In American and French cultures, power distance is not distributed equally. In these cultures, it is derived from the level of management and the position one has in terms of power distance relationship. Second, uncertainty avoidance -? it is the extent to which people create beliefs when they feel threatened by ambiguous situations in order to avoid them. This cultural dimension is relative in both French and American cultures. In both cultures, threatening situations exist and personnel are advised to avoid risky and ambiguous situations as much as possible.
Third, individualism. Individualism is the inclination of people to look after, foremost, themselves and their immediate family only. American culture is highly characterized and depicted by individualism. In organizations, employees look after oneself along with his immediate family. In the other hand, the French always highlight group and team dynamics. They always emphasize what is best for the group. And lastly, masculinity; masculinity is very apparent in American culture where money, success and material things are valued dominantly.
In the French ultra, on the other hand, there exists a tradeoff to femininity because they do not emphasize materialism. 2. In what way has Trampers’ research help explain cultural differences between the United States and France? According to Trampers’ research, there are several cultural differences between the French and American culture. The four organizational cultures that he highlighted are: Eiffel Tower Culture -which is characterized by strong importance on orientation and hierarchy to the task; followed by Family Culture which focuses on orientation and hierarchy to the person;
Guided Missile Culture which stresses the importance of orientation to the task and equality in the workplace; and lastly, Incubator culture which characterizes strong emphasis on orientation to the person and equality. In the USA, there exists an egalitarianism philosophy that is mainly characterized by a guided missile type of culture. This type is further exemplified by the presence of a formal organization that promotes task orientation and support for people in the workplace. In this type of work environment, a manager is the one making decision for the greatest good Of he group, for the greatest number.
In the northwestern European culture, the Eiffel Tower organizational culture is then exemplified. The French is more laid back, subdued, and includes traditional approaches to their management style. In the French culture, a bureaucratic organization is common. 3. In managing its Euro Disneyland operations, what are three mistakes that the company made? Explain. A mistake that Euro Disneyland made is their lack of fully understanding the French culture. Their decision to serve wine in Euro Disneyland restaurants was an essential factor to meeting the needs of the French culture.
Another fault of Euro Disneyland management was their lack of communication to and between French farmers, politicians, villagers, and even bankers. And last was their excessive admission pricing into the theme park and hotels as well as food purchases. This investment then became a so-called cultural Coherency. It was further characterized as American provincialism. There French culturally prefer a Victorian style to the Disney theme park and instead of French managers filling in managerial sections, expatriates were hired. . Based on its experience, what are three lessons the company should have learned about how to deal with diversity? One lesson Disney should have learned about is the importance of marketing research. It is important to know what consumer want and how things are done in their culture. Management should have researched on preferences, tastes and practices of French culture. Second, they also should consider the country climate, and third, the country food preferences, practices and food consumption patterns.