. International Business and Human Resources
Using Internet, research Geert Hofstede and Hofstede’s Dimensions. For this Activity, focus on the following:
1. Power Distance: To what degree does a culture encourage people to think of themselves as equals and to what degree does a culture encourage people to stay within a hierarchical social structure?
2. Individualism vs. Collectivism: To what degree does a culture encourage individualism? Asian cultures tend to be group oriented, while American culture encourages individualism.
3. Masculinity vs. Femininity: Is a culture oriented towards relationships or tasks? This dimension deals with the idea of masculine and feminine influences in the workplace.
4. Uncertainty Avoidance: Does a culture encourage people to take or avoid risk?
ANSWER
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory is a system utilised by business people to discern methods business can be done across cultural lines. The theory was developed by Geert Hofstede in 1980. This paper uses this theory to examine culture and business properties of Country A and B as it regards to the case studies given.
In terms of power distance, Country A’s is socially, racially and economically homogeneous suggesting that everybody has similar access to resources but differs in their way. The idea that they consider themselves a Western Democracy suggests a specific class of persons exert power in terms of ruling over the rest of the population giving the initial group power to influence the others behaviour, attitudes and behaviour. These dimensions suggest that no matter how homogenous, an idea of a culture of power inequality exists in Country A. However, this power difference is accepted as a way of life.
In terms of Individualism vs. Collectivism, Country A suggests a culture of collectivism where both new parents have maternal or paternal leave and not just the mother suggesting a collective responsibility in the family unit. Additionally, government assistance is offered on public education including graduate school tuition, medicine, disability insurance, retirement benefits, utilities, transportation, and employee rights protection. The country sees most problems and benefits as belonging not to just a selected few but to all of them.
In masculinity vs femininity, Country A appears low on the masculinity scale but high on the femininity scale. This means that “quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable” (Favaretto 2016). For reasons almost similar to why Country A is considered collective, it also suggests that the country has a high femininity score. Lastly, the culture of the country encourages people to avoid risk where even when presented with a hotel merger from the same country, management could already conceive a situation where this change would not be accepted.
The consultant changed his image and presentation of services on realising that his background on ‘cost-effective management of human capital’ suggested that his main purpose was on the downsizing of the company’s labour force. This means that some people would lose their jobs in the merger and hence the cold reception. This also refers to the culture of high uncertainty avoidance but in this case, for a valid reason. To the consultant, for not alienating the entire room on his first speech, would have not brought about the notion of downsizing himself but let the management do it in their way and at their own time.
Country B has a hierarchical society where people accept the order of things and the idea that everyone has their place without the requirement of further justification. This is seen with the situation of things presented where wealth is held by only 10% of the population, the industry is owned by 75% of the leading families and the government is a single-party system. This in part goes to show the nature of the power distance in the country.
Like Country A, Country B scores high on the collective scale although in very different terms. While the collective idea in Country A is that ‘resources belong to us as citizens’, in Country B, the idea is that ‘resources belong to us as a clan or tribe or family. Loyalty in the country has plenty of ethnic bearing meaning that different groups could present individualism but within those groups a strong culture of collectivism.
The country scores high on the femininity scale in comparison to the masculinity scale. This is observed on the way the company workers received the consultant where it was very important to them to know him both on a professional and personal level and hence like him more than accept and implement what he was saying making him frustrated at the amounts of time he needed to establish rapport. On a more masculine cultured society, the information the consultant had would have been more important than the person he was. Lastly, on the dimensions of uncertainty avoidance, it details “the way that a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known” (Hofstede 2010). Country B appears on a level scale of both sides where no clear preference is indicated on this dimension.
The consultant’s ideas fell on polite but deaf ears because he failed to understand what and who he was genuinely more important to the people of Country B than what he had to say. He was so focused on getting his message across failing to study the country’s culture and understand the dynamics of the population first. Additionally, instead of looking for a system that worked, he sorts out to implement forcefully a cultural change to the entire system suggesting a possibility for his complete alienation and further frustration.
As a recommendation, the consultant would have been prepared to spend a lot of time understanding the people of Country B rather than enforcing change to make his work more fulfilling. Additionally, his status as a consultant implies that he should have been ready to face all manner of complications in his work and rather more accepting than frustrated to the level of disregard for the existing culture.
References
Favaretto, R. M., Dihl, L., Barreto, R., & Musse, S. R. (2016, September). Using group behaviours to detect Hofstede cultural dimensions. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) (pp. 2936-2940). IEEE.
Hofstede Insights. Country Comparison. Retrieved on 31st July 2020 from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/
Hofstede, G. (2010). Geert hofstede. National cultural dimensions, 2-7.
