When it comes to doing business cross culturally, there are various factors to consider in order make sure everything runs smoothly and as effectively as possible. Understanding cultural differences is the first step to having a successful international business venture. Two pioneers of the field, Geert Hofstede and Richard Gesteland created their own sets of factors/dimensions explaining how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. During both of their comprehensive studies, the United Kingdom was one of the countries whose cultural value were investigated, and will now be examined further.
Geert Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions include power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term versus short-term orientation. In terms of power distance, the United Kingdom falls in the lower rankings of the power distance index (PDI) with a score of 35. This indicates that the UK is a society in which inequalities between subordinates and superiors are not extremely prevalent, which does; however, seem to contradict Britain’s well-established class system. Although many believe the class system is gone in the UK, family ties and regional origins still have an effect on people’s perceptions of others.
With a score of 89, the UK is one of the most individualistic countries on Hofstede’s scale, along with Australia and the US. The British value their privacy greatly are more focused on personal success than the success of the group. They value uniqueness and are taught from a young age to be independent thinkers; which has led the United Kingdom to become a very innovative and dynamic society. Furthermore, considering the UK is a highly individualistic s...
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...t oriented, and deal focused are valued, just like the US. The British are also willing to face risks/uncertainty, stick to a moderately monochromic system and focus on more short-term rather than long-term commitments. They do also tend to appear reserved and not very expressive, yet underneath their modest exterior, are generally very warm and friendly to foreigners/new business contacts. Considering all of these facts, it seems like the US and UK would be an ideal match for international business relations, despite a few slight cultural differences.
References
Hofstede, G.. N.p.. Web. 7 Nov 2013. .
Bosrock, Mary Murray. European business customs & manners. Meadowbrook press, 2006.
Gesteland, Richard R. "Cross-cultural business behavior: Marketing, negotiating, sourcing and managing across cultures." (2002).
The first of the four dimension of Hofstede’s theory of national culture is power distance. Hofstede stated that, ‘the essential issue involved, to which different societies have found different solutions, is human inequality’ (1980; 92). An outstanding aspect of inequality is the amount of power each individual exercises or can apply over others with power being illustrated as the amount in which an individual is able to impact other individual’s thoughts and performance (Hofstede, 2015). Within societies, inequality in power is expected. This inequality in power is typically characterized in hierarchical employer-employee relationships. Power distance, is the degree that less powerful members of organizations inside a nation anticipate and
(1994). Beyond Individualism/Collectivism: New Cultural Dimensions of Values. In U.Kim, H.C. Triandis, C. Kagitcibasi, S. Choi & G. Yoon (Eds.). Individualism and Collectivism: Theory, Method, and Applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 112-115.
Hofstede (1983) suggests that individuals from similar cultures have a “collective mental programming” which is part of their conditioning that they share with other citizens of the country they reside in but not with other citizens who do not live in the same country. Hofstede defines this “collective mental programming” as culture (Armstrong, 1996). Several researchers have documented the cultural influence on consumer behaviour (e.g Erickson et al, 1984). Other researchers have focused on ethnic differences (e.g. Wallenford and Reilly, 1983). Tse et al (1988) also investigated whether a manager’s home culture has “predicable” significant effects on decision making of executives from the People’s Republic of China and Canada.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
One noticeable cultural difference between the society pictured in this chapter and our American society seems to be a collectivist ideology. In America we value the individual and place emphasis on distinction from the group. This causes a strong sense of competition, and leads people to take actions that would benefit themselves in spite of negative effects that may trickle to other members of the community. The culture pictured in our reading, however, seems to place greater value on family and community goals rather than the needs or wants of specific individuals.
Each and every culture is defined by their people. The people make up the part of the whole and cultures function differently for a variety of reasons (Mooji, 2014, p. 81). Internal and external factors on both the macro and micro level play important roles within a society. Countries can be categorized into one of two types of cultures: collectivist or individualistic. These cultures are opposite, each culture possesses descriptive characteristics which include “religion, family structure, … and social class structure” among a number of other characteristics to which the people within the “given societies view as very important, if not critical” (Mooji, 2014, p. 82). Simply stated, Mooji (p. 90) defines people in collectivist cultures as
The next communication gap concerns with the individualism- collectivism dimension, which is the degree an individual is integrated into groups in a society (Hofstede, 2001). Individualistic cultures like the U.S put a strong emphasis on individual autonomy and independence, whereas collectivist cultures like Vietnam believe in belonging, obligation
In an attempt to understand the dissimilarities of employees from a cross-cultural perspective, Geert Hofstede (1980) conducted a pioneering survey that measured the work-related values of employees who worked for IBM subsidiaries located in 53 different countries (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). When analyzing the results, Hofstede discovered that cultures were divisible into four distinct categories, masculinity/femininity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism (Bochner 1994). Hofstede stated that the four categories relate to the core cultural values of
It represents the distribution of emotional roles between the genders. Masculine cultures are valued as competitiveness, assertiveness, materialism, ambition and power. In contrast, femininity cultures are inclined to relationships and quality of life. Masculinity culture is more obvious in larger organization as the management is more decisive and aggressive, thus, it shows a relatively lower share of working women in professional jobs. In femininity organization, the employees work in order to live and prefer leisure time than money. The resolution of conflict in masculinity is letting the strongest win but in femininity, the employees solve conflict in a harmonious way by compromising and
Hofstede’s research present a static view of culture yet culture is dynamic. The model only offers a single cultural profile per country while country members and companies will often be subject to multiple, potentially conflicting, cultural currents. Despite these and other criticisms, Hofstede’s work, as stated, remains the dominant model for cross-cultural
Some of the business expert also suggested that cross- national differences are diminishing because the advancement of technology, including the day-to day activities of multinational corporations(Flora,Chiang&Birtch,Thomas,2006). This type of view point casts a doubt on how much of influence that national culture of a country wields on the multinational corporations especially in the management practices, and employee attitudes towards reward practices in particular. Geet Hofstede have distinguished national culture with four bi-polar dimensions: masculinity-feminity,individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance. Hofstede view that cultural – influence attributes of a nation do exist and these distinctions will provide and organization with further understanding on how work related values and behavior are different between cultures. In the reward- system area, Hofstede give a useful view into how employee needs and reward preferences are likely to be vary in different cultures(Flora,Chiang&Birtch,Thomas,2006). When a culture of a country score high on masculinity-femininity, this suggests there are divisions of roles and values between genders. Its shows that masculinity cultures are emphazing assertiveness, achievement and material success, an interest in acquiring huge sum of money for financial gain and achieving material success are highly desirable. The view is very different in feminine driven culture. In feminine driven culture human relationship are more value. Their culture is center more around concern for others, supporting each other’s and good quality of life. An example are financial and power oriented rewards will be more preferred in Hong Kong, China than in Finland; where relationship -and
r this paper, I chose the country Ireland. Ireland has the highest individualism economic dimension. The first dimension is power distance that deals with individuals in a society are not equal. Power distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015). Ireland is at the lower ranking of power distance. Ireland citizens believe that inequalities among people should be minimized in a society. Superiors are always accessible and individual employees are reliable on their expertise in the workplace. Information in Irish companies is shared and consulted frequently, but information can be informal.
On chapter 4 on the textbook, the author explains, “culture provides a member of a society with a common bond, a sense that we see certain facets of society in similar ways. We are living together at all depends on the fact that members of a society share a certain amount of cultural knowledge (Ch4, 132). Individualism and collectivism contribute greatly to the dimension of culture. For example, how many members of the culture define themselves apart from their group memberships. In individualist cultures, people are expected to develop and display their individual personalities and to choose their own affiliations. In collectivist cultures, people are defined and act mostly as a member of a long-term group, such as the family, a religious group, an age cohort, a town, or a profession, among others. This dimension was found to move towards the individualist end of the spectrum with increasing
“Red is a positive color in Denmark, but represents witchcraft and death in many African countries,” (Understand and heed, 1991, p.1). Simple understandings, such as this one, can make the difference in a business’ success or failure in a foreign country. Various countries have different customs and beliefs that need to be accustomed to when business are to be successful. American businesses especially have difficulties with this concept. “At times in the past, Americans have not had a good track record of being sensitive to cultural distinctions,” (Understand and heed, 1991, p.3). Perhaps this is because America is made up of so many different cultures that American people have become so used to easily adjusting to each other’s differences that they forget that other cultures are not as flexible. Today, more American’s are becoming more sensitive to the differences of other cultures. This sensitivity and understanding has come with a price, after a long string of business failures. It is not until a business fails miserably in another country that they see the adjustments that should have been made in order for their success to be a possibility. With an understanding and sensitivity to the customs and beliefs of other cultures, it is possible for successful businesses that have originated in western cultures to also be successful in foreign countries as well.
Hofstede claimed there are five important dimensions seen in each culture, which include Power Distance Index, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance Index, and Long-Term Orientation. The one I find most important is Individualism, which is the degree into which individuals are integrated in the group (http://www.geert-hofstede.com/). Individualism has an impact on whether a culture is high-context, or emphasizes the cultural context of a message, or low-context, emphasizes the explicit content (Rothwell, 2010). With individualism, you can either have a collectivistic or individualistic society.