The Flow of Culture: Some Notes on Globalization and the Multinational Corporation*

Abstract

Culture can be defined as a process (anthropology), creating codes of conduct or as a product (humanities) as the result of symbolic human activities. In the case of organisations, culture is both, which makes its treatment complicated. The problem is compounded by the mosaic of cultures that permeate our life, and their communication and interchange, which is modifying them all. This process is under way, but two outcomes can be forecasted. One is global homogeneisation; the other is a reinterpretation of foreign cultures in light of one's own, which result in the persistence of cultural core values, and changes in the outward manifestations. MNCs are a culture, and operate themselves into multiple national cultures, influencing them. The predominant view is that organisations "have" cultures that can be socially engineered. Reality however is more complicated than that. Comparing the cultural experience of Disneyland (and partly Disneyworld) with Tokyo Disneyland, the authors show how the same rides are subtly reinterpreted to mean something completely different, in consonance to the Japanese culture as much as the American experience is with the American culture. So, culture proves to be much more resilient than some people would lead us to believe. This brings some implications: - the effect of culture on performance are probably overestimated. - even if a correlation existed, it is not clear what it actually is - cultures take time to evolve, and cannot be changed by plan; - MNCs have an impact on national cultures, and thus thinking about in terms of national culture might not be appropriate anymore. - MNCs can contribute to the creation of a Utopia of differences, though it is unlikely unless the different meanings of the same ritual are explicitly considered.