Cultural Dimension Theory By Hofstede

Culture Definition

Discuss about the Cultural Dimension Theory By Hofstede.

Culture is like a tree which have many branches but have one singular ideology to accumulate the people with their behaviors as well as practices. Culture directly relates with the social behavior as well as norms that can be found in a particular society. Culture can be considered as the primary concept of anthropology that covers all the phenomena’s, transmitted through behavior, and practices (see figure 1). It can take expressive forms like music, dance, art, religion and literature both oral as well as written. Culture defines the usage of technology, clothing habit, architecture, philosophy and science of one particular society. From the business perspective. Culture is the social heritage of a community through which their pattern of responses can be discovered, invented through their tendency to solve problems (Almond & Verba, 2015). These problems arise from the interactions among their group members and with the environment around them. These responses can be considered to be a way for perceiving, feeling, thinking and then acting. These are however passed on to the next generation through immersion. Culture of a society determines whether something is acceptable or unacceptable, correct or wrong, important or unimportant. Culture encompasses all which is learned, shared, explicit, assumptions, knowledge, norms, beliefs and values.

The cultural studies concentrate on the political dynamics of the contemporary culture where the historical foundations along with conflicts, traits and contingencies. Different ideologies, national information, class structure, ethnicity, gender and generation are the various factors that determine the role of the culture in the real world. There are various theories that focus upon the cultural aspects, demonstrated by different countries (Lane & Maznevski, 2014). The cultural theories such as Marxism, feminism, cultural race theory, colonialism, cultural dimension theory, post structuralism focus on the ethnography of the people around the world. These reveal the attitude, behaviors, preferences and responses of the group members among them as well as their interactions with the environment. All of these cultural theories emphasis upon the impact of the culture on the behaviors and responses of people associated with international organizations. Though these theories, one can define the causes of various cultural issues such as racism, inequality, discrimination in the global organizations.

As the article, ‘Manufacturing in China Can Give Your Business the Competitive Advantage’ by Michael Evans and Jack Toolan has discussed, the global manufacturers are recording a growing preference to the Chinese culture for increasing their business (Forbes.com, 2018). According to the colonialist theory the Republic of China was considered to be the market previously. Before 20 years, the when it opened its market with 1.3 billion consumers, the global manufacturers though it to be a great opportunity to explore and gain profit. However, China’s outsourcing market recently have grown 30 percent each year. This is the reason why many of the countries have been relocating their headquarters in china. The innovativeness and production capacity of the employees of the country has enabled them to create a scope for higher volume of product. For this, the manufacturers do not need to invest high amount of cost. The organizational culture of the country needs a little research as well as sourcing hence the companies can build partnership with the chines organizations in order to manufacture the latest product invention (Helmreich & Merritt, 2017). However, the organizational culture does not allow any kind of shortcut to success as the country makes possible anything but not easily.

The Political Dynamics of Contemporary Culture

According to the cultural dimension theory proposed by Hofstede, the people of China are very hardworking and do not prefer to indulge in leisure at the time of work. From the power distance index, it can be said that Chinese society prefer maintain hierarchy where the higher authorities enjoy power over their subordinates. The individuals are influenced by the formal authority hence do not aspire beyond their ranks. China has a highly collective culture where all the actions focus to the well-being of the group. Moreover, this culture is success oriented which ease the efforts of the manufacturers and do not need to motivate the employees for working. The Chinese culture is based upon the ideology of Confucius, therefore, they believe in the truth depending upon situation, time and context.

For the manufacturing companies, getting cheap labor for production is a vital thing. Cheap labors reduce the cost of the companies a lot. Hence many automobile companies along with sport shoe and clothing companies are gathering to avail this benefit in China (Bakir et al., 2015). After manufacturing their end products, they export them to other countries. This is the reason, the manufacturers from all over the world are gathering to understand this culture, getting all their business disciplines closely involved in their manufacturing operations in China and mastering all the details for gaining a winning approach.

Being an Australian, I personally feel that humor is pervasive in my culture, even in the business context. It is not only acceptable in every situation here, but it in fact is expected as well. I am generally open and direct in my style of communication with people around me, both personally and professionally. Though I sometimes, is less formal and is less politically right, but I always tend to place diplomacy after directness. This is why I can come across as a bit dull on some occasions. I cherish directness and therefore, failure to express or say what you mean or to mean what you say could be considered as hypocrisy and evasiveness by me. Like any other Australian, I am always direct in expressing my view-point and even expect others to do the same as well. Furthermore, one of the many things that make me different from the others is that I, an Australians, never like to pretend. I do not like to form an impression that I am better than the others, as I consider the sense of overconfidence as bragging. It is also to be noted that Australians consider the gesture of thumbs up as rude and disrespectful and so do me. I consider making a circle with our forefingers or thumb to indicate agreement or approval, rather than using thumbs-up. I prefer shaking hands with a warm smile during arrival and departure in a business environment. However, a large part of our country is multicultural; hence, one can find a wide variety of people with different culture. We tend to be very curious and quick to pick up on differences. No, I don’t find this as a con of our culture; in fact, it shows that we are truly interested to know others. Like, for example, when we find a person whose accent is different from our own, he will be surely asked about the same at the very first encounter.

In the business context, we operate on the basis of the first names and avoid using our formal titles while speaking. Our working hours are usually from 9:00a.m to 5: 30p.m along with 1 hour of lunch break. Here, overtime is not something uncommon. Instead, our country falls under the top countries that are widely known for longer working hours. Within our Australian workplace, late submissions are deemed as lack of professionalism and create negative impression. Though we are widely known for our laid-back lifestyle, we are generally direct and firm business man who value time, punctuality along with strong professional ethics. Each of the characteristics of time management is seriously taken in our Australian business world. The punctuality, deadlines, productivity and absenteeism of my team are closely and minutely monitored and measured by me. I do not suppose to think myself as superior to their staffs. As I already mentioned above that we do not like to form an impression of being superior to others. It is just that we have different roles and responsibilities in our work place. In my country, we always try to minimize differences and we do not display hierarchy openly and so do I. I consider pragmatism as a very important attribute. Expertise, efficiency, skills and capabilities are considered to be of much more importance than the nuance of hierarchy or protocol. In business, though it is me who take the ultimate decision, but I embrace and encourage collaborative and inclusive approach in the workplace. I respect all my team members at the work place. I leverage the non-financial factors in order to boost engagement and motivation within my team.

References:

Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (2015). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Princeton University Press.

Bakir, A., Blodgett, J. G., Vitell, S. J., & Rose, G. M. (2015). A preliminary investigation of the reliability and validity of Hofstede’s cross cultural dimensions. In Proceedings of the 2000 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 226-232). Springer, Cham.

Forbes.com. (2018). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 25 March 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2014/02/07/manufacturing-in-china-can-give-your-business-the-competitive-advantage/#76fb8ee62774

Helmreich, R. L., & Merritt, A. C. (2017). Culture at work in aviation and medicine: National, organizational and professional influences. Routledge.

Lane, H., & Maznevski, M. (2014). International  management behavior (7th ed.). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Studios, B. (2018). About Cultural Mapping - Ottawa Valley Culture. Ottawavalleyculture.ca. Retrieved 25 March 2018, from https://www.ottawavalleyculture.ca/about-cultural-mapping/