Analysis Of Hofstede 's Dimension Of Culture

In essence this dimension deals with the relationship between the individual and the collectives in a given society. It is reflected in the way in which people live together. For example, nuclear families, extended families, tribes and other larger communities. It directly effects peoples values and behaviours. In some cultures individualism is sometime to be sought after but in others it is seen as alienation.

In Communications Between Cultures individualism and collectivism are described by researchers as “self-orientation versus collective orientation as one of the basic pattern variables that determine human action.” These differences can be found in family life, school, and workplace

Individualism is a habit of being self- reliant. A cultural value is a persons desired and preferred way of acting. Every culture has their own cultural values and individualism but whether individualism is their cultural value is up to the person entirely. This could pose a conflict when persuading the wrong culture especially a culture as diverse as the American culture. Poranee Sponsel is a born and raised Thai who is now a professor at a university in Hawaii and gives us the outsider’s perspective of the American culture. In Sponsel’s article “The Young, the Rich, and the Famous: Individualism as an American Cultural value” Sponsel

Explanation: Hofstede 's framework rates Japan and Singapore as "collectivist" and the United States as "individualistic." A collectivist cultures has a stronger group identity than an individualistic culture.

Everyone, every social class and every country have their own unique values. It is the fact that value is the core of cross-culture communication and the differences of culture among countries depend on different values. Value exerts great influence on everyone’s daily life. Scores of people rely on value to obtain knowledge, master the basic skills and foster correct world outlook. China and America are two opposite countries in terms of different values. It exists in many different fields in China and America such as politics, literature and family structure. The essence of these differences actually reflects the cultural differences. The word

The country that I choose for the Session Long Project for this class is Japan. By observing the Hofstede’s webpage a person can easily tell that there is a huge disparity in the values of the power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance cultural dimensions between Japan and the United States. Japan’s cultural dimension values of power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance are significantly higher than the values of the United States. The United States’ value in the cultural dimension individualism doubles that of Japan. Japan’s power distance score indicates that the country’s has a borderline hierarchy society while the United States’ fairly low score indicates that the country has the belief that everybody is treated equal rather than having a hierarchy. By observing the individualism culture dimension value for both countries, one can identify that the United States has a more independent society than Japan.

The United States scored a low 46, in this section of the dimension of culture. The information suggests that Americans impact on their behavior would be higher if the scores were different. Acceptance of new ideas, innovate products, and the ability to try something new or different, whether it being technology, business strategies, or food. Americans allow for opinion of different individuals to be hear allowing freedom of speech. However, Americans are not strict when it comes to rules and express themselves less emotionally than countries who score high.

Joseph DeVito, in his book The Interpersonal Communication Book (2016), wrote that “masculine cultures value aggressiveness, material success, and strength” (p.39). Masculine cultures are ego oriented. Conflicts are solved by fighting. DeVito (2016) also stated that “feminine cultures value modesty, concern for relationships, and quality of life and tenderness” (p. 39). Feminine cultures are more relationship oriented. People are important to them and conflict is resolved through negotiations.

Dr. Geert Hofstede created the first four dimensions of culture in the 1970’s after analyzing statistical data from IBM over the course of many years. In the 1990’s he created the fifth dimension after noticing specific cultural differences in Asian countries and their ties to Confucian philosophy. (www.mindtools.com) The five dimensions are as follows: Power/Distance (PD), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty/Avoidance Index (UAI), and Long Term Orientation (LTO). I will only discuss a few of these as they seem more prominent to this case. First, let’s talk about the Power/Distance (PD) dimension as it pertains to Ms. Myers in South Korea.

Individualistic cultures tend to favor feeling free and less responsible for the members around them. In class, we discussed our own experiences of living in an individualistic culture. For example, if a parent were to become ill and more dependent, it is not uncommon for the children to send the parent to a nursing home. The ill parent would feel embarrassed if their child had to help them use a restroom or bathe themselves.Whereas, in a collectivism

| The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in

When a business decides to venture internationally into different countries with its products, services, and operations, it is very important that the company gains an understanding of how the culture of the different societies affects the values found in those societies. Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most famous and most used studies on how culture relates to values. Hofstede study enabled him to compare dimensions of culture across 40 countries. He originally isolated four dimensions of what he claimed summarized different cultures — power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity (Hill, 2013, p.110). To cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm Hofstede has since added two more dimensions — Confucianism or long-term orientation and indulgence versus self-restraint (Hofstede, n.d.). Because of the way Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are given an index score from 0-100, it is easy for a company to get a general comparison between the cultures they are expanding into and the culture they are already in.

This essay will discuss the influence of cultural dimensions on behavior. A cultural dimension is defined as a perspective of a culture based on its values and cultural norms. In particular, Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualism vs. collectivism will be discussed. Individualism vs collectivism is defined as the preference of a person only being concerned about oneself and looking after oneself, compared to a person who wants to remain in a closely knitted network. These are some terms with definitions which will be used in this essay: the Asch paradigm, which refers to the studies conducted by Solomon Asch, in which he showed his participants different lines and asked them to verbally judge and respond as to what the length of the

The United States and China boast the two largest economies in the world but, despite this fact, these two countries have very little in common. At first glance, this may seem very obvious to most people but, what exactly is it that makes these two countries so different? How is it that such different perspectives and approaches can both lead to great success? Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture are an attempt to answer these questions and more. Dr. Geert Hofstede, studied employees of the computer firm IBM in over fifty different countries. When he examined his findings he found “clear patterns of similarity and difference along the four dimensions” (Manktelow, Jackson Edwards, Eyre, Cook and Khan, n.d.). The fact that he focused his research on solely IBM employees allowed him to eliminate company culture as a differentiating factor and “attribute those patterns to national and social differences” (n.d.). He used his findings to originally identify four dimensions, later expanded to six, that could “distinguish one culture from another” (n.d.). The six dimensions all on a scale from 0 to 100 are:

According to “Professor Geert Hofstede, culture is defined as “the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others” (Geert-Hofstede, 2015). According to his research there are six dimensions of national culture.