Culture is one of the basic things in life. Whether when we are working, dealing with people, spending time with family or even doing our daily routine. Culture is learned since we were born, no matter we as human realized the differences or not. Culture is the full range of learned behaviour patterns that are acquired by people as members of a society like in a family. A culture is a complex, interrelated with anything that consists of the knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, skills, and habits learned from parents and others in a society. Culture is the basis of transparent material of adaptation for humans.

The word culture itself comes from the Latin term pronounce as cultura, which is related to cult or worship. In general, the term refers to the feedback of human interaction. Culture is knowledge that acquired that people use to interpret experience and generate social behaviour. This knowledge forms values, creates attitudes, and influences behaviour. Somehow, culture also has the characteristics of being learned, shared, trans-generational, symbolic, patterned, and adaptive. There are also many dimensions of cultural diversity, which is focus on centralized vs. decentralized decision making, safety vs. risk, individual vs. group rewards, informal vs. formal procedures, high vs. low organizational loyalty, cooperation vs. competition, short-term vs. long-term horizons, and stability vs. innovation area in this assignment.

This assignment will focus on central and decentralized decision making, individual and group reward, high and low organizational loyalty as well as cooperation and competition in US, German and Japan.

Start with Unites State culture. US is a well develop country that merely focus on effective and efficient strategy in their business. They have developed a culture that high in confidence and respect. These are some of the culture in doing negotiation among the Americans today:

It is a tradition to begin and end business meetings with a brief but firm handshake.

Maintaining direct eye contact at earlier of the greeting and whenever in conversation is also essential is important, as it demonstrates to your American colleagues your interest and sincerity.

The exchanging of business cards is a casual affair in the US. Americans regard business cards as a resource for future information. It may be done either during introductions or when leaving.

During negotiations, it is important to remember that the aim of most business discussions in the US is to arrive at a signed contract. Americans consider negotiations as problem-solving situations based on mutual benefit and personal strengths.

When doing business in the US, parties will be expected to adhere to rules and guidelines that related US business counterparts must also follow. Company policy and business procedures such as legally binding contracts, are aspects of American business culture that require strict compliancy to avoid uncertainty.

Centralized vs. Decentralized Decision Making

In some societies, top managers make all important organizational decisions. This is called as centralized decision making. This type of decision making requires all subordinates to refer to top manager to solve problem, approve all changes as well as response to any circumstances. Implementing centralization in a firm might brings disadvantage in the management. For example during the critical time such as bidding at an important auction. Top manager cannot be at two different places at one time. Centralization is also time consuming as subordinate will have to wait for the superior to make small decision which supposedly can be made by lower level manager. This kind of decision making will only cause bottleneck to firm upper management as they have to response to many problem at a time. This will eventually reduce effectiveness and efficiency.

On the other hand, others countries such as US, implement that these decisions are diffused throughout the enterprise, and middle- and lower-level managers actively participate in and make key decisions. This means all employees must participate in decision making process in that particular firm. It is also known as decentralization decision making. In case of any problem occurs lower managers can quickly response to it without waiting the upper level to make decision. Most of US companies has been using this strategy to increase their firm effectiveness and efficiency and reducing time wasted.

Somehow, some of these Americans company believe that negotiations and final decisions in the US are frequently made by one person who has chief authority. Team negotiations are rarely carried out in American companies due to this belief.

Individual vs. Group Rewards

Reward systems are one feature in a firm that contribute to their overall culture. Depend on how reward systems were developed, administered, and managed; they can cause the culture of a specific organization to vary quite broadly. For example, they can influence the level of human resources oriented culture, an entrepreneurial culture, an innovative culture, a competence based culture, a fair culture, and a participative culture. In some countries, workers who do outstanding work are given individual rewards in the form of bonuses and commissions for a period of time. Reward systems have the ability to cultivate culture because of their important influence on communication, motivation, satisfaction, and membership. The behaviours they cause to occur become the only patterns of behaviour in the organization and lead to perceptions and beliefs about what an organization stands for, believes in, and values. For example, having an extremely high pay levels can produce a culture in which people feel they are an elite group working for a top-flight company. Finally, having subordinates who is participating in pay decisions can produce a participative culture which employees are generally involved in business decisions and as a result they committed to the organization and its success.

In others, cultural norms require group rewards. Reward systems that focus on individual performance are compromising the ability of employees to work as part of a team. Americans believe businesses should instead create a system that rewards high individual, team and company performance, to ensure the cooperation of teams and that the business’ goals are achieved. This will cover all aspect and there will be no such thing as individual or group reward as they will acquire all of it by fulfilling only one of it.

In US, basically, upper level managers were compared to co-workers, which meant they were competing among their group. Employees were rewarded by how well they performed individually on the job during the previous year. Job satisfaction depended on not only pay raises, but also on other factors, such as mentally challenging work, freedom to make decisions, flexible hours. If the individual were aggressive, talented, skilful, there was an opportunity to move up the corporate ladder. If not, the company could easily find a replacement.

As for Japanese, it is quite different because raise was no longer based on employee’s personal performance, but was based on overall corporate or team performance. The raise was fixed across the same level. Upper level manager stand at the same level as co-workers.

In a large corporation especially US, a centralized compensation approach is parallel with the idea of business involvement and with targeting structure and reward system practices to the business strategy. By their very nature, most large firms are engaged in multiple businesses which have different needs and which compete with organizations that pay differently. Having a single approach to pay will emphasizes a corporate-wide approach to market position, performance measurement, which makes it impossible for particular business units to structure their reward system effectively. Business department end up forced to adopt a corporate structure which often is not parallel with what is needed to compete in their particular environment. Smaller organizations tend not to have this problem because they often face a single external environment. Some large organizations that are in a single business may not need to decentralize since they also face a single external market. In most cases, however, organizations which have multiple businesses need to decentralize compensation practice and reduce bottleneck.

High Organizational Loyalty vs. Low Organizational Loyalty

In Japan, people identify very strongly with their organization or employer. People with high organizational loyalty tend to achieve company’s goals rather than their very own self achievement and satisfaction. Japanese workers at the same level do not feel one works harder than the other. They all have the mentality of loyalty and feel they work hard and everyone has to do their job. Japanese worker are very loyal to their company. The company provides life time employment. They seem to feel the job is more important than their family and that they have to work hard for the company. The company in return takes care of their family, the society welfare and their country gains a competitive edge. They think vertically, not just only for themselves.

In US, people identify with their occupational group, such as engineer or mechanic. Americans tend to achieve their very own life’s objectives rather than firm mission as Americans has a low organizational loyalty. They do not have the dedication to their working firm like the Japanese. They will strive to gain more money and recognition as well as achieve self-esteem.

At the professional level Americans seem to have different expectations and point of view. They want hard work to be recognized, they expect more pay raise, or promotions than their subordinate if they do well, other than that they would be discouraged, and eventually they would look for another company that would appreciate their talent or work.

Another reason is the difference in business philosophy between these two countries. Japanese philosophy of management is built into the Japanese culture, which represents living as well as management. It represents most of the individual’s worth and working and dealing with people. Most of their passivity related to Japanese manners and attitude. Loyalties to one’s superiors were justified, and controlled, the superior/subordinate and vertical structure of the society. It is difficult for the Western mind to detect how important these manners were to the early Japanese and the continuing effect in contemporary Japan. Westerners are used to conduct their lives according to certain abstract principles and routine, with manners playing only a minor role. In Japan, the emphasis was reversed.

Conclusion

As for German, they have more competition rather than cooperation. They have quite similar culture like US. They compete with each other in a firm in order to get raise in pay as well as recognition and non-financial reward. They feel they might as well climb up the corporate ladder in that particular firm. Germanic does not have team cooperation and they tend to do decentralization. They are low in organizational loyalty. Individualism is common among Germanic as they strive to achieve their life’s goal or target.

As a conclusion, US and German has almost the same western culture that gives impact on their behaviour. This attitude or culture brings pros and cons to the Americans and Germanic. Some of the impact of the culture on behaviour shows clearly on how they deal with external environment. The cultivate behaviour such as punctuality. Punctuality is an essential part of business etiquette, for these westerner, all scheduled appointments or meetings must be attended on time. Americans perceive lateness as a sign of disrespect. Therefore, in situations where you know you will be late, a call should be made to inform your American colleagues of your delay. Deadlines are strictly stressed in American business culture. Americans place great deals on getting the best results in the quickest time. Some American counterparts may appear to be hasty in their decision-making. This, however, is due to the fact that the concept “time is money” is taken extremely seriously in the US as well as German. Generally, in the United States the working week consists of Monday to Friday, 9-5pm. However, due to the strong American work ethic the majority of Americans work long hours and overtime is common practice. It is also customary to take as few as ten days holiday per year.

Japanese culture also has a great impact on behaviour of these east people. They have made their environment as an easy place to work together. Some of the impacts of the culture towards the Japanese behaviour are:

• Do not bring along your lawyer, because this implies a lack of trust.

• Concern for tradition, for example, is sometimes more important than concern for profit. Do not appeal solely to logic, because in Japan, emotional considerations often are more important than facts.

• Try for a thorough personalization of all business relationships. The Japanese trust those whom they socialize and they know more than they do those who simply are looking to do business. Accept after hours invitations. However, a rollicking night out the town will not necessarily lead to signing the contract the next morning.

• Always try to arrange for a formal introduction to any person or company with which you want to do business. These introductions should come from someone whose position is at least as high as that of the person whom you want to meet or from someone who has done a favour for this person. Let the host pick the subjects to discuss. One topic to be avoided is World War II.

• Do not deliver bad news in front of others, and if possible, have your second-in-command handle this chore. Never cause Japanese managers to lose face by putting them in a position of having to admit failure.