HRM45 International Management and Leadership Assignment (GC01903)

Executive Summary

The key aim of this essay is to critically discuss and analyse the cultural differences applying Hofstede’s Cultural Model in terms of particular organizations.  In this essay, Hofstede’s Cultural Model has been applied to a Japanese organisation named “Toyota”, which operates in the global market including the UK. The discussion and analysis of the application of Hofstede’s Cultural Framework have been based on Japan and UK. The findings of this report have come from several data sources. Most of the data have come from Geert Hofstede’s website named “www.geert-hopstede.com” and Toyota website name “www.toyota-global.com”. In addition, the author of this essay has used several books, journals, and other websites to accomplish the assignment.

The overview of this essay shows that Hofstede’s Cultural Model applies six cultural dimensions which provide a measurable paradigm to meet organizations’ expectations towards the cultural differences in their international marketplaces and contribute to their inter-cultural studies. The organizations like Toyota which operate in the international marketplace, culture is the most significant factor to manage any conflicts raised in the business environment and to meet the needs and expectations of the workforce. In addition, the six dimensions included in the Hofstede’s cultural model effect the cross-cultural communication of multinational organizations including Toyota, which support organisations reduce a substantial level of risk and conflicts among employees. As a result, global organizations like Toyota must consider the cultural factors mainly the six dimensions discussed through Hofstede’s Cultural Model, when they take any initiatives or make decisions for their business.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary.

1.0 Introduction.

2.0 Literature Review.

2.1 What is culture?.

2.2 National culture.

2.3 Organisational culture.

2.4 Concept of Hofstede’s Cultural Model

2.5 What does the Hofstede Model focus on?.

2.6 Global business and cultural differences in global markets.

2.7 Cultural difference between home country (like Japan) and global market (like the UK)

3.0 Discussion and Analysis.

4.0 Conclusion.

References.

1.0 Introduction

A country’s boundaries of business are, nowadays, are shaped by the globalization and advancement of both worldwide communication and transformation systems. These factors have provided huge opportunities to domestic business organizations to maximize their opportunity in the international marketplaces. One of the scholars named “Geert Hofstede” started in 1970 to notice the significance of cultural differences in the success of multinational organizations (Hofstede et al., 2016). Most importantly, cultural issues are important when organizations deal with people come from different cultures and diverse background. This is because different cultures and diverse backgrounds may be the cause of conflict among organizations’ people (Holden, 2019). Thus, it is essential for global organizations to understand and recognize the cultural differences in their business environment. A model developed by Hofstede plays an important role to guide organizations to recognize their cultural differences and suggest improving the inter-cultural communication among workforces. However, some critiques raise questions against the reliability of this framework (Bond, 2019). This report critically discusses and analyses Hofstede’s cultural framework in the first section. Then, the report applies this framework on a global business”, and recommends improving its inter-cultural communication in a business environment. Finally, the report critiques the limitations of Hofstede’s cultural framework focusing on the findings of the literature.

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 What is culture?

According to Warner and Joynt (2019), culture is defined as the outcome of human action in society. Peterson (2017) states that culture is the relatively stable set of inner beliefs and values generally held by people in society, regions, or a country, where it has a noticeable impact on those values as well as beliefs have on the environment and outward behaviors.  However, the most cited definition of culture provided by Hofstede in 1980 is “culture refers to the collective programming of the minds which divide one group’s people from another “. Comparing almost all the culture definitions Hofstede et al. (2019) defined six characteristics of culture: 1) culture is learned rather than inherited; 2) culture is shared by groups, organizations, and even by the whole society, rather than specific to the individual; 3) culture shifts from generation to generation that means culture is dynamic; 4) culture is symbolic; 5) culture is patterned means it is integrated; and 6) culture is adaptive.

2.2 National culture

National culture refers to the broadest level of culture which shapes people from childhood with values, assumptions, and beliefs inherent in it (Holden, 2019). In addition, national culture is considered as a learned characteristic rather than genetic.  Hofstede et al. (2016) define national culture as the degree to which values, norms and behaviors vary from country to country. There are particular reasons behind cultural differences among nations. The key reasons are political, psychological, and sociological. Nations are political organizations that have histories with the legal system, labor and employee association system, education system, government formation systems etc. Then, another attribute of national culture distinguishes countries’ sociology.  This means every nation has a symbolic value and shapes as an identity that creates a common national identity and the people want to protect and defend that identity from their heart. Finally, Hofstede et al., 2016) state that psychological reasons are the cause of cultural differences among countries, which impact the live and educational experiences of a nation’s people. However, Lewis (2019) stated that national cultural differences focus on differences in social behavior where individuals are concerned about their own culture.

2.3 Organisational culture

Organizations’ cultures look like national culture which refers to a pattern of assumptions developed by a group of people (Francesco and Gold, 2017). Thus, organizational culture is considered as the natural way of understanding the business environment and taking action. Moreover, Hofstede et al. (2019) disclose that organizational culture consists of a number of attributes, which are related to: a) holistic; b) soft and difficult to change; 3) socially constructed; 4) anthropologists’ study; and 5) historically determined. This means organizational culture is the collective programming of the mind which differs among members of one organization from others (Hofstede et al., 2016). Armstrong (2018) states that a country’s culture may be impossible to change but an organization’s culture may be changed from time to time along with the organizational change management. In addition, a country’s culture is shaped from a childhood of people, but organizational culture is adopted focusing on the employment market and workforce experiences. In a word, organizational culture is not rooted deeply in national culture because it may change due to capability change, management process changes etc (Hofstede et al., 2019). However, national culture affects organizational culture which is difficult to understand without analyzing the eternal boundaries of the organizations (Martin, 2019).

2.4 Concept of Hofstede’s Cultural Model

Hofstede’s Cultural Model is the widely used framework for cross-cultural communication in a business environment. This model was developed by a scholar named “Greet Hofstede” during the 1980s (Bond, 2019). This model outlines the impact of a community’s culture on the values of organizations’ members. In addition, the framework describes how these values of organizations’ members are related to behaviors in workplaces. In this case, the model focuses on a number of factor analyses………………………..

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