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The Connection Between National Culture and Organizational Culture

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The Connection between National Culture and Organizational Culture Kyb Fugfugosh San Francisco State University IBUS 681 (01) Date 12/10/2012

2 The Connection between National and Organizational Culture The term “culture” is generally ascribed to societies in a country, or ethnic and regional clusters within a nation, but can also be assigned to organizations, institutions, and family. Social organizations, whether national cultures, or institutional cultures develop because members’ behavior is not arbitrary, and can sometimes be anticipated and calculated. Organizations are bound by culture, which includes the individual behaviors of members and the collective purpose of the organization. In his frequently referenced book, Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-related Values (1984), Geert Hofstede provided a methodology for the cross-cultural studies of nations, and the organizations that develop based on cultural values. Cultural concepts, as they relate to organizational studies, are borrowed from anthropology, in which views vary, and there is no consensus. Therefore the application of the “cultural perspective” to organizational studies also varies, and is based on assumptions about the nature of both “culture” and “organizations” (Smircich, 1983). Pettigrew (1979) advocated the use of cultural concepts borrowed from sociology and anthropology in the examination of organizational behavior. He advanced “longitudinalprocessual” studies of organizations that acknowledged the possibility of long-term analysis of institutions as entities within societies, which also have pasts, presents, and futures (Pettigrew, 1979, p. 570). Organizations, like nations consist of people from various socio-economic backgrounds, and often from different cultures, as do multinational and international institutions. Each individual possesses “mental programs”

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