Chapter 5 Culture, Management Style, and Business Systems 161 In the Mary Kay Latin America region, the company dedicates its time and resources to helping end domestic violence. Funds have been donated to provide refuge for children. Free psychological, medical, and legal support is given to help women and children suffer-ing from domestic violence. Mary Kay Mexico also cosponsors an international education seminar for shelters and a campaign to create awareness about violence against women. The company provided funding for a related hotline. In the Europe region, the CSR focus also remains steadfast on women and children. Efforts include Mary Kay Ukraine’s commitment to breast cancer awareness and care and Mary Kay Armenia’s provision of food, academic assistance, and medical and psychological assistance to children and the elderly. In Germany, the company supports children with disabilities; in Kazakhstan contributions are directed toward surgeries for children with limited auditory abil-ities; and in Russia, free operations for children with facial injuries and cancer are provided. Throughout the Asia Pacific region, the company supports a variety of women’s issues. Examples include donations to support building libraries in South Korea. Mary Kay also partners with the United Nations Development Program and the China Women’s Develop-ment Foundation to promote female entrepreneurship in China. Finally, we mention three notable examples of corruption fighting, ranging across the levels of government, corporate, and individual initiatives. First, the government of Norway is investing its vast oil profits in only ethical companies; it recently withdrew funds from companies such as Walmart, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin, in line with its ethical criteria. Second, Alan Boekmann, CEO of the global construction company Fluor Corp., is fed up with the corruption in his own business. He, along with colleagues at competi-tor firms, has called for a program of outside auditors to determine the effectiveness of firms’ antibribery programs. Third, in 2001, Alexandra Wrage founded Trace International, an Annapolis, Maryland, nonprofit that provides corruption reports about potential foreign clients and training for executives involved in business in difficult areas.85 We laud all such efforts. Perhaps Lester Thurow provided the most articulate description of how culture influences managers’ thinking about business strategy.86 Others are now examining his ideas in even deeper detail.87 Thurow distinguished between the British–American “individualistic” kind of capitalism and the “communitarian” form of capitalism in Japan and Germany. The business systems in the latter two countries are typified by cooperation among govern-ment, management, and labor, particularly in Japan. Contrarily, adversarial relationships among labor, management, and government are more the norm in the United Kingdom, and particularly in the United States. We see these cultural differences reflected in Hofstede’s results—on the IDV scale, the United States is 91, the United Kingdom is 89, Germany is 67, and Japan is 46. In cross-national relationships between retailers and suppliers, Uncer-tainty Avoidance (UAI) and Long-Term Orientation (LTO) have been found to increase the importance of fairness, while Power Distance (PDI) slightly decreases it.88 We also find evidence of these differences in a comparison of the performance of American, German, and Japanese firms.89 In the less individualistic cultures, labor and Culture’s Influence on Strategic Thinking 85 See http://www.traceinternational.org. 86Lester Thurow, Head to Head (New York: William Morrow, 1992). 87Gordon Redding, “The Thick Description and Comparison of Societal Systems of Capitalism,” Journal of International Business Studies 36, no. 2 (2005), pp. 123 – 55; Michael A. Witt and Gordon Redding, “Culture, Meaning, and Institutions: Executive Rationale in Germany and Japan,” Journal of International Business Studies 40 (2009), pp. 859–85; Gerald Albaum, Julie Yu, Nila Wiese, Joel Herche, Felicitas Evangelista, and Brian Murphy, “Culture-Based Values and Management Style of Marketing Decision Makers in Six Western Pacific Rim Countries,” Journal of Global Marketing 23, no. 2 (2010), pp. 139–51; Carlos M.P. Sousa, Emilio Ruzo, and Fernando Losada, “The Key Role of Managers’ Values in Exporting: Influence on Customer Responsiveness and Export Performance,” Journal of International Marketing 18, no. 2 (2010), pp. 1–19. 88Donald L. Lund, Lisa K. Scheer, and Irina V. Kozlenkova, “Culture’s Impact on the Importance of Fairness in Interorganizational Relationships,” Journal of International Marketing 21 (2013), pp. 21– 43. 89Cathy Anterasian, John L. Graham, and R. Bruce Money, “Are U.S. Managers Superstitious about Market Share?” Sloan Management Review 37, no. 4 (1996), pp. 67–77.
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