Cultural Dimensions Of Natural 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

This knowledge of weakness should not be used against people of other cultures or in stereotyping individuals. In obtaining the indices, research was based on data obtained from IBM employees. According to Hofstede, “dimensions and associated country scores were developed through factor analysis of the means of nationally aggregated individual item responses which were collected as part of IBM employee surveys” (Hofstede 491). The problem, however, is that as much as this may be useful in determining the culture of a country, it does not have enough diverse subjects to form a complete perception of an individual, cultural group or organization; especially an organization different from IBM. The diversity of ethnicity, religious belief, social economic status, education and other variables that makes up an individual’s value system may not be reflected in the average IBM employee. Brewer and Verniak, in their article On the Misuse of National Culture Dimensions, believe “The correlations among the items used to measure the national culture dimensions are positive and highly significant at the aggregated national (also known as “ecological”) level, but are mostly low and insignificant and sometimes of opposite sign at the individual level” (Brewer and Venaik

| * Emphasis on building skills and becoming masters of something. * Work for intrinsic rewards. * Harmony more important than honesty.

Culture impacts every facet of life and is defined as beliefs, values and attitudes shared and perpetuated by members of a social group. Culture is a complex whole that also includes shared traditions, customs and language, and norms that must be learned from families and social communities (Thomas et al., 2004). It also affects the entire way in which health is framed in meaning and response; thus, awareness of these cultural variations can only serve to enable health practitioners to provide adequate health care to those who are in need.

A helpful tool to consider when discussing the possibilities of a culture for a particular company is the Hofstede 's Cultural Dimension. Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension studies different aspects of a nation 's culture in comparison to other cultures around the world. Each part of the Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions deals with how specific cultures react to different scenarios. The Hofstede 's Cultural Dimension is subdivided into six specific categories. These categories, also called indexes include the following: Power Distance (PDI), Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV), Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS), Uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), Long Term Orientation

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

Although we may not notice it, differences in culture affect our everyday lives including business. In the business world, it is inevitable that you will cross paths with people of differ from you. Understanding these differences can play a major factor to being successful in business. Improving your level of knowledge of international cultural difference in business can help in building international skills as well as empowering you to increase competitive advantage. Hofstede’s theory allows for statistical comparison of cultures through various studies. His extensive work gives an insight of the culture and how its impacts business strategies of members of that society. Hofstede studied and categorized cultures into 5 different sections; Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism, Long-term orientation, Masculinity and Power index. There are always a few generally clear signs you should notice that shows how a country cultural and business are created. Hofstede’s study results show vast differences between the United States and Japan’s culture and business. A clear majority of Americas population is made up and individuals who have fled their countries to explore new options in a new land.

Culture is an inseparable part of an individual that makes up the reality that they live in, which encompasses everything that influences the way we think or view the world which includes things such as traditions, language, cultural models, and cognitive categories. This such reality is shared and taught to us from the moment we are born from those who came before us. All in all, culture is what makes us view the world the way that we “naturally” do, or in other words what we perceive to be the natural way of viewing the world. The cultural dimension to any element of human experience is critical to consider because it gives a reason for everything that we do, and allows us to treat others outside of our own reality with respect and an open mind, giving us an appreciation of the fact that everyone is not the same. This cultural consideration would be very important in understanding a cultural phenomenon such as the kiss on the cheek greeting in Latino culture; without this consideration the practice and purpose of this, or other cultural phenomena, would be misunderstood or looked at as “unnatural.”

Analyse the impact nature has on cultures. Refer to the documentary ‘Human Planet’ and/or other cultures studied in class and either Kluckhohn and Stodtbeck or Gardner in your answer.

The term culture is defined by a number of authors. Shankar (2003) has defined culture as “complex and interrelated set of elements, comprising knowledge, beliefs and values, arts, laws, and habits acquired by a human as a member of a particular society. These act together to distinguish one group from another. “Culture determines the identity of a human group in the same way as personality determines the identity of an individual” (Hofstede, 1984). Further he always defined culture as the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another. In order to compare the cultures of different organisations Gerant Hofstede discovered five dimensions which he found universally present in different nations and organisations. They are Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism vs

A Dutch social psychologist and anthropologist named Geert Hofstede studied how different cultures interact with one another. The framework for assessing the many differences between nations and cultures was established by him and called the cultural dimensions theory. The theory uses six cultural dimensions to place a value on them. The six cultural dimensions are power, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, temporal orientation, and indulgence. The data Hofstede gathered was based on surveys conducted by IBM, a US technology and consulting firm (Cultural, 2013).

Subsequent studies by others covered students in 23 countries, elites in 19 countries, commercial airline pilots in 23 countries, up-market consumers in 15 countries, and civil service managers in 14 countries. Together these studies identified and validated four independent dimensions of national culture differences, with a fifth dimension added later. He has found five dimensions of national culture in his study. These dimensions of national culture are Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty avoidance, Long term orientation. These cultural differences describe averages or tendencies and not characteristics of individuals

Hofstede (1980) found five dimensions of culture in his study of national work related values. The dimensions are:

Culture can be interpreted as a set of ideas with purpose to design living standards. It is an arrangement of intellectual abilities that governs a person’s behaviour, beliefs, values, language, and more (Weber, 1978). This allows distinguishability between people with different norms. For a developed understanding of the various aspects, Dutch psychologist Geert Hofstede has formulated a theory on cultural dimensions. Through this tool, Hofstede explains how culture affects values. Furthermore, Hofstede relates these values to behaviour. For his study, the