Crosscultural Perspectives (Research Paper Sample)

Cross-Cultural Perspectives
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Multinational corporations have the benefit of operating in and with diverse cultures to make their merchandises and services available to a far extensive community. The motivation for reaching outside their borders makes viable sense. When international companies advance into other countries, there may be a notion that since everyone in the company is working on the same objectives and values, they will inevitably communicate, contemplate and understand the world in the same way. However, multiple cultures have trouble when they start working together. Language and lack of understanding the norms of a certain culture lead to the problems.
Coca-Cola is a global organisation, which has a multinational presence. The company started in 1886. Its headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America. Its main products are non-alcoholic beverage concentrates. The company sells its products to more than 200 countries globally and has many branches all over the world hence a multinational. Coca-Cola has been in a plan to expand its operations and market share in the Africa region because the company is seeing its fastest growth in developing markets, which are majorly in Eurasia and Africa. The company's progress in developed countries is stagnant. Its growth plan is to generate high single-digit currency neutral earnings-per-share growth. Coca-Cola has grown drastically ever since it was developed. It has taken over a large market share of beverage consumers.
Coca-Cola as a company has staff working in their branches in countries outside the USA as expatriate staff, those recruited from or work within their home countries or even from third country nationals. Challenges in a new environment are always experienced. There could be conflicting interest among the government, public and the company. The government in that country could introduce high levies that discourage potential investors from coming into that country. The public may demand some facilities as a sustainability condition for the society. If the company has not grown its income, it may feel oppressed in terms of acceptance into the region it's targeting.
International business involves the interaction and movement of people across national boundaries and an appreciation of cultural differences. Communication and cultural differences are the big problems faced in a new country. Companies who extend their business abroad have to face a challenge of cross-cultural communication. They claim that communication is the only approach by which group members can cooperate with each other toward the goal of the organization. Particularly for multi-culture firms with some firms in other countries, it is necessary that managers have frequent communication and sufficient understanding of organizational goal. However, understanding the traditions and ethical norms of other countries is not an easy task to staff whose origin is different from the host country. One has to learn the ways of those people to treat them according to their norms; it also creates a good rapport between the company and the people in that community.
Ethical perspectives
The ethical perspectives facing the organisation are ethical relativism and universalism. Ethical relativism affirms that there is no single truth based on ethical or moral behaviour for all time and geographic space as interpretations of truths are influenced by one's culture. Universalism on the hand holds that moral values are the same for everyone. Coca-Cola as a global company needs to respect people's cultures wherever they establish a company. If they take the perspective of universalism, they will encounter difficulties to grow in that society because they generalize moral values of the community. The staff in the company may have different cultural backgrounds with their consumers. They should learn to tolerate other cultures to have a good working environment.
Coca-Cola aims to lead by example and to learn from experience. They have set high standards for the people at all levels, and they work to meet the set standards. The company is guided by standards of corporate governance and ethics. It reviews the systems so that they achieve transparency and accountability. The code of ethics and compliance urges business conduct, honesty and integrity as staff carry on their duties in the company. A senior management team supervises and determines code violation and discipline. There are the ethics and compliance office that educates, offers consultation services, monitors and assesses code of business conduct and compliance issues. They conduct online training to all members of the company to ensure ongoing commitment and understanding of the code of business conduct. It is mainly for the staffs that are working outside USA borders because of the distance barrier.
Ethical Perspectives across Cultures
In India, there was a protest regarding water shortage and its pollution from a bottling company owned by Coca-Cola. This issue resulted in the closure of the company. Its business was unethical. The center for science and environmental (CSE) issued a report claiming that there was pesticide presence in some of the beverages that Coca-Cola sold. Coca-Cola held that their products were safe and not harmful as put by CSE. Another test was done, and the products were declared safe. Later, CSE said that what they had tested was the water. Coca-Cola faced many issues concerning its quality, resource exploitation and market manipulation alongside price-quality trade-offs. The public challenged Coca-Cola for its abuse of water resource. Coca-Cola had affected both quality and capacity of ground water. Coca-Cola was condemned for polluting the nearby fresh water, ground water, and soil from its waste extracts. Because of this, farmers are anguishing from water shortage. The company should have followed the ethical relativism by adhering to the expectations of the state. If they had done that, Indian citizens would not riot over water pollution, which eventually led to the closure of the company. In spite of all these social and cultural issues, consumers are using Coca-Cola owing to its strong brand standing all over the world. The public is using more soft drinks many being the youngsters. However, with many studies and policy changes, Coca-Cola will be able to establish its brand reputation and increase its market share shortly.
Solution
Plans to re-enter the market in India is the right solution to all stakeholders. The consumers in the market will continue to enjoy Coca Cola's products; the staff in the company will regain their jobs, which they lost after the closure of the bottling company. Distributors in India will have more products to sell while the suppliers will have the opportunity to issue Coca-Cola with the raw materials for the beverage products.
Coca-Cola should first learn about a place before venturing its business into that place. Lacking enough knowledge about the country and the national culture leads to failure in the business. Coca-Cola is associated with issues related to the brand, reputation and corporate social responsibility. They should have ensured they do not destroy their image brand from the case of pesticide use in their drinks. They later proved that it was not true by conducting a second research of their products.
Despite convincing the public that their products were safe, they should have paid for damages caused to the water sources in India. It would be a reassurance to the citizens that they cared for their environment(Fernando, 2009). They should have set their brand name high to distinguish it from other companies whose main aim is to make a profit regardless of whether their means to make profits has a negative effect to people of that company. Showing importance to the Indian community will change the perception of the organization by the public, which has a positive impact on the consumer behaviour and purchasing patterns.
Indians are people who are keen on their culture. Using Hofstede's cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance in India is less. People there are not flexible to changes in the world. If it were a different country, probably the company would not face a huge problem as it did in India. In India, uncertainty avoidance is indicated at 50 showing that Indians are em...