Culture, Hofstede and Business Practice

Posted by danamartin on June 1st, 2021

Culture has always played a crucial role in structuring and modifying societies across time and space. Interaction between different cultures created new civilizations and communities with specific values, principles, traditions, and rituals. Given this, cultural frameworks and theories can provide a rationale for the social principles, values, and attitudes. They also serve as predictors of individual’s behaviors and responses to a specific social phenomenon. In this respect, Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions introduces the powerful framework for identifying, classifying, and explaining the importance of interaction between cultures and their influence on social development as usually is the part of the thesis https://bestwritinghelp.org/articles/thesis-proposal-writing-service/

Theoretical Ideas about Culture

Apart from Hosftede’s six dimensions of culture (distance of power, collectivism versus individualism, gender equality, ambiguity index, and temporal orientation), there are many other theories and frameworks that should be taken into consideration. For instance, Trompenaars’s model of culture differences can be compared to Hofstede’s interpretation. Specifically, Trompenaars’ model focuses on the cross-cultural communication framework that centers around seven dimensions of culture that involve such juxtapositions as universalism and particularism, specific and diffuse, individualism and communitarianism, achievement and ascription, sequential and synchronous time, internal and outer directions. Some of the points coincide with Hofstede’s framework in terms of collectivism and individualism, whereas the rest of them differ significantly.

Another cultural theory that explains cross-cultural interaction and community is GLOBE. Specifically, the framework focuses on the leader's effectiveness and context affecting leader’s success. It has been asserted that the effectiveness is confined to organizational and societal norms, beliefs, and values of people. Hence, the concept of success is time wise aspect that shows cultural dimensions capturing the differences and similarities. There are also specific dimensions such as collectivism, power distance, human orientation, and gender issues - the terms that stand at the core of cultural interpretation of the community at local and international levels. Collectivism is the type of organization in which collective values are more important than those of individuals. Human orientation introduces the rewards and bonuses to individuals to exercise such qualities as altruism, caring, and generosity. Finally, gender equality has also been the index of any culture, showing the peculiarity of a specific community.

Identifying Six Dimensions

Geert Hosftede is a social anthropologist and psychologist who has examined the interaction between multiple cultures. He has introduced the theory of six cultural dimensions, including power, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, indulgence, and temporal orientation. To begin with, power-distance dimensions refer to the way the less powerful member of an organization recognize and expect the power to be distributed unequally. They analyze the extent to which people perceive the issue. In contrast, power-distance scores imply that a culture accepts and expects that power relations are transparent and recognizable, and members accept them as just and equal. This definition refers to the family organization in which there is a certain distribution of power, which is accepted and recognized as equal.

The second dimension refers to collectivism, the extent to which individuals are involved into teams. It is not politically colored and relates to the group rather than a separate individual. Individual-induced cultures emphasize personal goals, whereas collective societies highlight the significance of an individual in relation to a group. For example, in such collectivist culture as Chinese, traditions and collective thinking are prioritized, while in the European one, thinking is related to individual orientation more. The next dimension ’uncertainty avoidance’ refers to a society's tolerance to ambiguity. Its fundamental point refers to the way community handles the idea that future is unpredictable. For instance, economies displaying substantial Uncertainty Avoidance Index sustain traditional codes of behavior and belief as well as are often reluctant about unconventional issues. In particular, Asian society is more concerned with customs and traditions and often perceives inadequately the new shifts coming from the Western world.

Gender dimension, presenting the juxtaposition between masculinity and femininity, defines the prevalence of specific gender-induced features in a community. For example, masculinity is associated with such characteristics as assertiveness, material rewards, and heroism, whereas femininity symbolizes modesty, cooperation, and caring.

Lastly, the long-term and short-term orientations explain the priorities that exist in societies in terms of goals accomplishment. Hence, societies that prefer time-honored conventions and customs are called low-scored, whereas cultures with high scores are more pragmatic and welcome advances and changes that can contribute to economic growth and social welfare.

Application of a Theory in Business Practice

From the business perspective, long-term versus short-term orientations are called normative versus pragmatic respectively. In an academic setting, they are referred to as Flexhumility and Monumentalism. The given dimension is closely associated with another one: indulgence versus restraint. In particular, indulgence relates to the community that focuses on free gratification of natural and basic human drives associated with making the most out of life and enjoying a single moment. In contrast, restraint is characteristic for the community that discourages gratification of needs and controls it by means of specific norms that limit community behavior. For instance, in European society, people prefer to enjoy life and benefit from the opportunities. In particular, Italians know ways to take pleasure in each moment of life, whereas Americans are more business-oriented and focus on goals accomplishment, depriving themselves of the possibility to have some rest.

Furthermore, Hofstede’s framework has been used in the sphere of international business with the focus on country-level studies, which introduce cultural dimensions and their role in business practices. Since, businesses and international corporations employ people with diverse cultural and social backgrounds they should bear in mind the dimensions proposed by the theorist. For instance, Asian sectors should focus more on respect for collectivism and traditional affiliation to conservative norms. The framework also handles many barriers and challenges in communication for leaders who are in charge of a multicultural environment. As soon as they conceive those dimensions, they will be able to succeed in business. Such aspects as cultural diversity, gender issues, and individualized approach to employees can stand at the core of productive and fruitful organization of a business space. Specifically, organizational behavior and culture can be improved by means of promoting new ethical codes that could approach beliefs, norms, and values that enhance tolerance and promote new techniques in management. Finally, the recruitment process also relies on the proposed cultural modes that cannot be ignored. Hence, a person employed from the Hispanic group is more concerned with family issues and traditional outcomes, whereas people from Western societies are more open and friendly, enhancing the individualistic and long-term perspectives. In this manner, a leader can decide on the positions and functions assigned to a specific individual from different cultural background.

In conclusion, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions provide strong grounds for business organization to operate in culturally diverse environment as well as an effective algorithm for communicative approaches, knowledge exchange, and goals orientation. It also suggests that there should be a difference between diverse cultures in terms of gender perception, goals, individual versus collective orientation, and power of distance. Therefore, leaders should take into account the cultural issues so that they can prosper in business.