“Right underneath a person’s physical appearance, there are a lot of cultural influences that make someone who they are,” says Simon Greathead, a teaching professor of global supply chain at the BYU Marriott School of Business. As he teaches his students about international business and culture, he says he hopes to help students build bridges of understanding and Christlike culture in their future business roles.
Greathead developed MSB 432: International Business and Culture to give BYU Marriott students meaningful content related to culture. He explains, “The objective of the class is that whether they work internationally or domestically, students can recognize and leverage their multicultural skills to improve business across national borders.”
To achieve the course objective, Greathead teaches students the eight scales for visualizing culture, created by author and international business professor Erin Meyer in her book “The Culture Map.” The eight scales are proposed ways to measure how a country’s culture perceives and acts on various elements of business, such as communication. While a low-context culture may communicate through messages that directly state everything that is meant, a businessperson in a high-context culture more likely has to read between the lines to interpret a message.
The course follows a weekly rotating schedule for students: one day learning the theory behind one of the eight scales, one day examining a case study that illustrates the scale, and one day participating in a related simulation that requires each student to make decisions in a global context. “By putting students in the mind of a business decision-maker, I think it opens up their eyes to the fact that there are differences in the world that can be resolved with understanding,” Greathead says.
Part of the class, Greathead explains, is designed to help students understand where certain countries lie on the different scales of business culture. But beyond a textbook knowledge of different cultures, Greathead hopes that understanding the scales gives students a framework they can use to navigate any culture they visit. “If my students were to go to a country that they’re unfamiliar with, those eight scales will start showing up in what they’re observing around them,” he says. “That should inform them how they then react to that particular culture.”
Greathead found an additional scale to measure cultures by when Elder William K. Jackson gave a general conference address in 2020 entitled “The Culture of Christ,” which describes a culture centered on the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “It was really a gift of the Spirit to hear Elder Jackson connect my class with the gospel,” Greathead says.
Inspired by the talk, Greathead now assigns students to create a framework for evaluating cultures based on the culture of Christ. “I don't think the Lord cares about whether you drive on the right-hand or left-hand side of the road,” he says. “But He does care about things like how we treat one another, how we resolve conflict, and how responsible we are as an individual within society.”
Although the purpose of the assignment is to look at cultures on a broader scale, Greathead says that he’s also seen students take a more personal approach. “I have many students talk about how compelling this assignment is in thinking about the tone that they want to set as far as the culture in their own life and in the lives of their family,” he says.
Greathead says he hopes that through understanding the differences in global cultures and businesses, students can not only optimize the influence of their future companies but also feel connected with people all around the world. “Sometimes differences in culture can drive wedges and cause cultural conflict,” he says. “I’m hoping the output of this course is to do the opposite.”