Culture and Organisations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Culture and Organisations - Essay Example However, it is true that national and cultural boundaries often overlap each other and most countries have their own culture. However, there are various typologies created by scholars that help connect cultural differences to national boundaries. The term ‘cultural distance’ can be used to show the difference that exists between two cultures. At this stage, it is worth remembering the Convergence Hypothesis which states that the combination of technology and economics is making countries more alike. For such a huge group of companies like Mitsubishi, this seems correct to a great extent. However, there is the Divergence Hypothesis which states that despite all the developments, countries will exhibit certain distinctive characteristics. There are two key cultural issues that require special attention. They are cultural etiquette, and cultural stereotypes. The former means the manners and behaviour that are expected in a given situation while the latter indicates beliefs about others, their attitudes and behaviour. The different identifiable layers of culture are ethnicity, industry, demography, and ideology. It is very evident that three of these factors except industry can have serious impact on the policies of a company. It is very evident that international business, to a great extent, is affected by culture. First of all, it can affect the way companies make strategic moves. Thus, culture directly influences important corporate decisions. Thirdly, culture is the easiest way through which motivation can be instilled. Thus, management, decision making, and negotiations are all influenced by culture. The company in concern The company in analysis here is Mitsubishi. In fact, Mitsubishi is a group of companies, and the number of companies under the label is around 400. In addition, there are many more Mitsubishi companies that do not have the name ‘Mitsubishi’ with them. The company was started by Yataro Iwasaki in the year 1870, and i t was initially a shipping company. Later on, the founder spread the business into banking, shipbuilding, mining, and insurance too. With the large number of independently operating business under one roof, the company has developed a special kind of working culture. All the members companies share the same founding management philosophy, and cooperate in areas of common interest. It is really surprising to note that the company has its operations in Asia, North America, Central and Latin America, Europe, Oceania, Micronesia, Middle East, and Africa. It is very evident that managing such a great organisation strictly following the philosophies of good human resource management is a tremendous task. As a result, it is quite natural that the company, at times, may face issues related to human resource management. However, the success of the company, to a great extent, is dependent on how the company manages the issues, and what further steps are taken by the company to prevent the occ urrence of the same kind of issues further. The problem in concern A few years ago, in 2003, the Mitsubishi Bank acquired the Tokyo Bank. However, the merger was not a cakewalk, because there was much dissimilarity in the nature of both the organisations. First of all, the employees of Mitsubishi bank were used to reporting for their duty in time. In addition they were used to wearing uniform, especially white shirts, at work. In addition, they used to thank their