India. Coming from a land which has played a pivotal role in defining the social ethos of culture and tradition, we pride ourselves in being one of the pioneers of two most important roots of the present society – culture and business.
There was a time, starkly different from today when both these terms had no considerable region of overlap. Traversing back to the Vedic system of life in India, it was a staunch belief that any individual could be involved even in acts of culture or of business. There were a class of Brahmins who had to learn, teach and preach the cultural nuances to people, who were in return awarded with pieces of land, gold and food stock for their services. In contrast, the Vaishyas were assigned the job of agriculture, cattle rearing, money lending, trading or any commerce aligned field. Even though the hierarchy were pre-determined by birth and upheld by segregation, restriction on social intercourse and endogamy, it was acceptable to the society and worked wonderfully in maintaining the then social structure and commerce organization.
Even though both these spheres were considered mutually exclusive then, the route to exchange and symbiotic growth of various countries in the pre-modern period were almost the same. On the northern end as Silk route carved a path for trade and cultural exchange, southern India had maritime business links with the Roman Empire from around 77 CE which later led to the establishment of Indianized societies in Southeast Asia owing to its cultural influence.
It is evident from these ancient facts that business and culture, since forever, have been two aspects of every society, which if not voluntarily, always exist and flourish together, almost never independent of each other. It would be a folly to assume that business (or trade) and culture were considered or maintained separately. In one instance epitomizing their effect on each other is a tale from the Chinese Manchu Qing Dynasty. Qianlong, 1711-1799, Fifth emperor of the Chinese Manchu Qing Dynasty, responded to Lord George MacAartney, representative of King George, who visited China to open up and develop trade in 1793 – “Our dynasty’s majestic virtue has penetrated into every country under Heaven. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious and have no use for your country’s manufacturers.” MacArtney did not even get to see the Emperor. Qianlong wrote the statement and left it on his throne and that is all that the British Emissary got from his trip. In reality much of the difficulty had to do with the refusal of the English party to observe Chinese Court Etiquette. It all had to do with bowing and kowtowing. The Chinese chief minister persuaded the Emperor that since China was the center of the Universe and the most advanced civilization as such China was in no need of the Barbarian English. MacArtney would not kowtow or prostrate themselves in front of the Dragon Throne insisting that kneeling on one knee and bow to the throne as they did for their King. So the king never appeared and MacArtney returned empty-handed. In contrast Isaac Titsingh, the Dutch trade emissary did kowtow and follow court etiquette and was quite successful.
This more than justifies the fact that culture and business, in great effect, germinated and were reinforced due to each other. However, the slight distinction between the two, apparent to a layman, began to fall off as modernization and globalization paved their way into all countries and societies.
Over time, not only did the line of distinction disappear, there came up extensive studies on how culture affects business which later led to a new concept of “business culture” or “corporate culture”, later refined to more theoretical terms like “organizational climate”. There are extensive pieces of study on the intercultural aspect of dyadic business relationship interaction from an individual as well as holistic perspective.
Today, as much as the distinctions in paradigm, social etiquettes and cultural diversity are falling off to establish a global, unified manner in which business is established and sustained, there is a stark trait of one’s culture in his business routine. This is because the global world is on the path to attain a unified and singular corporate culture.
So how does culture in actuality affect business or corporate life?
“Culture” as defined by Ifte Choudhary, Associate Professor at Texas A & M University, refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.” Culture, according to him, has various layers – national. Regional, gender, generation, social class and corporate culture. Whereas “Business” is most simply defined as “an organization or enterprising entity engaged in commercial, industrial or professional activities.”
In such a literal environment, the business or corporate culture is, as defined by Lismen (2004), “a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business”.
Culture reflects both abstract and identifiable components of a corporation from practices, beliefs, customs and values. During the advent of the Industrial revolution, it was believed that the asset base of any greenfield site and its prospective accelerated economics depends on cost structure (fixed and variable costs), value propositions, customer segment identification, revenue streams, key resources (suppliers and commodities), viability (economic and practical), channels and key partners. All these elements were distinguished from immeasurable parameters like employee job satisfaction, quality of work life, consumer relationship management, post-deal services and sustaining customer belief in the brand. As the competition in every sphere from products to service providers has gotten more aggressive over the years, these unquantifiable elements have developed to play the role of the distinguishing “wow” factor for any corporate giant over its contemporaries.
Hence corporate culture plays the role of the distinguishing element both locally, inside the firm in its daily affairs, and globally while expanding its dimension of business to other culturally distinct parts of the world.
Corporate culture, on local, internal terms include the Organizational Climate of an organization and is a very clear reflection of employee job satisfaction. This includes making the employees feel valued, flexibility in work nuances, environment, basic amenities provided, vision penetration into the work force and overall positivity in the organization among other local factors.
On a global scale, apart from all-encompassing ease of communication and shared online resource base, corporate expansion to various countries is unequivocally decided by adaptability of organizational practices to the local culture. Any organization needs to include and exercise cultural awareness in order to achieve a breakthrough in local markets. In most situations a firmly established global name and loyal customer base do not ensure success in new markets. This is shown by this comprehensive plot between cultural awareness and extent of global involvement.
The plot reiterates the fact that cultural adaptability is the sure shot way of entering a new market and establishing a strong hold over contemporaries. Global technology and experience, combined with adaptability to local work culture make a lethal combination for any firm. Hence it is imminent that culture and business have grown to form a pair of Siamese twins.An epitome of striking the correct balance between culture and business and effectively utilizing the former to boost the latter, has been displayed by Coca Cola Company over the past few decades. Marking its re-entry in the Indian market after its 17 years’ absence in 1993, Coca Cola decided to go the Indian way by marketing its return in the form of Juloos – a traditional Indian procession involving a parade of trucks, vans and trolleys. This flashed Indians with the memory of their beloved drink of 1970s and connected well with the festive sentiments of general Indian society. In order to reign the South Asian sub-continent, Coca Cola utilized its knowledge of the fact that India and Pakistan, two neighboring South Asian countries with severely strained political issues that has even resulted in warfare, have very similar culture. Coca Cola in a move to unite our two countries did an incredible thing. They installed two interactive, high-tech vending machines in a popular mall at New Delhi, India and another one at a mall in Lahore, Pakistan. These "Small World Machines" used 3D Touchscreen technology to capture a live image from New Delhi and project that to Lahore and vice-versa. Much like Apple's FaceTime. The machine bought laughter, smiles, cheers and most importantly, a moment of happiness between these two estranged countries, apart from some deep-set marketing and positive PR about the company and the beverages!
Apart from Asia, Coca Cola had culture coherent campaigns in the USA as well. By the time the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Coca-Cola was already established as a symbol of the American way of life. In countless letters home, soldiers serving abroad spoke of fighting for the little things, like an ice cold Coke, rather than politics or ideology. In a mutually beneficial edict, Coca-Cola Company president Robert W. Woodruff declared that any American in uniform could get a Coke for 5¢, regardless of the listed price or cost of production.
Coca-Cola’s advertisements during the war addressed the softer sides of the conflict. Rather than show war-weary soldiers enjoying their product, the company focused on Coke’s ability to bring people and nations together, as seen in ads portraying GIs intermingling and laughing over Cokes with British, Polish, Soviet and other allies from Alaska and Hawaii to Brazil and China, always with a caption along the lines of: “Have a ‘Coke’—a way of saying we’re with you.”
Coca Cola surely hit the bull’s eye with so much perfection that Coke has almost replaced water in every eatery in USA since then.
The company perfectly achieves its aim of penetrating all the seven continents and briefly declared its vision with the very famous campaign “I’d like to buy the world a coke” where citizens of various countries of the world sing the Coke jingle in unison holding coke bottles in their hands. This commercial promotes basic values of racial equality and heralds the dawning of a common global culture of world peace and harmony. Also it worked on the paths of mob psychology and hence they appealed to the sentiments of their viewers. This commercial and song recorded immediate success selling 96,000 copies of their record in one day eventually rising to a sale of 12 million records. It declared to the world that business could be done very differently from the conventional methods of trade. Thirty years after the commercial, Coca-Cola is still more than a beverage. It is a common connection between the people of the world.
Today, 3.1% of world’s beverages consumed around the world are Coca Cola products and you cannot be surprised.
Hence, it is pertinent to note that, culture affects business to the extent of having the capacity to build up or burn down a potential future market. With the gaps in the culture narrowing down at a faster rate, understanding trivial differences in foreign cultures is one art which would definitely determine the monopoly amongst existing competition in every sphere of the corporate world. Undoubtedly, it will be a missed opportunity to ignore this inter-relationship of culture and business.
Hence it is only wise to observe, dwell upon and develop the methods in which cultural awareness and adaptability can be utilized as an effective tool for sustainable, long-term business growth and development across the globe.
