Essay On Cultural Distance

CULTURAL DISTANCE: THE DIFFERENCES IN HOW IT IS MEASURED AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT IN THE BUSINESS WORLD TODAY.

BY: Iziegbe Okungbowa

Kingston University

20 October 2014

Cultural Distance and How it is Measured “Cultural Distance is a widely used construct to international business, where it had been applied to foreign investment expansion, entry mode choice, and the performance of foreign invested affiliates, among others”(Shenkar, 2001, p.519). In order to fully understand Shenkar’s definition of cultural distance, we must first understand the meaning of “Culture” and how it is related to business. Culture can be defined as, “ a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and

Hofstede’s model focuses on the way culture is viewed. In explaining this he uses the terminology, “Collective Programming”, which he describes as “those things which are shared by people who grew up in the forest.” His focus on how people acquire their programming stemmed from his understanding of human beings as a whole (“Someone who comes in the world with an operating system, but still needs programming in order to function”). When asked how we can measure culture, Hofstede’s response indicated that it is both collectively and individually; simply by collecting data from an individual or by looking at how people behave in a particular environment. Hofstede’s five dimensions of measuring culture is just a way of unpacking the holistic concept of culture into various parts which have clear relationships with phenomena

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