9 Values and socio-cultural environment

Learning Outcomes
Introduction
Meaning of values
Indian philosophy and values Elements of culture
Business and culture
Effects of socio-cultural environment on business
Summary

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

After studying the module students will be able to understand:
Meaning of values
Indian philosophy and values Elements of culture
Business and culture
Effects of socio-cultural environment on business

MODULE 8: VALUES AND SOCIO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT INTRODUCTION:

Ancient Indian culture and philosophy is based on strong foundation of long admired and adopted ethics, ethos and values. India is a large secular country made with a combination of diverse culture, religions, caste, culture and rituals. For this reason, India is famous for its unity in diversity. The culture prevalent in India is the way of living of the people residing here. Languages, religions, dance, music, architecture, food and customs differ from place to place within the country. The Indian culture is often termed as the amalgamation of several other cultures, span across the Indian subcontinent and is influenced by history that is several millennia old. There are many special features of the Indian diverse culture that have a profound impact all over the world in general and on Indian business paradigm in particular.

MEANING OF VALUES:

Value is the worth of a thing, object or an idea. A Value can be considered as a belief, mission or a philosophy that is meaningful. Every individual has a core set of personal values which he/she follows, but sometimes not consciously aware of them. Values can range from the simple and common aspects to the more complicated psychological aspects. Thus, values can be said to be the state of feelings or emotions that influence the choice or decision and determine the manner of using the intellect for justifying the choice or decision.

In other way, values are the basic fundamental beliefs that an individual thinks to be true. They are the set of belief through which a person looks at all things and also at the world at large. Values are thus said to be the guiding principles in one’s life by which an individual makes a choice of decision regarding good and bad, right and wrong and more important to less important. Therefore, values are laudable worthwhile objectives and goals in human life which brings peace, progress and prosperity in one’s life.

Indian Philosophy and Values:

The Indian philosophy encourages the holistic development of the individual. The spiritual growth of an individual is not diverse from its professional growth. India is one of the few countries having the longest history of unbroken continuity of culture, tradition and ethos. In this present scenario, management is something new to the Indians. Ancient India was one of the leading countries in the world in trade and commerce. There is a need that our mangers should remember this great heritage and base their role as a manager on Indian philosophy. In this regard, the role of Vedas is very essential.

The Vedas gives an ethics of overt duties rather than inner virtues, an ethics of doing rather than being and all duties are clearly directed towards worldly end. The Dharmashastras also preach an externalist ethics where inner motive or intention of the doer does hardly seem to constitute the rightness and wrongness of the action done by him. The Dharmashastras are more or less given to us in the form of a legal code. Although at times it talks about inner purification. Purity of motive and intention is also necessary for doing moral acts; only overt acts will not do. In the Upanishads and later in the Bhagawad Gita and other systems of Indian thought what is more important in ethical consideration are not the external acts, but the inner dispositions which prompts the acts.

Sins is not merely failure to do the right, but failure to let good intentions to act. According to the Buddhist and the Jain outlook, actions are good or bad not in terms of the external consequences they produce, but the inner motive which prompts them. In other words, it is the purity or impurity of motive which decides whether an action is right or wrong. However, neither Buddhism nor Jainism fully ignores the importance of consequences in judging an action to be right or wrong. Their attitude seems to be that only consequences do not determine the rightness or wrongness of an action.

DEFINITION OF CULTURE:

Culture can be defined as the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by their language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Few key definitions of cultures are as follows:

The earliest definition for culture was presented by Tylor in the year 1871: “

Culture or civilization, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

Another, more modern definition of culture is, “A society’s shared and socially transmitted ideas, values and perception, which are used to make sense of experience and generate behavior and are reflected in that behavior”.

Culture is universal among all human groups and even exists among some primates.

All cultures have to provide for the physical, emotional and social needs of their members, enculturate new members, resolve conflicts and promote survival for their members.

Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. Culture is communication, communication is culture.

Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior that is the totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted or more briefly, behavior through social learning.

A culture is a way of life of a group of people i.e. the behavior, beliefs, values and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.

Culture is a symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group’s skills, knowledge, attitudes, values and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.

Culture consists of patterns which are explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.

Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.

Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

Elements of Culture:

Culture includes at least three elements:

Knowledge and Beliefs: This refers to people’s prevailing notions of reality.

These include myths and metaphysical beliefs as well as scientific realities.

Ideals: The ideal refers to norms of society which define what is expected customary right or proper in a given situation. “Folkways” and “mores” are important aspects of every culture. Folkways refer to norms of proper behavior that are informally enforced like proper way to greet a person. But mores are norms of obligatory behavior considered important for the welfare of the group.

Preferences: Preferences refer to those things in life which are attractive or unattractive as objects of desire, which may differ between cultures.

“A culture tends to provide the standards of tastes in specific lines of human activity. What is tasteful in one culture may be highly distasteful in another.”

Characteristics of Culture

Culture has five basic characteristics. It is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated and dynamic. All cultures share these basic features:

(i) Culture is learned: It is not biological and we do not inherit it. Much of learning culture is unconscious. We learn culture from families, peers, institutions and media. The process of learning culture is known as enculturation. While all humans have basic biological needs such as food, sleep and sex the way we fulfill those needs varies cross-culturally.

(ii) Culture is shared: Because we share culture with other members of our group, we are able to act in socially appropriate ways as well as predict how others will act. Despite the shared nature of culture, that does not mean that culture is homogeneous or the same.

(iii) Culture is based on symbols: A symbol is something that stands for something else. Symbols vary cross-culturally and are arbitrary. They only have meaning when people in a culture agree on their use. Language, money and art are all symbols. Language is the most important symbolic component of culture.

(iv) Culture is integrated: This is known as holism, or the various parts of a culture being interconnected. All aspects of a culture are related to one another and to truly understand a culture, one must learn about all its parts, not only a few.

(v) Culture is dynamic: This simply means that cultures interact and change. Because most cultures are in contact with other cultures, they exchange ideas and symbols. All cultures change, otherwise, they would have problems adapting to changing environments. And because cultures are integrated, if one component in the system changes, it is likely that the entire system must adjust.

BUSINESS AND CULTURE:

Culture characteristics are very important in formulation of business strategies. The cost of ignoring customs, traditions, taboos, tastes and preferences etc. can be very high. The interface between business and culture can be understood from following points:

(i) Culture creates people: It is the culture which generally determines the ethos of people. It tends to train people along with particular lines which puts a personality stamp on them like Indians, American, Britishers, Japanese etc. These are sub-cultures within a culture. When people with different cultural background promote, own and manage organizations then the organizations themselves tend to acquire distinct cultures like culture of “Tata” group of companies is different from that of “Birlas”. Culture performs at least four functions:

Culture distinguishes between one organization and another. It conveys a sense of identity for organization members.

It helps in creating a sense of commitment to do something nobler than one’s own interest.
It enhances social system stability.

So, culture acts like social glue that helps hold the organization together by providing appropriate standards for behavior of members of organization.

(ii)Culture and Globalization: As one moves from one country to another there comes an element of “Cultural shock” i.e. confusion, disorientation and emotional upheaval e.g. An executive transferred from India to Japan will require lot of adjustment to make. So, to overcome “Cultural shock” there is need for understanding and appreciating cultural differences across the countries.

(iii) Attitude to Business: Businessmen must have some basic set of philosophies to guide their action. Beliefs value system, concerning what is right and what is wrong, are basic to business activity. Attitude of people towards business is largely determined by their culture.

(iv) Attitude to Work: How a worker looks at his work depends on his culture. Motivation, morale and other related aspects of human resource management are based

on worker’s attitude to work. Japanese have achieved progress because of their commitment to work.

(v) Culture Determines Goods & Services: The type of clothes people wear, the food they eat, the building material they use to construct houses vary from culture to culture and time to time with in same culture. Business should realize these cultural differences and bring out products accordingly.

(vi) Ambitions: An ambitious person is highly motivated, has a strong urge to excel and is prepared to change the organization. Economy also becomes vibrant if a major portion of population is of ambitious persons.

(vii) Education: In traditional society, education was a preserve of Brahmins. Things have changed over the passage of time. Education institutions have come up now in all corners of the country and now we have more number of primary schools than USSR and USA put together. Education benefits business. Business in turn has responded and started supporting education. This support is manifested in starting and maintaining educational institutions, sponsoring employees for continuing education and bearing the cost of the education of employee’s children.

(viii) Family: The family is one of the chief agencies of social life. The family is important for various reasons such as inheritance, property rights, protection, morality, care of sick and aged and the transmission of cultural values. Nuclear families have become common now in our society in place of joint family system. With big families being broken up, family business is slowly turning into limited companies. All these developments are important to business.

(ix) Ethics in Business: Ethics refers to the code of conduct that guides an individual in dealing with others. Ethics is important because:

It corresponds to basic human needs.
Values create credibility with the public.
Values give management credibility with employees. Values help better decision making.
Ethics and profit go together.

(x) Time Dimension: It refers to people’s orientation-past, present and future. Time dimension is another aspect of culture that influences business. Societies which are oriented towards past tend to preserve past heritage. Our society is good example of past and future orientation.

(xi) Religion and Business: Religion plays an important role in one’s life. It disciplines an individual to lead an orderly life. The major religion across the world are Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Budhism. Every religion is further subject to further stratification like in our society it has been stratified into four major castes and those are Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras. Religion influences business to a great extent. In business boss-subordinate relationship, attitudes of people towards business and many other issues depend upon religious beliefs.

(xii) Marriage: Marriage is a social institution which results in settled life, systematized and organized activities and multiplication of people. Though traditional objectives of marriage are prevalent even today but institution of marriage can affect the economy. A career oriented well settled career woman may have to leave her job after marriage for change of place or otherwise which is a great loss to the society and ultimately economy.

(xiii) Cultural Resources: Cultural resources means heritage and our country is rich in cultural heritage. South East Asia and Central Asia received culture from India alongwith other things like rice, cotton, sugarcane, spices and even game of chess. Even decimal system is the invention of Indian mathematician. Sanskrit literature is one of the greatest contributions India has made to the culture of mankind. Useless ancient Indian culture has vanished and whole of India is changing like, animal sacrifices, Sati Pratha are no more in existence now but cultural tradition of India continues.

Some of the important factors and influences operating in this environment are as follows:

(a) Social concerns, such as the role of business in society, environmental pollution, corruption, use of mass media and consumerism.

(b) Social attitudes and values, such as expectations of society from business, social customs, beliefs, rituals and practices, changing lifestyle pattern and materialism.

(d) Role of women in society, position of children and adolescents in family and society.

(e) Educational levels, awareness and consciousness of rights and work ethics of members of society.

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT ON BUSINESS:

Businesses do not exist in a vacuum and even the most successful business must be aware of changes in the cultures and societies in which it does business. As society and culture change, businesses must adapt to stay ahead of their competitors and stay relevant in the minds of their customers.

Changing Preferences: A major socio-cultural factor influencing businesses and business decisions is changing consumer preferences. What was popular and fashionable 20 years ago may not be popular today or 10 years down the road. Different styles and priorities can undermine long successful products and services. For example, a clothing company must constantly be aware of changing preferences when creating new products or it will quickly become outdated.

Demographics: Changes in demographics are also a significant factor in the business world. As populations age for example, markets for popular music and fashions may shrink while markets for luxury goods and health products may increase. Additionally, change in the proportion of genders and different racial, religious and ethnic groups within a society may also have a significant impact on the way a company does business.

Advertising Techniques: Advertising is perhaps the area of business most closely in touch with socio-cultural changes. Advertising often seeks to be hip and trendsetting, and to do this, advertising agencies and departments cannot lose track of the pulse of the societies in which they engage in business. Changes in morals, values and fashions must all be considered when creating outward facing advertising.

Internal Environment: In addition to a company’s interactions with the market and its customers, socio-cultural factors also impact a company’s internal decison-making process. For example, changing gender roles and increasing emphasis on family life have led to increased respect for maternity and even paternity leave with organizations. Additionally, attitudes towards racial discrimination and sexual harassment have changed drastically over the years as a result of socio-cultural change.

PARTICIPATION OF BUSINESS IN CULTURAL AFFAIR:

After understanding the nature of culture and cultural factors influencing business now it can be explained as to why business takes active part in culture. Business participation in cultural affairs can be explained in a way that it provides better quality life which further improves recruitment and retention of employees, encourages own cultural growth of every employee and provides a better place for their children to grow into better human beings.

It can also be explained with the help of following two things a business does for culture:

(i) Support to cultural activities:

Business helps in encouraging and promoting cultural activities like; sponsoring cultural programmes through radio & television, sponsoring awards for excellence, employing artists and musicians, organizing exhibitions, sponsoring sangeet samelans etc.

(ii) Beautification of designs of buildings:

Beauty of buildings was not considered important factor in designing and constructing of buildings. But now buildings are constructed for factories keeping in mind budget alongwith the “aesthetic value”. If factories are aesthetically designed and well beautified then employees feel more satisfied working in such factories and their efficiency also increases besides reducing labour turnover rate.

SUMMARY:

Values are laudable worthwhile objectives and goals in human life which brings peace, progress and prosperity in one’s life. Culture or civilization, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Culture characteristics are very important in formulation of business strategies. The cost of ignoring customs, traditions, taboos, tastes and preferences etc. can be very high. As society and culture change, businesses must adapt to stay ahead of their competitors and stay relevant in the minds of their customers.

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REFERENCES:

Pramod Sharma, “Business Ethics and Corporate Values: An Indian Perspective” Ravitanaya Publications, Shimla, 2017
S.K Bhatia, “Business Ethics and Corporate Governance” Deep & Deep Publications, New Delhi, 2004
A.C. Fernando, “Business Ethics and Corporate Governance” Pearson Publication, 2013 Harris & Hartman, “Organizational Behavior” Jaico Publication House, 2002
French, Bell & Vohra, “Organization Development” Pearson Prentice Hall Publication,2009
S B Gogate, “Human Values & Professional Ethics” Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi,2011