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International Business

notes still remains. India has four main castes and several thousand sub-castes. Even though the caste
system was officially abolished in 1949 it is still a powerful force in rural Indian society where
occupation and marital opportunities are still partly related to caste.
While many societies have class systems, social mobility within a class system varies from society
to society.

Significance Attached to the Social Strata in Business Contexts

From a business prescriptive the stratification of a society is significant if it affects the operation
of business organizations. In American society, the high degree of social mobility and extreme
emphasis on individualism limits the impact of class background on business operations. The
same is true in Japan where most of the population perceives itself to be middle class. In a country
such as Great Britain, however, the relative lack of class mobility and the differences between
classes have resulted in the emergence of class consciousness. Class consciousness refers to a
condition where people tend to perceive themselves in terms of their class background and this
shapes their relationships with members of other classes.

Religious and Ethical Systems

Religion may be defined as a system of shared beliefs and rituals that are concerned with the
realm of the sacred. Ethical systems refer to a set of moral principles, or values, that are used to
guide and shape behaviour. Most of the world’s ethical systems are the product of religions. Thus
we talk about Christian ethics and Islamic ethics.

The relationship between religion, ethics and society is subtle, complex and profound. Among
thousands of religions in the world today, four dominate Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and
Buddhism. Perhaps the most important business implications of religion centre on the context to
which different in religions shape attitudes toward work and entrepreneurship and the degree to
which religious ethics affect the costs of doing business in a country.

Did u know? From business point of view, society stratification is very significant in the
success of any business.

3.1.5 language

One way in which countries differ is the means of communication i.e. the language-spoken and
the unspoken. Language is one of the defining characteristic of a culture.

Spoken Language

Other than communication language also structures the way we perceive the world, its certain
features. For example the English language has one word for snow; the language of the Inuit
(Eskimos) lacks a general term for it. Instead the different forms of snow is so important in their
lives they have 24 words that describe different types of snow (e.g. powder snow, falling snow,
wet snow, drifting snow).
Because language shapes the way perceive the world, it also helps define culture. In countries
where there are more than one language, one also often finds more than one culture. Canada has
an English-speaking culture and a French-speaking culture Tensions between the two run quite
high, with a substantial proportion of the French-speaking minority demanding independence
from a Canada “dominated by English speakers”. The same phenomenon can be observed in
many countries.

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