El programa Safehaven y la eliminación de la influencia alemana en España

3.1.1 Overview of Culture

Culture has numerous dimensions and definitions in literature. Therefore, it is not easy to define culture (Straub et al., 2002; Leidner and Kayworth, 2006). Culture has been defined in different disciplines, with different definitions found in business, biology, anthropology, sociology, business and information systems (Srite and Karahanna, 2006;

Leidner and Kayworth, 2006). In fact, reviewing the literature of culture reveal contrariness in opinions and concepts of which norms, beliefs and values can distinguish the attributes of culture (Srite et al., 2003).

In a very broad and simple appreciation of the term culture, it might be understood by many of us as the way we generally live, the languages that we can talk, the food we prefer and eat, the stories we narrate, the clothes we dress in and how we celebrate different events (Pettigrew, 1979; Kalman, 2009).

Hofstede et al. (2010) give some examples of the things that may reveal the term culture:

eating, greeting, exposing or disabling feelings, greeting others, keeping a certain physical distance to others, maintaining human body hygiene and making love. Another important aspect of culture is about race and our roots: what do our ancestors believe and what makes our life distinguished from the lives of other people? (Kalman, 2009).

Other definitions that describe the concept of culture have been given by Seng et al.

(2010) as, “something that is collectively shared by members of an organization”. The term culture originally emerged from the field of anthropology (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952; Sackmann, 1992; Agourram, 2009) and has become a main research stream (e.g.

organizational studies) (Agourram, 2009).

Leidner and Kayworth (2006) classify the levels of culture: national culture, organizational culture and group culture. National culture (cross-cultural) and organizational culture have emerged as largely different research themes which both focus on identifying values that differentiate groups of people from each other (Leidner and Kayworth, 2006).

Culture is a challenging issue to study since it has various divergent definitions and measurement items (Leidner and Kayworth, 2006). When conducting research that involves a culture element, the first challenge is to understand what culture is, how it is conceptualized and the possible dimensions that form the concept of culture (Straub et al., 2002). To make clear this picture of having various definitions of the term culture, it is notable to mention that culture has been conceptualized in 164 definitions (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952). Those definitions have been formed in different ways and from many perspectives (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952). This illustrates the diversity and complexity of the concept of culture. However, it is beyond the scope of this thesis to discuss these definitions.

The definitions of culture differ in their understanding and their use of a central concept (Sackmann, 1992). This creates some ambiguity and conceptual confusion since different authors use those concepts in different ways (Sackmann, 1992). Culture has been framed by central concepts in different distinct components including ideologies, sets of beliefs, basic assumptions, sets of shared values, important understandings, and

“collective programming of the human mind” by Hofstede (Sackmann, 1992). Sackmann (1992) commented on these combinations of concepts: „“at this stage of theory development, it is unclear which one or which combinations of these frequently used concepts represent culture best”.

As mentioned above, culture has been identified in different disciplines. In the context of psychology, Schwartz (2006) describes it as, “the rich complex of meanings, beliefs,

practices, symbols, norms, and values prevalent among people in a society”. In the context of sociology, Schein (2010) defines culture as, “a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solve its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relations to those problems”.

But there are also other names, which should be mentioned with regard to research on cultural definitions. In the context of anthropology and sociology, a cross disciplinary definition of the culture concept was given by Kroeber and Parsons (1958). According to the authors, culture is defined as a “transmitted and created content and patterns of values, ideas, and other symbolic-meaningful systems as factors in the shaping of human behaviour and the artefacts produced through behaviour”. Further, in the context of business, Thompson et al. (1999) defined culture as, “the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values regarding the extent to which an organization supports and values the integration of employees’ work and family lives”.

3.1.2 The Importance of Studying Culture

The rationale behind studying culture has been reasoned by Hofstede et al. (2010) as:

“One of the reasons why so many solutions do not work or cannot be implemented is that differences in thinking among the partners have been ignored”. This reason might be given by Hofstede et al. (2010) based on how they define culture, “It is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the member of one group or category of people from others”.

This definition is actually based on the similarity of the way that computers are programmed. Therefore, it treats patterns of thinking, feelings and acting as software of the mind or mental programs. Thus, these mental programs are partially responsible for determining a person's behaviour (Hofstede et al., 2010). As depicted in Figure 3.1, culture level relates to groups and categories, and it distinguishes mental programs of human nature from those of an individual's personality (Hofstede et al., 2010).

The relationship between 'mental programming' and the term culture can be clarified in the levels of uniqueness in mental programming. Three levels of uniqueness were identified by Hofstede et al. (2010): human nature, culture, and personality. Figure 3.1 taken from (Hofstede et al., 2010) shows where the level of individuals falls in the definition of culture in terms of mental programming. It classifies mental programs based on the levels they belong to and whether they are learned or inherited.

Figure 3.1: Three levels of uniqueness in mental programming (taken from Hofstsede et al. (2010))

In this research, mental programming at the personality level has a strong link to what is being investigated. Hofstede et al. (2010) define the personality of an individual as: “his or her unique personal set of mental programs that needn't be shared with any other human being”. Human nature demonstrates a person's mental software at the universal level (Hofstede et al., 2010).