create such an environment in the system in which irresponsible person would feel him/herself ill at ease. Businessman who established his own firm (and it is impossible to set up a company without assuming responsibility) knows very well how to do it and he has practical experience in it. So, therefore, such businessman should help his employees to learn how to do this. This teaching process is usually of on-the-job type. Normal manager usually spends up to 40% of his/her work time on work with people and on training of subordinates. For it is possible for a person to assume responsibility only if such person is adequately trained, competent and is not afraid of making independent decisions [3].

In order to arrive to answer to the question of what may be a stimulating factor for employees under the current Kazakhstani conditions, it is necessary to find out what is this nation motivated by.

Usually, there are four basic types of motivations that correspond to one group of cultures and countries or another that are singled out.

The first type of motivation consists in achieving goals where money is of high importance, for example – desire to become a leader in the market, to come up in the market with some novelty first, etc.

Second type of motivation is protective one, which means that it implies desire to protect from external intervention, desire to create one's own world (cluster culture belongs to this type of motivation, by the way). Group of countries with the second type of motivation values stability most of all and in general is against any motivation.

Third type – social motivation group with frequently dominating egalitarian approach. In third group countries people, though they value quality of life, believe that it is best to "tie it off" or to refrain from any changes in order to prevent things to becoming ever worse.

Forth type - mostly the countries with social motivation but, in this particular case, these countries desire to improve quality of life and are willing to take risks.

Based on the results of conducted studies, it is possible to say that in terms of motivation Kazakhstan managers belong to the second group that values stability above all. This is very important result since it is indicative of the fact that Kazakhstan people prefer motivation to achievements and have given up the idea of letting things drift. As a matter of fact, our management in business still believes that changes should not have effect on stability of their position, which means that achievements do not mean much to them, still there is a certain shift in their attitude anyway.

Will Kazakhstan management be further motivated to achievements in the future, i.e. move toward first group of motivation? In order to answer this question and make reliable forecasts Kazakhstan economy study should be conducted. So, the important question of toward what culture – western or oriental, Kazakhstan business culture is shifting to still remains open-ended.

On the other hand, some people believe nowadays that Kazakhstan has its own business specifics. This opinion is supported by new level of culture – so-called institutional culture: Business and entrepreneurship are among social institutions involved in creation of additional consumer value by development of its own culture. And this culture has a certain part of internationality. Since policy of protectionism is widely pursued all over the world, it is also implemented in management system. As experience shows, one's own or “third” way is not always the best one and an institutional business culture from the West proves to be efficient everywhere it is adhered to and Kazakhstan is not an exception. The question arises here: Is it possible to graft foreign business culture to a country? Setting up of enterprises with participation of foreign capital shows that this is absolutely possible.

At the same time, studies showed that there are certain age-related limits of acceptance of a foreign culture by an individual beyond which such acceptance becomes very difficult. So, today’s generation should not expect any serious changes in behavior of their local partners in business. New generation of Kazakhstan businessmen and managers should learn new patterns of behavior from childhood and then it will be possible to achieve success.

One of the most difficult tasks in business is to change people and not system. Yet, good system may be very helpful in making people to change their habits.

Literature:

1. Porter M.E. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press, 1990.

2. Schwartz S.H. “A theory of cultural values and some implications for work.” Applied Psychology: An International Review, 1999.

3. Walker D.M., Walker T., Schmitz J. Doing Business Internationally. New York, McGraw-Hill, 2003.