TV stations in Japan and Latin America : a cross cultural comparison

The object of this thesis is to explore the relative importance of industry versus national context in determining the particular operation of an organisation. This is done by comparing two companies in the same industrial sector in two radically different countries. The central question is how much industry factors weigh on the shaping of management practices and business behaviour of companies (within the same industry) located in totally different cultures. For instance, the Asian culture and the Western culture? How much do industry factors count, when the national context does not only comprehend culture, but also economic and socio-political factors? The following research addresses this problem by comparing two companies of the same industry (teleVision networks) which are operating in totally different national contexts (Japan and the Dominican Republic). The analysis will encompass a comparison of industry, management, corporate culture and processes, structure and labour force, operations, competitiveness and overall strategy. Most important is the socio-economic background of both countries which will be examined in order to assess their effects on the management practices and business behaviour of the surveyed companies. This research is, therefore, intended to determine the extent to which television networks in Japan, as well as in Latin America, do abide by specific functional factors imposed by the industry (production, post-production, broadcasting, engineering, sales of commercial time) as well as the extent to which environmental factors have an impact on the actual shape of the organisations in terms of size, structure, systems, and the working of the intra-organisational processes and corporate culture.