Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory: Understanding Cultural Differences

Understanding the difference in culture

Discuss about the Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension theory.

Culture is basically a way of expressing the daily life leading process through which a group of people can be known effectively. It can be said that a particular culture is an identification of a group of people. Their way of living, communication process, hobbies, choices, musical interest, arts etc. are known perfectly if the culture is studied accordingly. It is obvious that a culture of a particular group signifies the activities of that group. The main benefit of maintaining a particular culture is that it creates unity amongst. Unity actually helps individual to create a perfect behavior through which people become presentable to other societies or in front of other cultures. Culture is relative and is learnt from one another. That is the reason there is no subject which specifies the cultural part of the society. It is the responsibilities of the parents or the elders in the society to make others understand about the cultures. It is to say that cultures change overtime while other cultures make individuals affected. It means while the people of a particular culture get interest with other cultures then the culture starts to change its ethics and behaviors. Cultural Awareness is the foundation to communicate and it also engages the ability to stand back and becoming aware of the cultures. It actually helps individuals to understand about the values, perception and beliefs. 

Understanding the difference in culture actually means the difference in food, clothes, religion, communication, language etc. The people of different culture have difference in their way of living and their approaches. There are various food items in different cultures. In china, people mostly favors noodles and soup on the other hand American people favors burgers and the people of Italy pizzas. Therefore, the differences in culture is well understood (Ji, 2010). The cultural differences can also be determined by certain factors such as education, personal backgrounds as well as ethnicity. Based on education, different countries in the world have different education qualifications. For example, the developed countries like US, UK and some Asian nations have high level of educational background (Gonzalez, 2014). Education decides the field of culture in many ways. It can be said education is the key aspect through which culture can be learnt. The dressing sense as in clothes of the people of different countries can affect the culture in an effective way. The western countries are very open minded and there are varieties in dresses. People of the western countries have varieties of choice in the field of choosing dresses. In this case the people from the eastern part of the world are very sensible with their dresses. In the eastern cultures there are many ethics in the field. Religious beliefs and nature of friendship is totally different in this particular region. People of this part of the country are very much conscious and emotional about their cultures. In the western culture there are no such ethics in the culture. The people are conscious about their culture but they are not so emotional. The religious part in this culture is not that much applicable. They accept every kind of ethics, they can make themselves managed in different situation. It happens just because of the open minded mentality and fearless activities. There is one aspect of culture which is applicable for both sides of the world. That is importance of time (Holmes, 2015). Importance of time can make a person punctual. The person will be able to create a perfect own personality. This is the most crucial aspect of culture that it helps people to know about the importance of time.

Examples of cultural difference

There are many cultural differences those are spreader across the world. It can be said that the differences itself have created a barrier among different cultural. This is the bad side of the differences but the good side of the differences is that it helps individual to understand about different cultures. Some of the examples of different cultures are given below (Adolfsson, 2014),

Shaking head: This is a way to express or this is the way to reply back. In different cultures the meaning of shaking head is different. Shaking the head in side to side is ‘no’ in most of the countries but in Bulgaria it means ‘yes’.

Laughing: It is another way to express feeling depending on different moods and situations. In most of the countries laughing carries the symbol of happiness or it can be said that people laugh just to express that they are happy but in Japan, laughing means to be in confusing situation or to be in embarrassment.

Thumb/forefinger: In England combining the thumb finger and forefinger means ‘ok ‘. But in France it means nothing or without any value.

There are more different examples of culture among them these signs just carry a particular part of the culture. Although signs are very important part of the culture (Gonza?lez de Leo?n, 2009).

There are ample benefits of cultural awareness among them these are few advantages or benefits of cultural awareness.

• In order to have success in life, the awareness cultural difference is very much important.
• It actually helps to understand about the thinking of different people it also helps to understand the reason behind thinking differently
• There are many key roles through which the actual motto of the culture can be understood. Cultural awareness helps individual to understand this. Cultural Awareness also helps individual to create consciousness about other cultures.
• Culture awareness helps an individual to build up personality (Case presentations, 2009).

There are many risks and danger in culture that can affect people in an effective way.

• Stereotypes danger or risk: It is actually the variety types of risk in the field of culture. There are various filed of the culture so the chances of different types of risks are there.
• Prejudice: This kind of danger actually comes depending on practical experience in many cultures.
• Ethno-centric perspective: It is the basic origin of culture where people learn how to react in different situation. This danger actually helps individual to understand about the reason of different culture. There lies the main danger.

This theory of cultural dimensions theory actually says about the following comparisons (Back Hye Joo and Joo-Hyun Chung, 2014). The comparisons are as follows,

• High Power Distance vs. low power distance
• Individualism vs. collectivism
• Masculinity vs. Femininity
• Uncertainty avoidance index (high vs. low)
• Pragmatic vs. Normative
• Indulgence vs. Retrains

These are the theories which are mainly described in the theory. It can be said that the theory actually differs the different sides of culture and the significance.

In the field of high power distance there are some characteristics that can be elaborated effectively. The characteristics are as follows,

• Centralized organizations. In this part of the theory there is centralized organization which actually operates the whole scenario of the culture being in the central position (Case presentations, 2009).
• More complex hierarchies. It means the parts and sub parts here are very complicated and difficult to understand. It can be said that in this part of the theory the parts and sub parts of the culture become complicated and hard to understand for the people.
• Large gap in compensation authority and respect. There are many situations in the society where the employees mainly work for compensation and respect in the company. It is the same for the people of the society. The people here mainly work for respect and extra benefits. That is why this part of the theory actually says about respect and in this part there are large gaps among respects and humans. Moreover the benefits of getting compensation in this case are also hard to get as there are also large gaps.

In low power distance there are two characteristics. They are as follows,

• Flatter organization. In the field of low power distance there are organizations that have flatter structures. It is the significance of this part of theory and it also describes the actual condition of culture under the surveillance of people.
• Supervisors and employees in an organization are considered as being in same post. It means this parts actually believes the law of equality.

Individualism vs. collectivism

In this part of the theory there are few characteristics for both the parts.  For the individualism the characteristics can be elaborated in many ways. They are as follows,

• There are high values for the people time, their needs and need for privacy and freedom.
• Individual get their reward for their hard works. The individual actually enjoys the challenging situation sin an effective way (Citino, 2011). It can be said that the challenges are accepted widely and after facing the challenges the employees and the workers start to expect rewards from the higher authority.
• In this part of the theory respect for privacy is the main characteristic. It means people of this culture actually get respect from each other in time of privacy.

Collectivism also has many characteristics and they are as follows,

• It actually emphasizes on building skills and becoming masters of something
• People of this culture actually works for instinct rewards.
• The other moral issues are overrides by maintaining harmony groups.

The characteristics of the first culture are as follows,

• There lies strong egos which are feelings of pride and importance are mainly attributed to status.
• Money and especially the achievements are very crucial in this case.
• This part of the culture is very much concerned about relationships.
• The main focus of this culture is on quality of life. It means the main focus of this culture is to increase the standard of life.

In both the uncertainty avoidance the characteristics are as follows,

• Rigid, structured and conservative are the main thing specialty of this part of the culture that can be taken under the matters of concern.
• There are many societal conventions in this part of culture.
• People in this part expressive and they are allowed to show anger, emotions where required. This culture has high energy society if people actually get to feel that they are in total control of their lives. Being overwhelmed and reacting loudly are not acceptable in this culture.
• There is an openness to change or to be innovative in the cultural field. The people of this culture are generally inclusive.
• Among the people there are less sense of urgency. It means the people in this culture cannot feel that they urgency in their works.

Benefits of cultural Awareness

In Pragmatic vs. nomadic the characteristics are as follows,

• Education and thrift are seen as positive values.
• There is emphasized virtues and obligations.
• The people of this culture are strong convictive.
• Values and rights are emphasized in normative culture (Boyd, 2010).

In indulgence vs. retrains culture the characteristics are as follows,

• People are optimistic
• There are importance of freedom of speech
• The main focus of the culture has been remained on personal happiness.
• The people of restraints are pessimistic.
• The behavior of the people of this culture are more controlled and rigid.

Intercultural awareness is the part of the same culture. It means the cultural awareness of same group of people who belong to the same culture. It is the effective fact of being conscious about owns culture at time of maintaining the ethics in an effective way. It can be said that the cultures must be taken seriously in the cultural field in order to be effective.

There are many ways of being aware of the cultures. The ways are as follows,

• Individual can learn cultures form his/her elders.
• Individual can experience different cultures and among millions of characteristics of different cultures people can adapt a few cultures.
• One can help other to be aware of the cultures in an effective way.

Conclusion

At the end of the project one can say that the culture and its awareness is a very crucial aspect in human society. It is the way to communicate, to be responsive and to be known perfectly. A culture can be the symbol of individual where the people can the symbolic depending on the cultures.

It is highly recommended that individual must know his or her culture perfectly in order to be effective in the culture. A true culture is the symbol to make a particular person known to others. The behavior and ethics are also known by culture. So culture must be maintained in anyways. It can be with help of the senior or it can be with the help of the experienced persons. Culture should get the proper respect and it can only be possible with the behavior of individual.

References

Adolfsson, P. (2014). Pharmacies and Different Logics. Organizational Cultures: An International Journal, 13(2), pp.37-50.

Back Hye Joo and Joo-Hyun Chung (2014). Suggestion of a classification table of design modeling elements in cultural dimensions - Focused on Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions -. Journal of Korea Design Forum, null(43), pp.223-232.

Boyd, J. (2010). Producing Vancouver's (hetero)normative nightscape. Gender, Place & Culture, 17(2), pp.169-189.

Case presentations. (2009). Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 80(11), pp.e2-e2.

Case presentations. (2009). Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 80(11), pp.e2-e2.

Citino, D. (2011). Challenging Situation No. 3: The Rolling Skull. Red Cedar Review, 46(1), pp.69-70.

Gonza?lez de Leo?n, F. (2009). The road to Rocroi. 1st ed. Leiden: Brill.

Gonzalez, G. (2014). Educational attainment in immigrant families. 1st ed. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub.

Holmes, H. (2015). Self-time: The importance of temporal experience within practice. Time & Society.

Ji, L. (2010). Is Confucian culture unforgiving? Commentary on Stankov (2010). Learning and Individual Differences, 20(6), pp.569-570.