Culture - Hofstede
Definition
Culture is a central concept in anthropology and can be defined as the social behaviour and norms found in human societies
Globalisation - important to understand different cultures to improve international business and client relations
Multifaceted concept - different types: geographic culture (driven by history, politics etc) organisational culture (driven by geo culture, objectives, values, norms etc)
Hofstede
Purpose understanding of business situations across cultures
Studied IBM employees from 40 different offices located in different geographical regions over c.10 years - important as organisational culture is the same
Hofstede's cultural dimension theory describes the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behaviour
Identified four dimensions - power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs femininity and individualism vs collectivism
Looks at unique aspects of cultures and rates them on a scale for comparison
Power Distance
Expresses the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally
Equal small power distance
Individualism vs. Collectivism
Whether people prefer a close knit network of people or prefer to be left alone to fend for themselves
Individualism
Masculinity vs. Femininity
Collectivism
The interests of the individual take precedence
Japan
Masculinity
Femininity
Assertiveness, success, competition
Quality of life, maintenance of warm personal relationships, service, care for the weak, solidarity
Uncertainty Avoidance
Preference for cooperation, modesty, quality of life
Represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material reward for success
The degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity
Low Uncertainty
High Uncertainty
Long Term vs. Short-term Orientation
Long-Term
Tnterpreted as dealing with society's search of virtue
Value dedication, hard work and thrift (the quality of using money and other resources carefully)
Short-Term
The extent to which of a culture adopt a long term or short term outlook on work and life
Strong concern with establishing the absolute truth
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Confucian Dynamism: the extent to which individuals within the culture focus on the short-term and immediate consequences versus take a long-term focus*
Extremely large large power distance
US - think I and We protectionism & Trump
The interests of the group take precedence
people with more nervous energy
rigid society
US
Japan - don't want uncertainty, they want facts
US and Japan are nearly equal when it comes to power distance
USA lower in masculinity vs. femininity scale J
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Understanding will help you to work with and understand people of varying backgrounds and cultures
Hofstede - we are all not the same - different cultures have different views of life and business. They are not right or wrong, just different.
US strive for succeed and thrive on competition
degree to which people in a country prefer to act as individuals rather than groups
degree of need to avoid uncertainty about the future
degree of preference for structured versus unstructured situations
India caste system
Germany - equal - good relations between employers/ees and government
Study involved 100,000