Hofstede`s model

Hofstede`s model

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  What are Hofstede'sfive Cultural Dimensions? Why is culture so important? Every visitor from wherever in the world, has her or his unique personality, history, and interest. Yet all people share a common human nature. Our shared human nature is intensely social: we are group animals. We use language and empathy, and practice collaboration and intergroup competition. But the unwritten rules of how we do these things differ from one human group to another. "'Culture" is how we call these unwritten rules about how to be a good member of the group. Culture provides moral standards about how to be an upstanding group member; it defines the group as a “moral circle". It inspires symbols, heroes, rituals, laws, religions, taboos, and all kinds of practices - but its core is hidden in unconscious values. We tend to classify groups other than our own as inferior or (rarely) superior. This applies to groups based on national, religious, or ethnic boundaries, but also on occupation or academic discipline, on club membership, adored idol, or dress style. In our globalized world most of us can belong to many groups at the same time. But to get things done, we still need to cooperate with members of other groups carrying other cultures. Skills in cooperation across cultures are vital for our common survival. The authors of this page are committed to the development of such intercultural cooperation skills. Culture What is culture? The word "culture" stems from a Latin root that means the tilling of the soil, like in agriculture. In many modern languages the word is used in a figurative sense, with two meanings: 1. The first, most common, meaning is "civilization", including education, manners, arts and crafts and their products. It is the domain of a "ministry of culture". 2. The second meaning derives from social anthropology, but in the past decades it has entered common parlance. It refers to the way people think, feel, and act. Geert has defined it as "the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from another". The "category" can refer to nations, regions within or across nations, ethnicities, religions, occupations, organizations, or the genders. A simpler definition is 'the unwritten rules of the social game'. The two meanings should not be confused. Our work refers to culture in the second sense. How did we acquire our collective programming? Human culture is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. During most of this time, competition between bands of gatherer-hunters was a powerful evolutionary pressure. As a result our social and intellectual skills have become ever bigger. But we did not lose the elements of our behaviour that identify us as social mammals. Fights for
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  dominance, competition forpartners, a wish to belong and to know who does not belong - all of these basic drives are alive in us. No wonder that culture revolves around basic issues that have to do with group membership, authority, gender roles, morality, anxiety, emotions and drives. Culture affects our love lives, our professional lives, our wars and our dreams. An individual human being acquires most of her or his programming during childhood, before puberty. In this phase of our lives we have an incredible capacity for absorbing information and following examples from our social environment: our parents and other elders, our siblings and playmates. But all of this is constrained by our physical environment: its wealth or poverty, its threats or safety, its level of technology. All human groups, from the nuclear family to society, develop cultures as they go. Culture is what enables a group to function smoothly. Here are some prominent levels: National level Today's world population is divided into some 200 nations. Comparing nations has become part of most social sciences. Some nations are more culturally homogeneous than others; especially large nations like Brazil, China, India and Indonesia comprise culturally different regions. Other culturally similar areas belong politically to different nations: this is in particular the case in Africa. With these limitations, comparing national cultures is still a meaningful and revealing venture. Research by Geert and others has shown that national cultures differ in particular at the level of, usually unconscious, values held by a majority of the population. Values, in this case, are "broad preferences for one state of affairs over others". This differs from the often used meaning "cherished moral convictions", as in "company values". The Hofstede dimensions of national cultures are rooted in our unconscious values. Because values are acquired in childhood, national cultures are remarkably stable over time; national values change is a matter of generations. What we see changing around us, in response to changing circumstances are practices: symbols, heroes and rituals, leaving the underlying values untouched. This is why differences between countries often have such a remarkable historical continuity. Organizational level Many of us spend a large part of their time in organizations. Organizational cultures, the way Geert uses the term, distinguish different organizations within the same country or countries. Geert's research has shown that organizational cultures differ mainly at the level of practices (symbols, heroes and rituals); these are more superficial and more easily learned and unlearned than the values that form the core of national cultures. As a consequence, the Hofstede dimensions of national cultures are not relevant for comparing organizations within the same country. National cultures belong to anthropology; organizational cultures to sociology. Because organizational cultures are rooted in practices, they are to some extent manageable; national cultures, rooted in values, are given facts for organization management. Occupational level Entering an occupational field like nursing or ICT implies acquiring a degree of mental
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  programming. Occupational cultureshave symbols, heroes and rituals in common with organizational cultures, but they also often imply holding certain values and convictions. Occupational cultures in this respect take a position in between national and organizational cultures. The culture of management as an occupation contains both national and organizational elements. Gender level Gender differences are not usually described in terms of cultures. It can be revealing to do so. If we recognize that within each society there may be a men's culture that differs from a women's culture, this helps to explain why it is so difficult to change traditional gender roles. Women and men are often technically able to perform the same jobs, but they do not respond to the symbols, do not look like the heroes, do not share the rituals. Even if some do, the other sex may not accept them in their deviant gender role. Feelings and fears about behaviours by the opposite sex can be of the same order of intensity as reactions of people exposed to foreign cultures. The degree of gender differentiation in a country is highly dependent on its national culture. Dimensions of national Cultures Geert has operated in an international environment since 1965, and his curiosity as a social psychologist led him to the comparison of nations, first as a travelling international staff member of a multinational (IBM) and later as a visiting professor at an international business school in Switzerland. His 1980 book Culture's Consequences combined his personal experiences with the statistical analysis of two unique data bases. The first and largest comprised answers of matched employee samples from 40 different countries to the same attitude survey questions. The second consisted of answers to some of these same questions by his executive students who came from 15 countries and from a variety of companies and industries. Systematic differences between nations in these two data bases occurred in particular for questions dealing with values. Values, in this case, are "broad preferences for one state of affairs over others", and they are mostly unconscious.
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  * Description forlisted below Power Distance Index (PDI) that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'. Individualism (IDV) on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word 'collectivism' in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world. Masculinity (MAS) versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other.
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  The assertive polehas been called 'masculine' and the modest, caring pole 'feminine'. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men's values and women's values. Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions. Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation: this fifth dimension was found in a study among students in 23 countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars It can be said to deal with Virtue regardless of Truth. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face'. Both the positively and the negatively rated values of this dimension are found in the teachings of Confucius, the most influential Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 B.C.; however, the dimension also applies to countries without a Confucian heritage.