| dc.description.abstract | This research intends to highlight key differences in business culture in the United States and Spain as well as emphasize which differences hold the potential to cause inconsistencies in how executives manage a company. American corporations looking to expand into Spain should acknowledge these differences to help establish what are the necessary potential changes to operations. The key elements addressed in the following pages are values, ethical framework, collaboration and communication, and organizational identity. This research also highlights selected elements in the last section focused on Costco and Netflix's expansion to Spain. Cultural differences play an important role on how multinational corporations implement and manage a business in a new business culture. Each product market is unique, and corporations cannot pinpoint simply one, correct approach to entering a market in a different country. For example, in the United States, employees are accustomed to working toward the common good of the company. In Spain, the idea of the "common good" resembles the oppressive Franco regime and lack of individual liberties (Argandona, 1999, p. 157). It is important when analyzing company values and how they align with employee values, that American companies consider the lasting impact of Franco's regime on Spain's social dynamics and business culture. One way that American corporations could potentially address this difference in values would be to instill in Spanish employees that when they benefit the company, the individual employees will feel the results of that success. Individual successes will aim to drive the company's progress, while respecting the individualism of the citizens. American employers cannot expect to change the values that have developed from the experiences of a nation. Instead, they can show that companies and individuals can succeed in unison. It is challenging for a company to change its infrastructure relating to ethical framework to fit a foreign culture. That being said, notable differences in the ethical climate between the United States and Spain exist. Rather than ignoring these differences or trying to completely change the company's framework, American companies can utilize transparency and honesty about their approach to ethics and make ethical behavior a consistent priority for employees and managers to follow. Many multinational companies have endorsed having a global code of ethics which would remain consistent across borders (Schwartz, 2005, p. 30). The meaning behind these strategies is that companies need consistency in ethics. If an American company has a code of ethics in the United States, the corporation is expecting all locations to maintain consistent ethical standards. It is essential when looking at collaboration and communication that employees share what they learn to enable the curation of knowledge for the company (McAteer & Eimicke, 2019b, p. 186). Although corporations might be very experienced and know how to share information within the company, they are operating in a foreign market with a new talent pool. How can employers show employees that sharing knowledge will lead to success? One way might be to link the Spanish sector of business to the company's mission and make it clear that Spain plays an integral part in the future of the company. Although this branch of the company might represent only a fraction of the corporation, it is responsible for sharing information with the entirety of a company to help with its overall profitability. Organizational identity is a complex factor in business operations, especially when first establishing the internal framework of a multinational corporation. One of the most influential differences is that of varying degrees of power distance. Spanish culture is accustomed to higher degrees of power distance, meaning that it is common for authority to be concentrated more in leaders rather than evenly distributed (Khatri, 2003, p. 293). Power distance is an influential factor in a country's culture and business executives cannot change. However, it is possible to attempt to leverage this value through appealing to another, for example, individualism. Business executives might strategize, for example, to appeal to the Spanish employees' desire for individual liberties to make them more comfortable in a workplace with more shared responsibilities and authority. This strategy maintains respect for the country's power distance, but still enables companies to operate in a way that is familiar to the corporation. The purpose of this research is to examine what factors could potentially impact American corporations as they enter the Spanish business market and show that there is more than one way that an American company could prepare to operate in Spain. Particularly, the analysis will focus on values, ethical framework, collaboration and communication, and organizational identity. The cases of Costco and Netflix, two multinational corporations that have successfully entered Spain, will show the companies' responses to several of the focus points of the research. Inevitably, there are factors that impact multinational business that this research will not address, and the research should not be considered a comprehensive list of all cultural differences between American and Spanish business. The research highlights selected cultural differences between the United States and Spain and clarifies which differences impact business operations. Culture is not something that should be mistaken as a hindrance to multinational corporations but is rather an asset that companies can utilize when they begin operations in a new location. | |
