As we all know, different countries have different cultures. 'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991)
It is inevitable that the cultural difference has impact on business. For example, when a company having meeting, the word "table" in American English that means to put something on the agenda. But in British English it means to put something off the agenda. This example indicated how the culture affects the business.
There are four cultural dimensions that were defined in Hofstede's research: Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism, Masculinity, and recently Hofstede add one more: long-term-short-term orientation.
What I think the most significant influence in cultural difference is the power distance. (Hoecklin,1995:28)"It would condition the extent to which employees accept that their boss has more power than they have and the extent to which they accept that their boss's opinions and decisions are right because he or she is the boss." I considered it as how much subordinates can consent or dissent with bosses or managers. It is the distance between a manager and subordinate. Among most oriental corporate cultures, there is hierarchism, greater centralization, sometimes called 'power-oriented culture', due to the historical reasons. That is a high power distance culture that mangers make the decision and superiors appeal to be entitled more privileges. Their decision always close supervision positively evaluated by subordinates. In this situation, it is not be regarded if a subordinates have a disagreement with their managers, especially in Malaysia, Japan, China, India.
In the oriental, power distance is also associated with 'the family culture' (Trompernaars, 1993:139). In this kind of corporate culture the manager is like the "caring father" who knows better than his subordinates what should be done and what is suitable for them. The subordinates always esteem the managers. Because of the managers age and experience. That is usually how employees get their promotion. There are both positive and negative parts in the family cultures. I feel it is an easy managing system. But sometime it is hard to get young creative employees work well cause of the hierarchy. As Tropmenaars (1993: 142) told us "family culture at their least effective drain the energies and loyalties of subordinates to buoy up the leader." So in family culture,

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