Culture is what makes groups of people distinctive and has been passed down from generation to generation. Kim Zimmerman describes, “Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.” (Zimmermann, 2015) Countries around the globe has one or more diverse cultures in them. Researchers have studied culture through the year. After doing a number of studies, the researchers have created a number of theories of how it can affect the workplace. One such researcher is Geert Hofstede. Linda Orr and William Hauser of the University of Akron wrote, “In 1980, Geert Hofstede published Culture 's Consequences. This influential study soon …show more content…
Some companies require their employees to work together as a team. However, some cultures encourages their people to be more individualistic and these people like to work by themselves to accomplish workplace goals. Correspondingly, Nancy Alder and A. Gundersen explain individualism, “Individualism exists when people themselves primarily as separate individuals and make their main commitments to themselves.” (Alder & Gundersen, 2008) Additionally, they describe collectivism, “Collectivism is characterized by tight social networks in which people strongly distinguish between their own groups and other groups.” (Alder & Gundersen, 2008) In Hofstede’s dimensions, this dimension indicates whether people in certain cultures tend to be more individualistic or collectivist. From the Original Hofstede’s Items and Factor Groupings, the following questions/statements has helped me explain and applied the dimension: “If the group is slowing me down, it is better to leave and work alone. Groups make better decisions than individuals. Decisions made by individuals are usually of higher quality than decisions made by groups.” (Orr & Hauser, 2008) Furthermore, cultures that cultivate their people to be their own person. Companies operating in countries that are collectivists like to work as a group and will make decisions that benefit the group. Lastly, companies needs to determine what type of …show more content…
Nancy Alder and A. Gundersen writes, “Stereotyping involves a form of categorization that organizes our experience and guides our behavior toward various groups with society. Stereotypes never accurately describe individual behavior; rather, they describe the behavioral norm for members of particular group.” (Alder & Gundersen, 2008) In this day in age, people perceive others through not just their own experience, but things they seen in the media or in television series. In India, they utilize bartering when it comes buying, but a person dealing with an individual from that area trying to bargaining for services rendered as cheap. Grouping people from diverse backgrounds together can cause misunderstanding in the workplace or communicating with their customers, which could cost the business. Additionally, a business cannot utilize the same rules in all the countries they operate because what might alright in the home country might be consider terribly wrong in other cultures different their own. With globalization continuing to progress each day, businesses expanding to other areas need to train their people on how the diverse groups of people they might communicate or work with to avoid miscommunications and misunderstanding due to cross-cultural categorization and stereotyping cultural
Individualism outlines the link between the ‘individual and the collectivity which prevails in a given society’ (Hofstede, 1980: 213). The main distinction amongst individualism and collectivism is the way that people of various cultures classify themselves (Di Cesare and Sadri, 2002). They recognize themselves as either an individual or a member of a group. Individualism is the extent in which societies look after themselves and their immediate family while in collectivist societies, individuals belong to groups that tend to them in exchange for wholehearted allegiance (Torrington, 1994; Hofstede, 2015). Individualist actions are motivated by their own attitudes and customs, while collectivists are focused by collective norms (Kulkarni et al, 2010). Also, individualists are more focused toward undertaking a personal task, while collectivists are driven more in the direction of achieving balanced relationships (Kulkarni et al, 2010). In certain societies, being an individualist is seen as an advantage while in other societies it can be viewed as isolating. The amount of individualism or collectivism in a particular society will influence the essence of the relationship among the individual and the organization they belong (Hofstede, 1980). From the viewpoint of the organization, individuality can be looked at as the worker’s independence in distinction to the organization. The level of
Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. Second Edition, Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2001
Thoreau, Henry David, and Jeffrey S. Cramer. Walden : A Fully Annotated Edition. New Haven:
Hypothesis: “We hypothesize that the performance of individual members in such situations is likely to be highest when the members hold both individualist and collectivist orientations toward their work” (Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Meyer, Wagner, 2012, pg. 947).
The idea of Individualism can be traced all the way back to England before America’s existence. As we know, individualism has been interpreted in many forms throughout history. The 19th century is no different, taking hold of its own idea of individualism, called transcendentalism. Transcendentalism suggests freedom should not be confined to those focused on money and superficial gains. Instead, people should depend on no one but themselves. This movement focused on “greater individualism against conformity” (Corbett et al.). Heavily influenced by the Romantic period, transcendentalism adopted the belief that reason was more important than logic as Benjamin Franklin has believed. Reason must also include unique emotion and spirit (Corbett et
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
In the recent weeks, I have noticed a trend in our cultural beliefs regarding groups outside of our own. As a nation, while the United States has a strongly individualistic nature from a personal perspective, there is also a strong collectivist belief regarding everyone outside of themselves and their groups. Rather than believing that each member of an external group is responsible for their decisions alone (myth of individualism), separating them from a collective (one bad apple), the consensus is generally geared opposite. For example, the belief that all immigrants want to steal American jobs, when one is not an immigrant, or that feminists are actually misandrists, when one is not a feminist. What I believe we have
For many centuries there has been arguments between whether a society should be collective or individualistic. In an individualistic society, the idea is that the individual's life belongs to him and he has the right to pursue what he wishes. In a collective society, the individual's life belongs to the group and the individual must sacrifice the values they hold for the “greater good” of the group. The main question asked in this debate is whether an individual's life belongs to him or does it belong to the group. By working as individuals, a society is able to achieve more than a group and can enjoy more benefits and therefore should be individualistic.
Cultural diversity is in our workplace and schools; we may encounter stereotypes while communicating with others, even though we have different opinions toward other cultural values and beliefs. We can learn from another “culture”, but we have to respect their differences. I think in today society, people are stereotyped others based on their race and social class because we automatically judge another person without knowing them and assume they are a certain way. Everyone is different we identify ourselves with our own social beliefs, religious beliefs and racial traits and should not be judged because we are all different
According to (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010) described that the culture can be defined as it is made up of “thinking, feeling, and potential acting” that all people carry within themselves, which he terms as “mental programs.” Likewise, after did a large number of research, Hofstede decided to divide cultural differences into five dimensions, they are power distance, Individualism vs. Collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, Masculinity vs. Femininity and long-term vs. short-term orientation respectively. Putting more details into these five
Amai- ambiguity: more than one intended meaning for Japanese words. The Japanese are generally tolerant of ambiguity. Expressing oneself ambiguously and indirectly is expected in Japanese. Pg 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
“Altruism — the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self.” This dramatic definition of altruism, from The Soul of an Individualist by Ayn Rand, provides a backdrop for similar ideologies. Along the same philosophical vein, one can examine the principles of collectivism, a way of life that puts priority on a group instead of a single member. Individualism, on the other hand, is the complete rejection of these two ideas and a way of thinking that stresses living on one’s own terms instead of being dictated to by a group. As shown
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
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