Passport U. A.: Your Pocket Guide To North America

Annotated Bibliography
USA
Engel, D., Szerlip, B. & Watson, T. (2001). Passport U.S.A.: Your pocket guide to North American business, customs and etiquette. Novato, CA, USA: World Trade Press. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cityuniv/detail.action?docID=10026330

The Passport series of books provide a basic outline with respect of doing business with cultural point of view. In this book, the authors give concise and easily accessible tips about business culture in the USA. It’s a handy tool for someone who wants to learn many basics in a very short time. The book speaks about the American language as varied with regional touches and some regular slangs, movies and television that aims at a wide audience, and basic American nature as individualistic, just and liberal.

In chapter 7, on Work environment, the author describes mostly the business culture in Northern USA as prompt, with immense focus on getting the work done, in time and within budget. Ambition precedes everything including self, family and hierarchy. Though Americans believe, time after the work hours is their own, and they do share personal affairs with colleagues, “Business before pleasure” is the rule.
Business atmosphere is informal, hierarchy is less noticeable. Streamlining business process, doing hard work and following the rules and optimistic attitude is prevalent among the business world. Women and men are equals in this culture. Networking is important, though making connections is not as prominent as seen in some Asian cultures. In conclusion, for business in American culture, prime importance is Results, Money, Clarity and Efficiency.

Ralston, D. A., Holt, D. H., Terpstra, R. H., & Kai-Cheng, Y. (2008). The impact of national culture and economic ideology on managerial work values: A study of the United States, Russia, Japan, and China. Journal of International Business Studies,39(1), 8. doi. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400330
This Journal article is based on studies conducted at managerial levels, of companies with multicultural business environments, with regards to American, Russian, Japanese and Chinese cultures. The authors imply, that with the increasing globalization and diverse cultural work environments, cultural assimilation in the work place is imperative. This cultural assimilation will surpass personal values and differences, to form a unified corporate culture, and thus help to propel the organizations, towards their common goal, of corporate growth. For these studies, the parameters used are culture, work values and capitalism.
The article refers to various studies done in the past like Hofstede and Bond (1988) Harris (1979), and Kelley et al. (1987) etc., to state that culture depends on various factors like history, religion, education etc. America has less prominence of hierarchy and group focus and more focus on individualism and self-centered ‘economic ideology’. This is in contrast to their eastern counterparts who are more group focused, and have a collective approach. American business culture, is result oriented, with prompt time expectations. The world economies are dominated by countries with diverse corporate cultures, but with a common purpose of success. A unified business culture is desired, with segments from all cultures and thus have diverse, common overlapping values, as well as acceptance, tolerance. However these studies show that, the values are so diverse, that creating a temporary corporate culture is more beneficial than a single global one.

Pan, Y., Song, X., Goldschmidt, A., & French, W. (2010). A cross-cultural investigation of work values among young executives in China and the USA. Cross Cultural Management, 17(3), 283-298. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13527601011068379
This article, describes two studies, which are conducted to understand the cultural value differences between American and Chinese managers. These studies were conducted using business people from both

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