Study Skills for Higher Study Sample Assignment (GC02017)

Table of Contents

Introduction.

Critically evaluate the suggestions made in the article on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

Justifying the position by agreeing and disagreeing with the cultural dimensions.

Make other suggestions for cultural dimensions in a business environment

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction

Culture means a set of directions that present how people behave in different ways. This assignment’s article describes four cultural dimensions of Hofstede. First of all, the assignment assesses the suggestions on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions critically that made in the article. Then, by agreeing or disagreeing on Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions, a position is justified by this assignment. Last, of all, a number of suggestions for Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are provided.

Importance of Hofstede cultural dimensions

As Anastasia (2015) notes, the theory of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions creates a structure that turns around cross-cultural communication. In the article, it has found that there are four cultural dimensions of Hofstede including power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, and uncertainty avoidance that is shown in the figure as follows:

Anastasia (2015) said that power distance culture describes an extent to that members with less power in the society accept and expect that distribution of power does not create equality. In high power distance culture, people of lower level consistently defer to the high-level people wherein the low power distance members of a society value equality (Slavin, 2018).  The power distance culture’s benefit is it can define the power inequality between the high level and low-level people in an organization or in society. In addition, without a power distance culture, it is impossible to create good decisions and communication between the people of an organization (Brockner, 2015).

Individualism-collectivism cultural dimension is focusing on the question of if the people have a preference for being alone to watch over them or need to stay in the close joined network (Anastasia, 2015). The individualism culture allows a more diverse society where people are free and open. In addition, a collectivism culture refers to low equality in society. However, an individualistic person does not care about others whereas a collectivistic person has low freedom and equality to work in a group (Triandis, 2016).

Masculinity-femininity is the other dimension of Hofstede’s culture. Masculinity indicates a preference of society for heroism, assertiveness and achievement for accomplishing success. On the other hand, femininity presents a preference of society for cooperation, modesty, caring and life quality for the weak (Anastasia, 2015). In the masculine culture, career is essential for men and women are optional, wherein in feminine culture, career is optional for both and there is low inequality. The main drawback of masculine culture is there is no option for women and the drawback of feminine culture is the people of this culture feel down (Gill, 2016).

The uncertainty avoidance cultural dimension defines an extent to which a person in society is not relaxed with ambiguity or uncertainty. High uncertainty avoidance creates low staff turnover where low uncertainty avoidance creates high staff turnover (Anastasia, 2015). In addition, there are few rules in low uncertainty avoidance and there are more formal rules in high uncertainty avoidance (Smit, 2016).

Evaluate the importance of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on international business

Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions have both positive and negative impacts on both business organizations and society. In the article, it has been found that Geert Hofstede said about four key dimensions of culture and the four cultural dimensions are power distance, masculinity-femininity, individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance (Anastasia, 2015).

In the case of the power distance dimension, power distance refers to a degree to that culture believes that both political and social power should be shared similarly and distributed inexplicably (Anastasia, 2015). The high power distance has differences in the social classes of people whereas the low power distance has low differences in the social classes of people. Thus, the low power distance is agreed and the high power distance disagrees because inequality presents in high power distance (Brockner, 2015).

In the case of the individualism-collectivism dimension, this is focusing on the question of if the people have a preference for being alone to watch over them or need to stay in the close joined the network. The individualistic person is independent and assertive, and the collectivistic person is socially interdependent and obedient (Kim, 2015). Thus, collectivism is agreed and individualism disagrees because the goal of oneself is present in individualism culture.

In the case of the masculinity-femininity dimension, the masculine culture focuses on academic performance whereas feminine culture focuses on social adjustment. Therefore, the feminine culture is agreed and masculine culture disagrees because career is only presented for the men in masculine culture (Minkov, 2016).

In the case of uncertainty avoidance, there is high and low uncertainty avoidance. High uncertainty avoidance has many formal rules and structured learning. Low uncertainty avoidance has few formal rules and open-ended learning (Haque, 2016). Thus, high uncertainty avoidance is agreed and low uncertainty avoidance disagrees because there presents high staff turnover in low uncertainty avoidance.

Make other suggestions for cultural dimensions in a business environment

Nowadays, most business organizations focus on the diverse workforce and try to operate in a global environment. As a result, business organizations follow different dimensions of culture in their work to maintain a diverse workforce. It has been found from the article that Hofstede identified four dimensions of culture. Business organizations should follow long-term-short-term orientation and the indulgence-restraint dimension of culture besides these four dimensions of culture. Long-term orientation defines an organization’s inclination to search for quality (Anastasia, 2015). In addition, short-term orientation relates to the organizations which are inclined to the creation of absolute accuracy. On the other hand, the indulgence-restraint dimension turns around a degree to which an organization can practice control over its desires or impulses.

Conclusion

In summary, culture is a set of directions that present how people behave in different ways and it has great importance in the organization to maintain a diverse workforce. It has been found from the article that Hofstede identified four key dimensions of culture that are used by an organization to work in the global environment and maintain a diverse workforce. Moreover, it is also significant, to use the other dimensions such as long and short-term orientation and indulgence-restraint dimensions of culture besides the four dimensions such as power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, and uncertainty avoidance.

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