Discuss about the Humanities for Bureaucratic Hurdles and Red Tape.
The word “Culture” is derived from a Latin Word “Cultus” which means civilization or “Cultura” that means care. Culture can be defined as a complex system of behaviors that are shared or practiced by a particular group of persons or society. This includes values, beliefs, laws, knowledge, material objects and habits. Society and culture are knotted to each other in such a way that cannot be separated. Society can be defined as groups of people staying in the same religion and following the same laws executed by their regions and countries. Thus, people of the same religion follows the same culture (Kwantes, Boglarsky and Kuo 2010).
Culture is a very important part of any type of business or industry as a business is based on the beliefs, customs, and values of the society in which it is operating. Business Culture can be defined as the personality of an organization or the way in which things are done, commitment to the achievement of organizational goals or the involvement of employees accordingly. The culture of an organization is the lifeblood of its business because it directs and shapes the behaviors in the direction of the chosen destination.
Business Culture is a vast concept that includes the unique qualities of an organization. It summarizes the core values and principles, rules of behavior and corporate ethics of a company. Business culture can be implied in the clothes of the employees at the workplace, interior décor of the office, the mission statement of the company, communication of employees to each other and the tools used by management in measuring the performance of employees (Adamczyk 2017).
The term the UK is abbreviated as “United Kingdom” and is made up of four countries Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales. The UK is also a member of the European Union. The UK is also termed as a multi-faith society because of the existence of different cultures and religions. The main principles of business culture in the UK are politeness, courtesy, punctuality and discipline. The business culture of UK is different form the other countries because of its diversified population. The main elements of the business culture of UK can be understood with the help of below mentioned discussion.
At the time of making the first contact, an eye contact and a handshake should be maintained to greet the other person but it should not be prolonged. The Businesses and organizations of UK do not make any discrimination on the bases of the gender of the employees. Managers and employees are very formal during their initial meetings with each other
The businesspersons and professionals of the United Kingdom in most of the important situations need punctuality. They are very punctual regarding the timings of the official as well as casual meetings. There is a trend of having some small amount of general talk before starting the business talks.
The business culture of the UK can be described with the help of below-mentioned characteristics:
Logical reasoning is one of the most popular characteristics of the business life of the United Kingdom. Bureaucratic hurdles and Red tape approaches are generally not liked and pragmatic approach of formulating the business strategy is favored by most of the companies.
The heart of the overall strategic planning of the organization is the annual budget. The companies usually develop their budgeting processes by making the estimations over four to five years. Reaching to the expected targeted or budgeted figures in a particular industry or market is generally rewarded with the bonus payments (Haffar and Perez 2015).
The British companies and managers prefer to work with the companies or people they know very well. With whom they can relate and identify the needs of the business without facing any type of communication problems. The meetings of the United Kingdom are generally very time consuming and yet, the time for the same are decided in advance to avoid any kind of inconvenience to the involved parties. A small introduction is given at the time of starting the meeting and proposed agenda is discussed in best possible way thereafter. The discussion at the meeting can also be carried out in an informal way. However, as per the task-oriented nature of British Business Culture each of the members who attends the meeting usually leaves the table having a specific task to be performed
The professionals of British are skillful and tough negotiators. During the time of negotiations, the negotiator needs to remain polite and calm because the informal tone can sometimes cover the real seriousness of the topic discussed.
Most of the business people of British follows a pragmatic and rational approach while, on some very important occasions, the agreements are formalized with the help of written documents.
UK Business Decisions
A great degree of delicacy and formality helps in reducing direct criticism in the business life of the United Kingdom. It means a decision is like a proposal, which works as an open proposal for further discussions if the related members think so. The power of the sole decision making of the managers is covered by the indirect and polite way of communication towards the employees of the organization. However, this open communications does not allow the employees to decline the decision made, but it allows the employees to give their opinions about the framed decisions.
The British managers are known for longer working hours in comparison to the British employees. They often miss out their lunch and breakfast for the purpose of working and this makes them late in the social sense.
Because of the high frequency of important meetings, employees and professionals working in an office are generally away from their desk. This makes the need for an appointment to be arranged in advance to save the time of the concerned persons.
The humor of the United Kingdom is an integral part of the indirect or informal communication. Most of the foreign businesspersons have to face the problem with the understatements and code words of the local people of UK. This often leads to the creating misunderstandings between the business parties. These understatements are mostly used at the time of preventing any type of embarrassment, to emphasize a point and to express criticism.
The dress code system of the United Kingdom is strict in comparison to the other nations of the world. A sense of fashion and professional wear is appreciated during the working hours of the organization. Men are bound to wear suits along with a tie, colored or white striped shirt and black shoes. While women are bound to wear suits (with skirts or trousers) or dresses along with high heels. In most of the organizations, employees are free to wear casuals on Friday.
In most of the organizations, the professionals enjoy the dinner with their colleagues on a Friday night. This system of dining together strictly bound the employees to maintain the confidentiality of their work. If someone invites his/her colleagues to the private place for the purpose of dinner or get together, it is considered as the gesture of sympathy or affection, which is not common among most of the business partners.
The businesspersons mostly exchange their business cards at the time of the beginning of a meeting. A business card contains the details about someone’s job profile, name, contact number and the name of the company. Generally, academic titles of the persons are not considered as the same are not generally related to the work (Clegg, Kornberger and Rhodes 2007).
The businesses of United Kingdom are highly committed to fulfilling their corporate social responsibility. For this purpose, every company is required to maintain a Human Resource Department that can assist in the processes related to the CSR of business. The human resource department is mainly responsible for taking care the human workforce of the company. Along with this, the organizations involved in the process of mining and manufacturing are highly committed not to harm the nature and environment because of the functions and practices of the business.
There are some topics and considerations, which are avoided on the highest priority in the culture of the United Kingdom. They are as follows:
Behaviors to avoid
Topics of Discussions to avoid:
The people of the UK view themselves as well mannered, civilized and well-educated to face the challenges and perform any kind of task. They tend to be very cool, understandable, hardworking, difficult to read, detached and class-conscious people. These qualities influence the business culture of the country and the leadership styles of the management up to a great extent. The leaders of the UK do not take any kind of interest in the personal lives of their employees. This makes them task-oriented. At the same time, it reduces the level of kindness, as they are not habitual to provide any kind to leniency to their employees. It results in increasing the level of dissatisfaction level of employees of the United Kingdom.
The business culture of the UK is continuously changing as per the needs and requirement of the international business environment. In the UK, the foreign businesspersons are provided many kinds of feasibilities during the initial days of the establishment of their business. The country is continuously involved in the technological advancements, which are the main reason for increasing the employment opportunities and attracting national and international level employers up to a great extent. The business culture of the UK is favorable for most of the businesses and this makes the British economy open for the other economies of the world. (Ali, et al. 2017)
The business culture of the United States is more adaptable in comparison to any other economy of the world. The UK is a well-developed country, which shows that the business culture of the UK is an objective driven culture.
References
Adamczyk, Marzena. 2017. “The importance of cultural differences in international business.” Central European Review of Economics and Management 1 (2): 151-170.
Ali, Hosni S. Hussein, Ridzwana Mohd Said, Amalina Abdullah, and Zaidi Mat Daud. 2017. “THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON CORPORATE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: A REVIEW.” International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management 5 (8): 585-597.
Clegg, Stewart, Martin Kornberger, and Carl Rhodes. 2007. “Business Ethics as Practice.” British Journal of Management 18: 107-122.
Haffar, Mohamed, and Loredana Perez . 2015. “The Influence of National Culture on Business Negotiations: An Exploratory Study of Venezuelan and British Managers.” International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering 9 (8): 2794-2802.
Kwantes, Catherine T., Cheryl A. Boglarsky, and Ben C. H. Kuo. 2010. “Adaptations of a Global Organizational Culture in China, the UK and the US: Does Social Culture Make Any Difference?” Asian Journal of Arts and Sciences 1 (1): 42-65.
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