TABLE OF CONTENTS Sociologists often refer to institutions in their analysis of societies, by which they typically mean the key 'pillars' of society such as the family, religion, education, the mass media, business and financial institutions, labour movements, the state and its agencies, and so on. These key institutions both shape and are shaped by national cultural beliefs, assumptions and values (Tayeb, 2003). We have already seen this process at work when describing how the cultural values concerning education in different countries have been related to business success. In addition to the national institutional framework, we also have to consider the role of supranational institutions, which include bodies such as the European Union (EU), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA). Thus, it is possible to make an analytical distinction, at least, between the more abstract notion of national culture, with its emphasis on values, assumptions and beliefs, and the more concrete notion of institutions that refer to the particular organizational forms and structures of behaviour that define a society.
In the business literature, institutional analysis has been used to describe the variety of national or regional models that provide alternative and often competing modes of operating in the global economy. We touched on this concept in Chapter 1 when examining the sources of ideas on management. As we have suggested, competition between national systems has led to much borrowing and diffusion of practices, but these cross-border developments...
