Cultural Brief of Taiwan

Understanding the differences and similarities inherent in other cultures may provide opportunities when working with individuals (or groups) who may have different cultural values, beliefs, and/or norms. There are multiple ways to explore different cultures. One way is through Hofstede’s (2017) cultural dimension; which are currently made up of six broad categories, including high-low power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-short term orientation, and indulgence-restraint. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore all these cultural dimensions in great detail; however, it is important to understand some of the implications of these scores. The scores for both the US and China can be seen in Table 1, along with the differences between each score.

The average point differential between Japan and Canada on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is 35.6. The largest differentials between the two cultures are pragmatism (52), uncertainty avoidance (43), and masculinity (42). Given that individualism has the largest differential in favor of Canada, as well as being Canada’s highest scoring dimension, it will be included for analysis as well. (The Hofstede Centre)

Lee, Wei Chin. “Arms Twisting: U.S.-Taiwan Arms Transfers in the First Decade of the Twenty-

For example, taking into account Nisbett, Cohen and Hofstedes studies, we assume how a specific cultural belief, tradition and attitude become part of the person and not just of his/her surroundings. For example, Hofstedes dimension called “Power Distance Index” (PDI), is concerned with attitudes towards authority and hierarchy. This cultural perception makes a huge difference in how people feel with their superiors and how they react to control-authority, -father like figures.

I was born in Taiwan, when I was eleven years old, my family have immigrated to a small town in Eastern Kentucky. Moving from a mostly homogeneous society to a heterogeneous society was quite a change for our family, it has also open my eyes to culture conflicts. Growing up, I’ve define my race as Asian, and my ethnicity as Taiwanese-American, at home my parents speak mainly Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, and we ate mostly Taiwanese food at home, however I have been socialized and adapted into the American culture in school, and with my peers. Consequently, as I grow older, I’ve identify myself with both culture and heritages. I have made an effort to not forget my native languages and my native culture values, instead, I’ve try my best to make the best out of both cultures.

The lack of precision and the lack of a universally applicable framework for classifying cultural patterns have been addressed by a number of researchers. The most famous and most often cited work in this area is the research by the Dutch organizational anthropologist Hofstede.

Hofstede defined the culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from that another”. His five types of cultural dimensions are the most popular in many cultural area studies, include: (1) power distance; (2) individualism vs. collectivism; (3) uncertainty avoidance; (4) masculinity vs. femininity; and (5) long-term vs. short-term orientation. These dimensions offer an insight towards behaviors and standards in the cultural context which are useful for many motivators to explore the people in different culture. The text suggested that countries with high uncertainty avoidance will lead to more job security, whereas people with low uncertainty avoidance (for example, U.S.) are motivated by new ideas and innovation. People with high power distance are motivated by relationships between subordinates and their boss, while people with low power distance are motivated by team work and relationships with their peers. On the other hand, individuals from high individualism are motivated by opportunities and autonomy; collectivism (for example, Japan) suggests that motivation should be done with group goals and support. Individuals from high masculine culture are comfortable with the tradition and division of works and roles; in a feminine culture, the motivators help people through flexible roles and work

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.

Geert Hofstede once said, “Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.” This quote means that no culture is alike or completely cohesive and that the differences between cultures are often incompatible and combative. This quote also ties directly into what will be discussed in this research paper. An analysis of the similarities and differences between the United States and India through Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of individualism, collectivism, low uncertainty avoidance, high uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity, femininity, short-term oriented culture, and long-term oriented culture.

The most famous researcher of prevailing cultures in different countries goes by the name of Geert Hofstede. “He conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture” (). With the help of his research team, Professor Geert Hofstede created a model of national culture consisting of six dimensions. “The cultural dimensions represent independent preferences for on state of affairs

Taiwan is located east off the coast of China. The island of Taiwan has a history dating back to over fifteen million years ago, and the earliest people who lived on Taiwan were there 37 thousand years ago. The Austronesians, the indigenous people of Taiwan, were the earliest inhabitants. Because their languages, society, and cultures were so varied, people speculate that the indigenous people of Taiwan arrived at different times and from different parts of Asia.

Dr. Hofstede performed a comprehensive study of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. In the 1970’s, as a Dutch researcher Dr. Geert Hofstede, collected and analyzed data from 116,000 surveys taken from IBM employees in forty different countries around the world. From those results, Hofstede developed a model that identifies four primary dimensions of differentiate cultures. These include: Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), Masculinity-Femininity (MAS), Individualism-Collectivism (IND), Power and Distance (PD). After a further study of the Asian culture by researcher Michael Bond in 1991, Hofstede added a fifth dimension in his theory, Long- and Short-term time orientation (LTO), also referred to as the Confucian Dynamism. His research has framed how cultural differences can be used in professional business transactions. Geert Hofstede 's dimensions analysis can assist the business person in better understanding the intercultural differences within regions and between countries.

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: