Six Dimensions Of Culture Case Study

Culture and Its Six Dimensions In today’s globalized world, we are connected with each other than ever before, whether it be through social media, phones, or globalized businesses. Therefore in this globalized world, it has also become of vital importance for leaders to know the contrasts among cultures, to avoid future and current business blunders. Therefore, this paper will discuss the Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions and their relationship to leadership and the two dimensions that make the most effective leader. Hofstede’s Six Cultural Dimensions and their Relationship to Leadership

According to Professor Hofstede (2010), culture is the “collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category or people

These national six dimensions of culture can be immensely helpful in managing and leading in different cultures because they are values shared by majority on a national level and are relatively stable over time, with changes only over generations; meanwhile cultural dimensions at organizational level are practices that are relatively superficial and can be easily changed and learned (“Culture: What is Culture?,” n.d.). But, those national core cultural values stay with the people on a unconscious level, therefore, it could be deterimental to an

collectivism) and Masculinity (vs. Feminity). I think these two dimensions effect how a leader and how employees in different countries behave most accurately. I think any leader that does business in a foreign country should be aware of where their host country is on the totem pole of these two dimensions. Because in individualistic cultures, as I stated above, people could be outspoken, and have strong opinions meanwhile in collective cultures, it is more shared objectives and it is more about achieving things as a team, rather than on individualistic basis. Furthermore, In collective cultures, the individuals tend to follow the cultural norms and are even criticized for going out of the norm at times, for example, work culture in east nations such as Japan, Korea, China etc. would be representative of collective culture; meanwhile, the western countries such US would be the representative of an individualistic culture. So for any leader going from one type of dimension to another has to be aware of where that particular country is in regards to this dimension to better understand and work with that country’s employees and organizations. Other dimension that would help one become an effective leader is the knowledge of Masculine cultures and feminine cultures; because in one, there is focus on achievements, material success and competitiveness and therefore in comparison to