Defining Culture and its Importance
The term ‘culture’ has never been easy to define since it is simple as well as complex in its own way. Culture is a way of life, includes values, norms, beliefs, customs, food habits, language and traditions (Birukou et al., 2013). Although culture varies from place to place and time to time the existence of culture is inevitable since the inception of human life. Culture plays a significant role in humankind, therefore, people have developed high priority and sensibility towards their own culture (Duncan & Ley, 2013). Culture is a vital factor that needs attention as it can build as well as ruin a company. In this contemporary era, companies will travel far from own land to expand and grow. The first H & M store was opened in the year 1947 by the Swedish entrepreneur Erling Persson in Västerås, Sweden (Santos, 2015). The company was soon popular with its unique style of clothing for women, men and kids. With its rapid growth, it started its expansion to international boundaries and had worked successfully until today. The problem that arose was when the global brand recently took out an advertisement campaign that has offended consumers around the world. The reason the brand has sparked a good deal of anger is the way the advertising campaign was considered blatantly racist. It happened to be a culture shock for H&M as it is a Swedish brand and coming from different cultural history than the United state. Thesis statement
A complete state of confusion with the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety that is experienced by people when visiting a place that differs from their land is considered as culture shock (Jack, 2014). Often in business when the company wants to expand beyond their home countries when the company is faced with such confusion or uncertainty about culture, it is the company experiences the culture shock (Presbitero, 2016). The culture shock may occur due to unfamiliarity with the local customs, behaviour, values, norms and languages as the culture of different places and societies are different. In the current issue of H&M, the brand uses a young black boy to model a hoodie that says “coolest monkey in the jungle”. The usage of a black child in the advertisement portrayed racism according to the people of the united state. The Swedish company was having a different history than the United state in the sphere of the race, and therefore it was the cultural shock and ignorance of the brand.
The organisational culture has an important role to play in companies. The purpose it serves is incorporating the mission of the company and shaping the vision. Management researchers have confirmed firmly the importance of culture for the growth and stability of any organization. It is important for leaders, employees and for the company’s atmosphere (Hornstein, 2015). United state is a state with a history of diversity with people of different ethnicities. United state has been referred to as the ‘melting pot’ where traditions and customs from different races and ethnicities have blended and lost their distinctions over time (Cunningham & Alhabash, 2015). The culture of the united state is influenced by a multicultural ethos that includes Native American, African, Latin American, Asian, Polynesian people and their diverse culture. Due to large-scale migration, the state is ethnically and racially diverse country. It is a vital job for any organisation amidst different cultures to consider the cultural aspects. The united state and Sweden has a long history of racist culture (Ekman, 2014). However, the multicultural country is intolerable to such racist actions. Racist depiction and racism against black people are very common in Sweden whereas in united state there is an on-going struggle fighting against racism. The difference in the culture of accepting the racism has made the company face the circumstances.
The process of managing people in an organisation in a structured and organised manner is called human resource management. The process is an effective way of handling people through innovative and creative approaches that would help efficiently running the organisation. The work culture is developed by the human resources department of the organisation where they play the vital role in bringing the best out of employees and developing a trait of loyalty for the organisation. Interaction and communication are essential in today’s global expansion of companies, and it has become necessary for many workers around the world. The pressure of finding employees that are not only professionally strong but also culturally perspective. Employees having crucial intercultural skills can understand the cultural differences, depict different cultural context and demonstrate respect for other culture.
Similarly, H&M needs to develop on the human resources that will understand the cultural identity the place where the company determined to work. Change in the workforce to bring a cross-culture atmosphere would have understood the impact of the advertisement on the US culture and prevented the company from the damage. Lacking the culture perspective team in the organisation is one of the primary reasons that damaged the company’s reputation.
The Role of Organisational Culture in Companies
As business targets to operate in different countries, it requires particular attention in its marketing and managing structure to make workplace diverse. Diversity is inevitable to come across for any company operating overseas. Communication is the essential constituents of the progress of any business and culture manipulate discussion as it is a powerful tool in bringing companies as well as make rivals. Cultural barriers can create an obstacle for conducting the successful communication. Cultural barriers are the challenges that the organisation face while interacting with a different culture that has a different set of belief, use different language, use different gesture to indicate non-verbal communication. The strategies that H&M would require to overcome the cross-cultural barriers are as follows:
- Clear and polite communication: the initial step of overcoming the obstacles is the clear and polite communication. The first conversation is not necessarily needed depth. More using of simpler lines, formal sentences and gestures help in building the business relationship on good terms.
- Pre-learning the client’s culture: learning the client’s culture gives cultural insights and helps in to understand the perspective of client and customers.
- Promoting the appreciation of cultural differences: people are always enthusiastic about own cultures and seeing own culture getting recognised with higher identity makes culture happy. Promoting the culture differences and showing high respect to the other culture helps to achieve happy customer.
- Building self-awareness: while operating a successful business in a country apart from the home country needs severe awareness about the cultural aspects, essential dates, festivals and other occasions.
- Avoiding stereotyping: avoiding stereotypes and improper stigma helps in adapting to different cultures. The openness to the new cultural insight is a significant trait of good cross-cultural organisation.
- Respecting cultural differences: one mandatory feature of the companies that have successful cross-cultural workforce is the respecting of cultural differences.
While the expansion of business is absolutely necessary for successful growth, it is also required to compare the cultures of the home country and the target country to avoid any cultural disputes. Sweden, the home country of H&M has a low score on the power dimension which interprets Sweden as independent and has a hierarchy for convenience. Unlike the USA, where the less powerful members of the organisation expect and accept that power is distributed unequally, in Sweden is the employees are anticipated to be consulted. USA has a low score in power distance and a very score of individuality which makes the USA a country of liberty and justice for all (Lin, Wang & Chen, 2013). This feature makes the USA a state where the unequal treatment is not accepted, and people can openly voice their opinion. The Americans are slightly on the masculine side which is a vastly different trait than Sweden. Americans are derived by competition where the Swedish culture believes in liking what they do. The uncertainty of avoidance rate America is found higher than in Sweden, making Sweden a country that is more relaxed by nature in an uncertain situation. Sweden is also open to the ideas and tries different methods of achieving success, however, when the methods do not work for them, they are happy to abandon or change them. The United state has a very low score in the long-term orientation which makes the country adapting to social change and views social changes as a positive move, unlike Sweden where the long-term orientation has a high score that makes Sweden a state where the traditional values play an important role. The indulgence level of Sweden is high that indicates that Swedish culture exhibit a willingness to realise their impulses and desires when it comes to enjoying life and having fun. The American culture scores little lesser than Sweden, that makes itself a country that believes in hard work at the same enjoying life.
Cultural Differences between Sweden and the United States
Politics: Many external factors are present in a state that needs to be considered when companies aim for international business with cross culture. The political aspects consider the political decisions that may affect the economy, socio-cultural environment, emergence of new technology and acceptance of new technologies (Silverstone, 2017). With a stable political environment, advanced technology and infrastructure the state has attracted many foreign direct investments. One of them is H&M that has been in the USA. However, the USA promotes democracy around the world and therefore, the people have the right to object to any act that is felt offensive.
Ethics: Ethics refer to the accepted principles considered either right or wrong (Bednarz, 2013). Ethics govern the conduct of a person, actions of the organisation and the members of a profession. A certain act can be identified ethical in one society and unethical in another society. There are explicit and implicit types of ethical code. The implicit is unwritten but well understood, and the exact system of ethics is the written policy that specifies the ethical and unethical behaviour explicitly. It includes employee behaviour, hiring practices, business direction and cultural differences. In the present situation, it is an implicit code of ethics to use the black kid for the promotion of the ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ t-shirt. The advertisement displays a racist attitude that is unacceptable in the United States where the state has a major culture identity of black people.
Legal: Legal issues consist of the set of laws that dictates about the activities that are wrong (Policy, 2016). Any events that will go against the set of laws prescribed by the state or government will result in a punishable offence. The laws can be in regards to financial, safety, discrimination or bribery.
Social mission helps in bringing purpose and defines how a business will engage with its customers, employees, stakeholders and other people related to it (Dees, 2017). Serving a certain kind of social mission can be empowering and also helps in demonstrating the business well. Similarly, H&M has some corporate social responsibility. The company is committed to sustainability for a very long time. The company is known for using renewable and sustainably sourced materials. It has been contributing to help create fewer pollutions and cause less damage to the environment.
The H&M group is moving to become the sustainable fashion brand (Turker & Altuntas, 2014). However, there are other companies as well who are coming up with similar as well as better ideas. Although at present H&M is not affected by cultural obstacles after apologies to the audiences, it is facing some other problems. Increase in competitions is one of the main reasons for the Swedish company to not perform well. The company has 4500 physical outlets across the globe and decides to open more 390 while closing 170 outlets. The company is in severe need to come up with innovative ideas to retain its customers.
Strategies for Overcoming Cross-Cultural Barriers
Conclusion
During the research on H&M it is discovered that the business is family operated, the first store that opened was just for woman, and also all of its top management including the board are all Caucasian. Their marketing techniques are not diverse at all when the website is visited its geared towards one culture and the designers featured in the origin store are not culturally diverse. The question arises if the company is intentionally trying to leave specific culture groups out. The majority of their clothing is made in Asia in a sweatshop where a high rate of sexual harassment is found and the wages are extremely low. The company wastes a large amount of textile and they have been involved in many incidents surrounding Racism or Cultural insensitivity.
Prior to the research and the incident with the Monkey sweatshirt, H&M was assumed as a fairly priced retail store to find clothing for every occasion. Also, it was assumed that the founder was Caucasian but the store origin country was the United States. With the store being so popular and also having a popular parent store Zara; it was not expected that the company manufactured clothing outside of a sweatshop. Racism existing in the organisation was not assumed, and the company produced clothing for all culture. However, after the research, the top manager is believed to be non-diverse, and the company does not cater to the diverse client base including the marketing team as insensitive to the different cultures of the customers. The only aim of the company is to generate revenue and not the well-being of the employee which concludes that the company will start to phase out of specific communities due to the merchandising choices.
References:
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