Cultural Differences In Business: Analyzing Kluckhohn & Strodbeck’s Dimensions In Blue Ridge Spain Case

Nature of people

Discuss about the Intercultural Management Analysis.

Kluchholn and Strodbeck’s identified six major cultural dimensions, which are as, Nature of people: the basic nature of an individual is generally considered to be either good or bad. If the people are socially oriented then they are termed to be good while on the other hand, a bad person is considered to be selfish (Carroll 2015). The next dimension is known to be as the existing relationship with the nature.  Most of the people believe that the people should live in harmony with a supporting attitude towards each other. The duties towards others people is also highly relevant to know the nature of the individuals as it helps to know whether it is relevant to give more importance to self or to group of people (Hynes and Veltsos 2018). The mode of activity is the next dimension that focuses on being where and what activity is more important than being with the people. The next dimension is privacy of space that is owned by the individuals (Reiche et al. 2016). It showcases whether it is important to have open partnership, where people can easily meet and greet other people or meetings should be made inside the closed door. The last factor is temporal orientation, this shows that either past, present or future factor should be given more important (Kwiatkowski 2016).

The cultural models that is identified by Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck is considered for the Ridge Spain Case business thus, indicates various major cultural differences. The observations from the case study indicated three cultural models that are showcased through the major three key players. They are namely Yannis Costas, Sodergran and Carlos Martin. YannIs Costas strongly represents the combination of both Greek and American culture model. Sodergran has presented the cultural model of America and Carlos Martin; the last key player represented a Spanish cultural model (Amster and Böhm 2016).

Sodergran: Sodergran showed a strong individualistic trait, he laid a greater emphasis on himself and his goals instead of others. Moreover, he also used to brush off the suggestions provided by others without creating any values.

Yannis Costas: Costas has showcased very well-built sense for social hierarchy. Nevertheless, he further showed that he is also capable of performing his main duties towards different groups and individuals. It is also ascertained that instead of being unable to get the promotion that he deserved, Yannis was very encouraging towards the manager that was hired lately.

Relationship with nature

Carlos Martin: Carlos displayed his nature that distinguishes the social classes greatly. He gives more importance on his own duty than to others. He also was very supportive to Balaguer’s insult towards to Sodergran and referred toward his intellectuality.

Sodergran: he tends to give more importance on his decision making power and designation to a great extent. He only gave more importance to his power and decisions and discarded all the suggestions that he used to obtain without giving any considerations.

Yannis Costas: Costas always believed that the achievements led to increase his status but he was always more than ready to recommend essential support to all the distinctive classes.

Carlos Martin: Carlos believes that help in expressing more emphasis on the present social class.

Sodergran: Sodergran lays more emphasize on the personal space as he is more individualistic. Moreover, he tends to avoid all such contacts that are related to outside his work. Personal contact is also of not much importance or greater significance to him.

Yannis Costas: Costa has balanced his action quite well while on the other hand has maintained a distance from the managers of America.  Moreover, Costa was also quite ready to make contacts with Spanish managers and it would be a great way to make such personal contacts. Costa was able to greatly balance his action.

Carlos Martin: Carlos has always put more importance to the individual contacts that relates to the performance of the business.. In addition to this, the subjective nature of the venture has also been ascertained through these actions (Xing et al. 2016).

The Blue Ridge Spain is a joint venture that was established between a Spanish agricultural company called Terralumen and American fast food chain.   This has also led to the contribution of the success of Delta in the foreign market. After 15 years of the harmonious joint venture between the groups Costas was highly shocked to know that the new owner Delta is keen on ending the partnership despite of the joint venture profitability.

Therefore, various cross-cultural conflicts between the parties of various nationalities resulted in the dissolution of joint venture between Terraleum and Delta. As the American and Spanish Joint ventures partners cannot relate to the common polices and goals. Therefore, they failed to work together as a group. The Hofstede’s Model has helped in demonstrating all the individuals that lives in a particular country to share similar values by bringing all such similar values that brings value to the firms in which they work.

Privacy of space

According to the Hofstede’s power index, the individuals living in a particular nation often tends to have similar values that lead to bring values to the firm for which they work accordingly. The major difference present between the mangers of Terralumen and Delta makes is quite difficult to make sure the longevity and success of Blue Ridge Spain. Yannis Costas is of Greek nationality and Greeks are relatively very high on power index besides the uncertainty avoidance (Barmeyer and Franklin 2016).

Being a Greek, Costas often value the main interpersonal trust and relationship that has been built over the years. Costas also values the interpersonal trust and relationship to create a successful joint venture. Costas with such a great personality was therefore often employee so that the relationships between the partners can be easily mended (Rees and Smith 2017). The ethics related to the company’s strategy was also questioned by Yannis Costas so that he can gain the upper hand in the negotiations. Carlos is from Spain and represents Terraleum. Therefore, he also shares the similar characteristics with Yannis Costas that includes both mutual respect and patience. This is the reason that has caused the partnership between Carlos and Costas to grow strongly since the last few years. Both of them can easily understand the intangibles related to business, relationship and cultures (Trittin and Schoeneborn 2017). Whereas, Mikael Sodergran, who represent Delta is from Finland.

According to Hofstede’s, Finland, shows that both USA and Finland are having high individualism countries. In both the countries, personal opinions and decisions are highly important. Sodergran have strong work ethics that lays major emphasizes on quick result with short-term orientation. He wanted a more aggressive and rigorous growth from Blue Ridge Spain for gaining maximum profit. Whereas the others mangers of the company were content with the existing growth rates and also protest on Sodergran’s rapid expansion plans (Barmeyerand Haupt 2016). Personal relationship is given less important by the people in Finland.

• The preference for Power Distance is 40: 57.
• The preference for individualism/ Collectivism is 91:51
• The preference for Masculinity/Feminity is 62:42

Individualism vs. collectivism: it is the degree to which the individuals present in the groups are integrated. The IDV ratio is seen between America and Spain at a degree of 91: 51. The masculine cultures values are mostly due to competitiveness, power, assertiveness and materialism (Tjosvold 2017). On the other hand, feminine culture places generally much more emphasis on the quality of life and relationship. U.S. is seen to have high Individualism and collectivism between the groups. Uncertainty avoidance is generally made to decrease the incidence of unusual conditions. This leads to processing implementing and planning the policies, rules and regulations, and laws.

Temporal orientation

Mapping:

The Spanish culture strengths are that they mostly give high significance on the social status. In addition to the Spanish people mostly believes that personal contacts are of relatively high importance to for the increase in business performances (Barmeyer and Mayrhofer 2016). The major weaknesses of the Spanish culture are that they are greatly dependent on the subjective nature of the business. They take immense pride while executing their business actions that is strongly noticed while dealing their business deals. As the Spanish people have this social status centric business approach, therefore the Spanish people are in some way not dependent on the relative social factors. (Liu, Volcicand Gallois 2014). Major emphasis by the Spaniards is led on the personal contacts that lead to the growth of the ventures performance. While  the subjective nature of the business makes it difficult to make the business more flexible and its growth. While the social pride of the people hinders the venture of the business with all the foreign companies.

The Greek culture mainly focuses on business with an action oriented approach, moreover on the same time necessary biasness is also led on the social position. The Greek also shows more biasness related to the social position. While from the industry perspectives, major decision-making business is made from the subjective perspectives (Mockaitis, Zander and De Cieri 2018). Moreover, major emphasis is given on the social status, which hinders the existence of present creative ideas. The biased approach while dealing with the businesses hinders the growth and profitability approach of the businesses.  According to the Greek culture, the personal contacts to a great extent help in increasing the profitability and growth of the business.

The American focus on a quick business advance that lays major emphasis on the reliability of the businesses. Moreover, the Americans are also highly individualistic in nature. The flexible and immediate business background helps to make major business decisions within a very time. The individualistic viewpoint of the American people creates high stress on the individuals business.  The uncertainty culture avoidance of Spain is very high.

Comparing the cultural differences in the two countries would assist in understanding the difference in the behavior and attitudes of Yannis Costas and Michael Sodergran. The best way to analyze the cultural differences is by the use of Hofstede’s cultural dimension scale. The comparison between the culture of Costas and Michael’s countries would reveal their individual thought processes (Stein and Scholz 2016). Costas is from Greece, Michael hails from the United States, and hence the Hofstede’s comparison has been carried out between these two nations. The results of the comparison indicate clearly the reason behind Michael’s refusal to continue the partnership with Costas.

Observations from the Case Study

As per the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Greece score 60 in the power distance index (PDI) that implies the country is acceptable to inequalities and believes in hierarchy. The U.S. on the other hand scores 40 in the PDI that reveals the country’s opposition to inequalities and hierarchical structure. Further, the Individualism score of 35 in case of Greece and 91 in case of the U.S. demonstrates the tendency of the Greeks to depend on and stay connected to in-groups like immediate family and extended families (Salgado 2018). While in the U.S., people are more independent and do not accept instructions or orders from others.  The next dimension is Masculinity in which both countries have similar scores. However, the low score of 57 for Greece in this dimension shows that the country possesses qualities of care and respect for others. America, on the other hand, apart from being individualistic and independent, is highly masculine, meaning the people in the country always crave to be the best even if it means at the cost of someone else’s wellbeing.

Greece as a nation has displayed the characteristics of being uncertain about the future. In the Uncertainty Avoidance Index, the country scores the highest that is 100 as compared to 46 score by the U.S. the score of 100 clearly indicates the Greeks are highly concerned and unwelcoming of uncertainties. The high score of UAI also means that Greece places high regards on laws and rules. America, on the other hand, scores low on UAI that reveals its nature of welcoming new and innovative ideas. In the Long-term Orientation dimension, the U.S. has, scored low (26) compared to Greece, which indicates that its society believes in maintaining time-honored norms and traditions while suspecting any changes in the society. Greece in this case, has scored 45, which indicates that the society is takes a more realistic approach to view societal customs with doubt. The sixth dimension is Indulgence, which represents a society’s ability to indulge or restraint from social norms. Greece scored 50 on the dimension that makes t difficult to analyze whether it has an indulgent or restrained culture. In contrast to it, the U.S. has score quite high with 68 that reveals the country has a restrained culture. However, when put in comparison with other dimensions, the U.S. society presents contradiction (Ooi 2015).  On one hand, the country wages war against drug addiction and on the other; it has one of the highest rates of drug addiction.

Cross-cultural Conflicts and Dissolution of Joint Venture

Bridging:

To bridge the cultural differences in this joint venture, the statement is highly important for intercultural management (Rees and Smith 2017). There are vital three necessary strops that s highly important for effectively bridging the capacity of the various cultural dilemmas. The steps that involve the bridging processes are as follows:

Prepare: it is highly important for all the parties that are involved in the Blue Ridge joint venture to properly use the inspirational techniques for clear perceptive through proper motivation. Communicating the intercultural differences is highly important to bridge the cultural differences. The leadership should be effectual enough to sustain assurance through the effectual communication skill (Reiche et al. 2016). The owners require to be positive so that the existing company venture would lead to provide encouraging outcome. Mikael Sodergran should come up with an effective strategy to expand their businesses. On the other hand Delta is opposed to the idea of joint venture businesses; therefore, it is important to bridge the gap as this decision of ending the joint venture would impact the future joint ventures in Spain and other part of the countries (Mockaitis, Zander and De Cieri 2018). It is important for Sodergran to concentrate on building an effective relationship rather than separating himself from the current business.

De-center: it is highly significant for the joint ventures parties to properly explain the problems without blaming it to others (Liu, Volcicand Gallois 2014). Moreover, the conflicts and the problems need to be effectively solved without considering the motives of others at the time of sending and receiving the messages (Mao and Hale 2015).

Re-center: it is important to accurately set efficient communication as they necessitate to effectively sharing the considerate about the situations (Rothlauf 2015). It is crucial to find a universal position on which the people can equally have the same opinion. Moreover, it is also important for them to create a business approach with a proper perceptive.

Integrating

It is important to manage the cultural difference by integrating the bridging components (Robinson-Easley 2014). The key elements of the Blue Ridge venture usually focuses on two crucial factors that are as follows:

Building Participations: the joint venture needs to establish routine and effectively monitor the participation rate to create effective participation (Thomas and Peterson 2017).

Conflict Resolving: it is important for the business to identify the main cause for the creation of conflict and disagreement between the members (Austin et al. 2017). It is important to address the proper techniques to resolve the disagreement or conflict between the members. Moreover, it is also important to focus on avoiding the negative disagreement (Grobelna 2015).

Cultural Differences between Spain and the United States

Scenario:  The manger of the joint venture manger attempts to demonstrate the cultural mending procedures to the other parties related to the Blue Ridge joint venture.

Social Competency: The manager is highly capable of identifying the existing conflicts and should also act accordingly to it (Buzzanell 2017). The managers of the Blue Ridge Analysis are also adaptive to understand the existing body languages of the other members.

Preparation steps: it is important to send email so that the every responsible le mangers of Blue Ridge Joint Ventures can be easily called upon. The mangers should also confirm the time and meeting related to the place (Rockstuhl et al. 2015).

Stage	Verbal Behavior	Non-Verbal	Values	Cultural Dimensions
A.  Approach	Getting with good-natured remarks Entering the business conversation with the other people	Creation of eye contacts smile	longing to improve the sympathetic of the managers on all other cultures	Duties towards others
B. Bridging	Main focus should be made solely on the venture instead of blaming it to others.	Asking for the response of other members. To consider every comment by bridging with much greater attention.	It is highly important to find out the common position within the joint venture business approach (Martin and Nakayama 2015) .	Collective Approach.
C. Commenting	There is a crucial contentment to conduct the business in a better environment.	To face every mangers	Significance of feedback at the beginning
D. Developing	It is also important to achieve success with the mutual contribution.	Smiling More eye contact	Positive response from others mangers (Timothy and Boyd 2014)

Deltas foods are currently facing the problem is to expands its business in Germany and France besides opening more of its stores in Spain. Moreover, in this condition, the major problem responsible for Blue Ridge is that the company has developed effective profitable relationship with Terraleum. Thus, the decision made by Delta to dissolve its partnership with the companies has led to create a negative impact on two major countries. It is highly recommended for Delta foods to not to go in dissolution with the Blue Ridge Spain. From the case study, it has been itself analyzed that the company has been a long standing partner of the Blue Ridge Spain. Moreover, the company has also lead to the accumulation of reasonable profits. The collaboration made between the both parties has highly benefitted both the organization. Hence forth the decision of dissolution will negatively affect both the parties involved.

Yannis Costas: it has been raveled from the case study that Yannis Costas is the main and key member involved. He is the central figure as he makes effective strategies so that a dissolution strategy can be made that can help Delta to get involve into the joint venture with Terralumen. In the current scenario, Costas has also developed a smooth and positive relation with Terralumen; therefore to form dissolution strategy is also highly inappropriate. Therefore, it is recommendable for Costas to ensure that all the goals and targets that are providing to Terraleum must be available and reasonable enough. Meanwhile Michael Sodergran is also concerned about the profitability of Terralumen. Henceforth, Yannis Costas also leads to revise the present targets so that the targets set are easily achievable. This would provide advantage to both the parties and also make Terraleum become the joint partner with the new business.

It is recommended for each of the partners to mend their existing relationships or should go and try to make it work.  It is crucial for the Delta Company to consider the cost of the buyout besides all the possibilities that would get affected by the decisions. Most of the mangers of Blue Ridge Spain’s restaurant would be acquired by Terraleum.

It has been revealed that Delta and his teams does not like joint ventures and henceforth wants to put into practice a strategy for the increased profit and growth of Blue Ridge Spain.  Michael Sodergran wants to gain an increased growth for its business in Spain so that the markets can be easily developed in France and Germany. Moreover, it was also seen that there was a large communicational between the members, which it made it quite difficult to handle the business. Moreover, they also belonged to various cultural backgrounds. The cultural background made it quite difficult for the people to carry the business. Yannis Costas questioned the business doing ability of Sodergran and though that he does not have any idea of running the business.

I therefore think it is inappropriate to do business in such country, when the cultures, values and communication styles are not known from before. In addition to this, most of the business generally belonged to the different cultural background. Generally, each culture has their own definition of ideas for their success in business. The idea of starting a new business in different culture is not feasible, if proper procedure for maintaining the strategy is not effectively maintained. I think reactive communication should be avoided by creating an effective proactive cross-cultural communication. Moreover, it is important to mange pre-existing cultural perceptions. As it becomes important to understand the cultural sensitive people as it is highly important to build rapport of a person through the phone and e-mail. It is highly important to increase self-awareness and adapt an effective leadership style. The very first step responsible for admitting and acknowledging the existences of cultural differences includes the difference in interpretations, perceptions and proper evaluation of the social situations that creates them.

 It is important to find an effective solution to understand and simplify the complicated process of behaving in an effective cultural condition. The cultural differences should not be easily ignored as later on this becomes the major source of disagreement between the various managers. I think it is important to minimize the cultural difference by carefully managing the intercultural differences. In the current era of globalization, globalization, it is highly relevant that globalization is found in the workplace. The potentials and resources of the organization should be optimized effectively without any differences. Through effective communication strategies the existing gap between the organizations can be bridged. Moreover, good knowledge of the foreign language will also prove to be very helpful for the firms. The case study clearly shows that due to huge gap in communication among the leaders the issue got more complicated. It was therefore necessary to discuss all the problems among themselves so that an adequate solution can be obtained from the business.

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