Hofstede's value's system
Dimensions of Values
The affect the four dimensions, Power Distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Masculine/femininity and Individual v. Collectivism have on organzational behavior shows in all cultures and cross cultures.
As with power distance when dealing with other cultures you have to adapt your company values to that of the society in which you live and the people that you employ and the public that you deal with. In organizational behavior you have to be able to adapt or willingly participate and follow through on those culture beliefs of society. So your management structure has to follow the structure of that society while understanding uncertainty avoidance knowing that certain cultures like to have rules stressed, want work regulated and are willing to work hard, conform to standards and are very secure in their jobs. While some other cultures don't have as many rules or less conforming, security is not as stressed and hard work is not seen as normal life, although if you are willing to stand out by doing a job that is not expected or coming up with an idea this is more valued because it is seen as taking a risk.
In addition to power distance and uncertainty avoidance affecting organization behavior there is also the Masculinity/Femininity cultures. In this area you will find certain cultures that are clearly masculine, where the dominance of men is supported and economic success is based on the men being in charge while at the same time so...
Rhode, D. (2000). Culture Establishes Gender Roles.Male/female roles: opposing viewpoints (pp. 22-24). San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press
The gap between men and women produce three important concepts that reason the difference. First is the discussion of the better leader- men or women? It has been studied that women approach their followers with an interactive style with the encouragement of sharing power and information with others, participation, and self-worthiness to others. On the other hand, men have a consistency to be more task-oriented in their leadership styles and emerge in short-term conditions. The simple claim that women are just different than men, can be argued with the idea that men have effective traits for leadership. Women are less likely to negotiate and as a leader, this leads to lack of communication. And as discussed, leadership’s main ingredient is communication. Without it, nothing gets across to followers, and nothing is reciprocated to leaders. As a leadership position becomes larger and larger, (such as a CEO’s leadership position) there are fewer and fewer women holding these positions. The biggest question is why? Generally, females and males share the leadership values, work equally as hard to accomplish their goals, and react accordingly. Society plays a huge role in the gender gap. Some jobs aren’t even offered to women because of their gender and women
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
Geert Hofstede’s research in this area has been largely accepted as the standard for understanding culture within nations for study in many different disciplines including sociology and management research, among others. His studies because of their vastness in scale, gathering data from more than ”60,000 respondents in seventy different countries,” makes his research extremely reliable and foundational to research in this area (Hofstede, 1984, 1991, 2001).”
Gender, as socially constructed differences between men and women and the beliefs and identities that support difference and inequality, is also present in all organizations (Gender & Society). It has been known that most women have continued to stick to the traditional jobs because it is just easier to do so. They do it to avoid any hardship in the work place and discrimination when applying for a job or working for a company. Non-traditional careers and jobs for woman are hard to find and when hired woman are segregated to the wage gap. Class relations in the workplace, such as supervisory practices or wage-setting processes, were shaped by gendered and sexualized attitudes and assumptions (Gender & Society). For example, in the work place managers were almost always men; the lower-level white-collar workers were always women (Gender &
The different leadership styles of men and women was discussed. Women prefer democratic and participative styles while men preferred autocratic styles (Landy & Conte, 2013, p. 508). Women can tend to be more interpersonal where men are more focused on tasks versus worrying about how their staff
Schuh, S. C., Bark, A. S., Quaquebeke, N. V., Hossiep, R., Frieg, P., & Dick, R. V. (2014). Gender differences in leadership role occupancy: The mediating role of power motivation. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(3), 363-379. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1663-9.
Culture forms the framework for our thoughts and behavior and is defined as sets of values and principles individuals have about how nature and society work, as well as the norms of behavior, derived from that set of values (Gorodnichenko & Roland, 2014). According to Heine (2012), cultures that are individualistic include a variety of customs that encourage individuals to place their own personal goals ahead of those of the collective. In contrast, cultures that are collectivistic include many cultural practices, institutions, and customs that encourage individuals to place more emphasis on collective goals. Furthermore, the dimensions of collectivism and individualism help us to understand cultural differences in a wide variety of psychological
The affect the four dimensions by Hofstede, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculine/femininity and individual and collectivism have on organizational show in all cultures and cross culture.
With the help of the literature, discuss one of the cultural constructs in Hofstede’s model. Following this, discuss any elaboration, application, modification and criticism the construct has attracted in the form of further research.
Simply speaking, a company’s structure and design can be viewed as its body, and its culture as its soul. Because industries and situations vary significantly, it would be difficult and risky to propose there is a “one size fits all” culture template that meets the needs of all organizations” (Nov 30, 2012). Those organizations who have shared beliefs and values and have organized methods on chain of command going to have positive outcomes. This will help shaping their employees views and performances. The growth and profit of the business relays on their employees and their performances. Culture is the core which will help and encourage all different level workers. If the core itself is weak, it will weaken the atmosphere of the business. Many companies announce that they have great culture but fail to implement to the lower level of workers. The basic issue is when organization has one set of culture and thinks one culture will meet the needs of all the workers. Each business is different and each individual is unique and have different beliefs and behaviors. The culture that is right for one individual might not work the same for the others. The ideal approach in this case would be, looking at the bigger picture of diverse working environment and give importance and respect to what are the ranges of business firms to achieve the perfect culture for organization. Sometimes one size fits all will not going to fit anybody, so the organization have to keep their ideas open and value everyone’s presence respecting all of their culture for the betterment and
Every culture has different social expectations for men and women. Most of the time traditional norms or stereotypical gender roles are created by society. What they observe seem to be true and convince others to believe it; as a result, the “script” come from stereotypical gender roles about masculine and feminine nature: Hamilton McCubbin and Barbara Blum Dahl states clearly, “men should be brave, strong, ambitious, and aggressive, while keeping the...
Hofstede has identified five different cultural dimensions. These dimensions include power-distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance and lastly long term orientation. According to Hofstede, power distance is the first dimension which translates to how all individuals in a society aren't equal and there is a decent amount of inequality when it comes to the division of power. The second dimension involves the theme of individualism which translates to the degree of interdependence as well as how we identify ourselves in terms of "I" or "We". Additionally, Hofstede states that in individualist societies we tend to look only after ourselves and our blood family, however, in collectivistic societies individuals identify themselves as part of groups and take care of each other in exchange for loyalty. The third dimension would be masculinity/ femininity. A high score would translate to a masculine culture which demonstrates a culture driven by competition, achievement and success. On the other hand, a low score which demonstrates a feminine culture shows that the dominant traits involves caring for others and quality of life. The fourth dimension involves uncertainty avoidance which translates to how a society deals with not knowing how the future is going to turn out. This amount of vagueness brings about anxiety and different cultures deal with this issue differently. The fifth and final cultural dimension according to Hofstede is long term orientat...
According to Sledge, Miles, and Coppage (2008) power distance is “the degree to which control and influence are distributed unequally in society” (p. 1670). In a country with a high power distance employees would not feel comfortable voicing their opinions or disagreeing with their managers. Empowering employees would not work well because employees would be scared to take actions on their own. Employees would feel more comfortable with structure and strict procedures. In countries with low power distance managers could benefit from empowering employees. Employees are free to voice their opinions and develop and express new ideas or plans. Empowerment would motivate employees more in a country with low power distance.
The first national culture dimension to be identified is the measurement of power distance. This can be defined as the degree of inequality among people built upon what the population of that country accepts as normal. In countries with high power distance like China, individuals are more likely to accept differences in authority or inequality. Management are inclined to be dictatorial, making autocratic and paternalistic decisions, with their subordinates remaining faithful and obedient to them at all times. Often these societies or institutions possess business structures that are typified by close control over all operations. Organisation structures tend to be tall hierarchies with numerous levels within a formal setting. One of the reasons that can be identified for the acceptance of this type of authority in China is derived from thousands of years of political centralisation, which tends to result in a tradition of obedience.