Critical Elements in The Socio-Cultural Environment of Business

These different critical elements include:

Social institutions and systems:

Examples include the caste system, the joint family system, child marriage, the patriarchal family and the like that have evolved over time through history, cultural and heritage.

Social values and moves:

Changing social values and moves are beginning to questions the basics of the age old social institutions and system. Customs traditions and conventions are not rigid anymore. Views towards authority, responsibility, and delegations; attitude towards business as profession; views towards achievements and work; views towards ownership and management, are all undergoing rapid changes.

Education and cultural:

Attitudes towards educations; need for business educations; role of business schools; spread of business education, and their impact on business ethics, business morality and organizational cultural, are again major elements of socio-cultural environment of business.

The social responsibility of the government:

Growing levels of achievement and aspiration have to be bridged through a continuous and relentless social effort, keeping in view the social welfare and social constraints. This is where the role of the government comes in. The government has to make sure that the social progress is not handicapped by the tyranny of the majority; otherwise, social tensions will mount affecting business unfavorably.

Social groups and social movements:

In a society, individuals form groups on the basis of caste, creed, religion, language, trade and professions etc.

Socio-economic order. In a pluralistic society like ours (with differences in food, dress, language, religion and sub-cultures); a dual economy (the ‘traditional co-existing with the modern); technology dualism (bullock carts along with airbuses). These reflect a unique socio-economic order in India. From time to time, the socio-economic order gets disturbed, modified or changed, hopefully for the better, through social movements and social policy formulation on subjects like science and technology, ecology and forestry, family planning, animal husbandry etc.

Social problems and prospects:

These are often offshoots of a changing socio-economic order. As society mover from “pre-industrial” to “post-industrial” stage of development, poor housing and sanitation, urban congestion, population and increasing incidence of antisocial activities. What is, therefore, need is a social cost-benefit analysis of industrial development.