Cultural Analysis: Hofstede's Six Dimensions and Different Countries

You Are Supposed To Show a Certain Level Of Understanding Reflecting Different Countries Culture And Tradition In Their Business Environment. By The End Of The Research And Analysis, You Are Required To Generate a Report That Demonstrates a Well-Researched Cultural Analysis.

Hofstede identified six cultural dimensions that differentiates the corporate culture of the different countries all over the world (Beugelsdijk, Kostova & Roth, 2017). He scored countries on these dimensions to find out how they behaved in certain situations. The six dimensions are Power distance, Individualism and Collectivism, Masculinity and Femininity, Uncertainty avoidance, Long-term orientation and Indulgence.

According to Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory, is based on the concept that individuals in a society are unequal and the extent to which these inequalities are accepted and practiced. It indicates that the higher the score of inequality, the more likely is the company to have hierarchical organizational structure. The extent to which the less powerful members of the organization accept the unequal distribution of power forms the basis of power distance.

This dimension can be defined as the interdependence of the people of the community and their ties to each other. The higher the score in this sector, the more individualistic people are and thus have weaker interpersonal relationships. High scores indicate that people of the country are more community oriented and are likely to receive collective or community based sentiments more positively (Lo, Waters & Christensen, 2017).

This dimension determines the definition of success and the distribution of roles between men and women. In masculine societies, men are expected to work in an assertive and dominant way while women are expected to be accepting and compromising. In feminine societies, the roles of men and women overlap and values are given to modesty and relationship building.

This dimension indicates how likely are the people in the society to take risks and handle anxiety. Countries with higher uncertainty avoidance index are likely to prefer controllable and predictable life course to taking any risks. Countries with low scores are likely to welcome innovation and risky business decisions.

This dimension indicates that people might prefer long term or short-term goals depending on the culture of the countries. Countries believing in short term goals are likely to value quick gains and results over making long-term commitments that will yield lengthy results. Countries that are oriented towards long term are more likely to be pragmatic in nature and value principles over gains (Beugelsdijk & Welzel, 2018).

Power Distance

This sixth dimension describes the cultural behavior of a country based on their acceptance of people’s own gratification. Countries that have high score in this aspect are likely to give positive encouragement for enjoying life or taking time out for fun while the opposite is true for countries having low score. These countries are likely to have stricter norms and give more importance to behavior and conduct of people over their own gratification.

The score of Australia on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions can be seen in the appendix. This shows that in Australian corporate culture, hierarchy is formed for convenience rather than norm. In this culture, supervisors are accessible easily and the managers have confidence on the employees and their teams to apply their expertise to get the job done. Australia has individualistic culture and thus, people are expected to take care of their own selves and their people. In work culture, people are expected to be self-dependent and take initiative. In this kind of work culture, promotions are and recruitments are done based on merit.

Australia is found to be a masculine country and thus, success is based on winning and gaining. People in this culture are proud of their achievements and it affects the hiring and promotions. Australia is at a balance uncertainty avoidance, which indicates that they evaluate situations closely before taking any risky steps. Australia has normative culture and thus gives importance to traditions and culture while putting much importance to short-term achievement of goals (Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights., 2020). Australia is an indulgent country and thus people appreciate chances to realize their impulses and desires, to enjoy their lives and have fun. They like to have leisure time and spend money as per their wish.

The detailed scores can be seen in appendix. Canada’s scores show that they have clear interdependence on people of the community and they believe in egalitarianism. In Canadian work culture, there are less hierarchy and their use is quite similar to Australia. Canada has an individualistic culture as well and shows the similar characteristics of depending on self, self-reliant behavior at workplace, merit based promotions (Silva & Moreira, 2017). Canada has a moderately masculine culture and thus, they value caring for people and quality of lifestyle rather than winning. They value work life balance and enjoy pursuits of happiness. Canadian work culture is accepting of uncertainties and thus are open to new ideas and innovations. Like Australia, Canada is a normative society and this they have respect for tradition and are likely to have short-term orientation (Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights., 2020). This country’s culture is indulgent thus people here value leisure and want to realize their desires.

Individualism and Collectivism

The scores can be seen in appendix. This country has a power acceptance and people accept organizational hierarchy as natural. The employees are needed to be given direct order and superiors are expected to exert their power (Nedelko & Brzozowski, Eds.2017). They are an individualist society and thus people are expected to be able to take care of themselves. In organizations, merit based promotions, contracts based on mutual advantage and individual management is appreciated. It is a masculine society like Australia and thus lives for work. They expect the managers and executives to be decisive and values performance over all. They have low uncertainty and thus, have more relaxed organizational attitude. Work culture id flexible and people enjoy more independence (Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights., 2020). They have a normative culture and like Australia and Canada, they value tradition and focus on quick results. This country too, values indulgence and have a propensity to realize their desires and leisure time.

The scores can be seen in the appendix. Britain is a strong believer of minimizing power division and hierarchical structure. The country’s work culture does not differentiate between the class and birth. UK is highly individualistic and thus people are expected to be able to take care of themselves. They value privacy and unique contribution to society (Stoermer, Bader & Froese, 2016). They believe in personal fulfillment and they focus greatly on self. The British work culture is highly driven and oriented to success, as they are a masculine society. They have clear performance ambition and thus live for their work. UK has low uncertainty avoidance tendency, which indicates that that they are open to new suggestions and ideas. They are willing to take risks for larger success. They believe in fair play and opportunity while giving importance to getting to the result. The country’s long or short-term orientation is undetermined and thus, people are likely take on long or short-term goals depending on their personal philosophy (Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights., 2020). The British culture too, like the other countries, indulgent and thus favors leisure and fulfilment of desires.

The above discussion indicates that all the four countries have some positive and negative aspects based on corporate culture. It depends upon the person’s personal ability and preference and their field of work, whether they would be able to survive or not. All four countries showed individualistic and indulgent culture and thus people wanting to work in flexible work culture while having time of their own will work better. Freelancing and working in creative industries are more likely to see success. Majority of the countries showed masculine and power distance. Interestingly, the developing countries show more tendency towards high power distance here (Minkov, 2018).

Masculinity

Hofstede’s cultural dimension on these countries indicates that people living in collectivist cultures will find it quite difficult to work in countries like these and might live in cultural shock. However, the flexibility that these countries give and their value for getting the job done helps everyone to adapt to them easily (Skoumpopoulou et al., 2018). People working in managerial or executives position must evaluate countries they are working in and create company policies that will benefit to them. Closer look and analysis to the scores also indicate that countries that have culture that is more diverse are likely to value traditions and principles more like Australia or Canada.

From the discussion, the following recommendations can be made for working in different cultures:

For high power distance countries, acknowledging the status of the leader is necessary.

For low power distance countries taking all the people who would be affected into the decision making process is ideal.

In highly individualist culture acknowledging individual achievements, keeping work and personal life separate and encouraging debates and discussions are ideal way of working.

In collectivist culture, maintaining harmony is important and negative feedback and outright rejection should be avoided. This is also true for high restraint cultures.

In highly masculine culture, setting goals and targets work best. People like working longer and have definitive gender roles.

In feminine cultures, flexibility and work life balance, equal opportunity and mix of gender roles are necessary to work effectively. This is also true for high indulgence countries.

For high uncertainty avoidance clear goals, set cultures and norms are to be accepted and in low uncertainty avoidance lesser structure and avoiding show off is necessary.

Modesty, patience and compromise are necessary for long-term oriented countries while for the opposite, flattery and selling works best.

References

Beugelsdijk, S., & Welzel, C. (2018). Dimensions and dynamics of national culture: Synthesizing Hofstede with Inglehart. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(10), 1469-1505.

Beugelsdijk, S., Kostova, T., & Roth, K. (2017). An overview of Hofstede-inspired country-level culture research in international business since 2006. Journal of International Business Studies, 48(1), 30-47.

Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights. (2020). Retrieved 8 January 2020, from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/australia,canada,south-africa,the-uk/

da Silva, P. M. F., & Moreira, A. (2017). National culture and its relationship with innovation and corruption. In Exploring the Influence of Personal Values and Cultures in the Workplace (pp. 201-225). IGI Global.

Lo, K. D., Waters, R. D., & Christensen, N. (2017). Assessing the applicability of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions for Global 500 corporations’ Facebook profiles and content. Journal of Communication Management, 21(1), 51-67.

Minkov, M. (2018). A revision of Hofstede’s model of national culture: old evidence and new data from 56 countries. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 25(2), 231-256.

Nedelko, Z., & Brzozowski, M. (Eds.). (2017). Exploring the Influence of Personal Values and Cultures in the Workplace. IGi Global.

Skoumpopoulou, D., Wong, A. K., Ng, P. M., & Lo, M. F. (2018). Factors that affect the acceptance of new technologies in the workplace: a cross case analysis between UK and Hong Kong.

Stoermer, S., Bader, A. K., & Froese, F. J. (2016). Culture matters: The influence of national culture on inclusion climate. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 23(2), 287-305.