University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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What are the differences in the way they adopt these international values and how
does it relate to the company itself? How does the culture of the company influence
the policy or does it have no influence? Understanding the culture of a country is
important in conducting the day-to-day operations in the country. But is this truly so?
Or does globalization force people to adapt so much so that culture is no longer
existent in companies; rather it only exists when one is outside business?
In anthropology, culture refers to inherited artefacts, good ideas, habits and value;
other definitions suggest knowledge, belief, arts and morals (Burke 2004). The
authors define culture as a common identity and knowledge that are shared by
collective group of persons. Culture is sometimes taken for granted in that it is so
much ingrained in a person or in a group, that information that are already common
knowledge are no longer that conspicuous since like-minded persons already have
this realisation and the piece of information is familiar and thus most are apathetic. It
is also with this common knowledge that they share, that makes behaviour, attitude
and reactions become also similar in this collective group. Thus, it is in this
perspective that makes the idea of comparing Danish and Chinese cultures, two
contrasting cultures, appears relevant since the differences can then be more
conspicuous. This research shows that social norms and behaviours can be shown in
the way companies conduct business, specifically through their CSR projects and
how their CSR policy functions within the company.
The Chinese philosophical foundations of Confucius and Mencius, as well as its
traditional hierarchical system are influential in the governance of Chinese
companies. The cultural institution of Danish people is instrumental in the historical
formation of its social welfare state, and this is believed to have influenced
corporations in the way they conduct business and possibly its commitment to CSR.
Hofstede (2000) gives another perspective on culture, in which he refers to culture as
a kind of mental programming, a continuous process in which every person acquires
the patterns of thinking, feelings, and potential acting, throughout their entire lifetime.
With this, he describes that everyone belongs to a number of different groups and
categories of people at the same time, therefore, people carry several layers of mental
programming that corresponds to different levels of culture. Within this research,
national culture is particularly important as the authors would like to distinguish
between the Chinese and the Danish attitudes towards corporate social responsibility,
from a nation’s point of view. Although with Hofstede’s approach, nations and
societies are not equated, and he distinguishes that common culture applies more to
societies rather than nations. The five dimensions of culture by Hofstede (2000) are
as follows:-
(i) Small vs. Large Power Distance
The first dimension, power distance, is very much related to inequality in a society.
Hofstede (1991) defines power distance as the extent to which the less powerful
members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that