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Cultural Challenges When Entering the Global Market

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Cultural Challenges When Entering the Global Market

Prepared by: Dennis M. Reilly, Regent University, LDSL 724, Cultures & Values

I. Executive Summary
Globalization can be defined as the inevitable integration of markets, nation-states, technologies and people in a way that is enabling individuals, organizations and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before. Culture has become a highly significant factor in determining the success in today's international business environment. In particular, organizations entering the foreign markets either by expansion or mergers and acquisitions (M&A’s) are known to suffer at a high failure rate due to not understanding and preparing for cultural differences. Studies suggest that failure is due to different and often controversial relationships between cultural differences, integration and performance. The purpose of this white paper is to examine the cultural concerns when American corporations/organizations enter foreign markets and the impact cultural understanding or the lack thereof has on their success or failure. II. Culture
“Culture is not only all around us but within us as well”. Each individual within an organization comes with a unique background and culture. Culture can be defined as the blending of values, politics, beliefs, behaviors, customs and attitudes that distinguishes one society from another. Since culture is a learned behavior that encompasses life-long experiences, it is adaptive. When merging cultures, this is an important fact that organizations must understand. Forcing the parent organizational culture onto the acquired organizational culture without understanding the newly acquired culture is potentially a path to disaster.
There are basic elements of organizational culture. These are social structure, language,

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