| Abstract: | In the graduation project we studied the impact of culture on international business in the case of Slovenia and Serbia. In the theoretical part, we first defined the concept of culture and corporate culture. We then describe and graphically demonstrate the Iceberg Model, showing the layers of culture. Culture is presented as a set of visible and invisible factors. Afterwards, we researched the dimensions of culture, according to Geert Hofsted. In the next section we describe possible aspects of solving cultural differences. There are several ways of doing that and we find that it is very important to choose the right one. These aspects include ignoring cultural differences, minimizing and beneficial use of cultural differences. In the next two sections, we studied the characteristics of Slovenian and Serbian corporate culture. For both of them we have listed their language, religion, business habits, and described their accounting. We came to a conclusion that these two corporate cultures, despite the geographical proximity, are rather different. We continued with a description of the companies, Impol, d.o.o., from Slovenska Bistrica, and Seval, a. d., from Serbia. After that, we made a graphic representation of accurately measured indices of culture dimensions for Slovenia and Serbia, according to Geert Hofsted, and compared them with the actual situation in both companies. We listed which aspects of resolving cultural differences are used by Impol, d.o.o. and indicated the uses of these aspects. We also compared the business practices of the two companies and carried out a comparison between the Slovenian and Serbian way of accounting. We find that this comparison may be useful for all companies that do business with Serbian companies. As a result of the project, we find that culture has a major impact on business in the case of Impol, d.o.o., looking at relations between Slovenia and Serbia, and we suggest ways of practical application. |
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