Part -1:
Activity 1: Thomas Friedman on Globalisation; 3 Eras of Globalisation; World is flat
1. What would be some of the key drawbacks or risks of living in the flat world of Globalisation 3.0 as Friedman describes it?
2. Do you agree with Friedman's iron rule of the flat world? Explain.
3. Is the level of globalisation uniform across the world? Explain.
Activity 2: PankajGhemawat on Globalisation
1. Has your view on globalisation changed after listening to Professor Ghemawat? Explain.
2. Consider where you have seen the fears that people have about globalisation. Do you think these fears may subside with some data points that may suggest otherwise?
Activity 3: Online tool to explore different countries' 5 dimensions by Hofstede
1. How does the Australian culture compare to other world cultures (eg. Your home country or other countries that you have visited)?
2. Do you agree with the survey results for the Australian culture? Why or why not?
Activity 4: 'The myth of national culture' - Counter argument to Hofstede's work by Professor Brendan McSweeney at Royal Holloway, University of London
1. Do you agree with Professor McSweeney's view on national cultures? Why or why not? After viewing the survey result done by Hofstede on your home country, who do you think offers a more compelling argument on national cultures? Can a single culture be used to determine the actions of entire population?
Activity 5: 'Riding the waves of culture' - Talk given by FonsTrompenaars at TEDxAmsterdam
Questions to consider:
1. Consider your experience with cultural conflict or culture shock. What were the different viewpoints that you had to reconcile? And how did you overcome the differences?
2. What would be the benefits of connecting different viewpoints as Trompenaar suggests?
Activity 6: ‘Building a cross-cultural web design for a wider audience' (Christian Arno in Design on 22nd
Questions to consider:
1. Can the concept of High and Low Context cultures be applied to other areas of business? - marketing and advertising, PR, customer and supplier relationship management, etc.
1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.
Part -2:
Activity 1: Corporate culture and strategy
1. Can you think of any examples where you experienced various culture types (Market, Clan, Adhocracy and Hierarchy culture) as a consumer to, or employee of, an organisation?
2. If so, what is your evaluation of the aligment between its corporate culture and strategy?
Questions to consider:
1. Why do you think people's definition of culture may vary?
2. Which definition of culture do you agree with most and why?
Activity 3: Corporate culture instilled in HRM practices and customer satisfaction:
(1) ‘Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit
(2) ‘Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talks about building a culture-based company'
Question to consider:
1. What does building a culture-based company entail?
Activity 4: Toyota's corporate culture and the problem of spreading its culture
URL: ‘MIT's Steven Spear Discusses Toyota's Corporate Culture'
Question to consider:
1. How would you describe Toyota's culture using the seven dimensions of organisational culture and/ or the Cultural Web?
Activity 5:Cultural web and its use in practice (call centre)
Questions to consider:
1. Do you agree with the author's view on the effectiveness of cultural web model in changing corporate culture (compared to other models of corporate culture) as presented in the article? Why or why not?
2. What would be the benefits of using typology type instead?