The Cultural Dimensions Of National Culture

The term "culture" has been used more and more recently but what exactly does it mean? Some have even regarded culture as "the most central problem of all social science" (Malinowski, 1939). According to Merriam Webster (2016), culture is defined as the arts and other manifestations of human achievements. If culture was as simple as Merriam-Webster defines it then the lives of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists would be much easier. As we know, culture varies greatly across religion, countries, and some cases in just states; the difference between the north and the south. We can conclude that culture is a set of shared thoughts, values, and cognitions (Geertz, 1973). With culture in itself varying tremendously based on values and location, then surely organizational culture is no simple concept either. The term "organizational culture" has just recently become to be used more (Barley, 1988). Though there may be disagreements on defining culture universally, researchers tend to agree that culture is of vital importance in an organizational context, whether that organization is a company or a government (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa, 1986).

Armstrong (1999) cites the work of Furnham and Gunter (1993) defining culture as ‘the commonly held beliefs, attitudes and values that exist in an organisation. Put more simply, culture is ‘the way we do things around here’.

Culture can be defined as “a set of basic tacit assumptions about how the world is and ought to be that a group of people share and that determines their perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and, to some degree, their overt behaviour” (Schein, 1996). Organizational culture is depend on differences in norms and shared values which are learned in workplace and to direct behaviour of members in the particular organisation. (Cabrera, Cabrera& Barajas 2001) Organisational culture was built on its shared beliefs and values which was the guidance to solve problems.

Inequalities within society could be power and authority differences in hierarchies of organizations. The score of countries on the power distance index is determined by the answers of IBM employees to 3 specific questions, which focus on the corporate culture of an organization. The different score of countries on the PDI index represent differences in family, school and workplace among countries. (Hof-stede 2010, pp.

Russia has many cultural characteristics that have shaped the country we know today. A nation 's culture can define its actions and make them more predictable as a state on the international level. Understanding a nation’s culture gives great insight into the motives and reasoning behind their aggression or acts of force. Factors such as geography, weather, political landscape, military, and key infrastructure provide a clear understanding of Russian culture and how it has shaped the nation over the past century.

All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.

A culture can be defined as the shared values, beliefs, and practices of a group of people, which are transmitted from one generation to the next and are identified as patterns that guide the thinking and action of the group members. There are

Culture within an organisation is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of individuals in the organisation and how the value consensus creates a way in which people behave. The shared values have a strong influence on the individuals in the organisation and dictates how a person acts, dresses and performs in their job. A unique culture is developed and maintained by an organisation which provides guidelines and boundaries, through informal means, for the behaviour of the people within the organisation.

Cultural organization is unique and configures their norms, beliefs, values, and behavioral characteristics into the individual and groups that unite to get things accomplished. Patterns begin to evolve and become a rule of basic assumption; whether it is a new idea, one recently discovered or under development by a certain group as they learn to cope with internal integration and external adaptation problems. Cultural characteristics are hard to define because culture is multi-dimensional with integrated components that intertwine at different levels and ever-changing which takes time to establish and therefore time to change it also. Culture becomes the fabric or social glue that unites its participants, this will counteract any processes that are different becomes an unavoidable side-effect of life in an organization. Mutual understandings and a shared system of meanings becomes the basis of communication in a cultural organization. Functions of a society need to be fulfilled with a certain amount of satisfaction or culture can impede the efficiency of that organization. Problems with this concept arise when trying to categorize culture or when, why, or how corporate culture should be changed or finding the best, healthiest or most desirable one.

The first of Hofstede’s dimensions deals with power distance. Hofstede’s description of power distance is the degree in which less-superior members of an organization within a country tolerate the unequal distribution of power, for instance, between managerial roles in a company and the employees. New Zealand has a score of 22 in this dimension, which is considered very low. A very low score depicts that equality is a predominant cultural value within the

What is culture, one might ask? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, culture is the “customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group or the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time” (Culture). Five major characteristics that define a culture include culture is learned, culture is shared, culture is symbolic, culture is all-encompassing, and culture is integrated. Culture depends on the human capacity for cultural learning that encompasses shared rules for conduct and that are dependent upon symbols. Cultures can be integrated by using “social and economic forces, core values, and key symbols” (Mirror for Humanity,

Culture is not about group differences or a way to describe a group of people. It is diverse, dynamic and ever changing. It is the shared system of values, beliefs and rules.

If you search the word culture, there are various meanings that will arise. Culture is the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action (Dictionary.com website). There are eight major characteristics of culture. This paper will elaborate on five of them that I believe are the more

Almost every organization, whether public or private, on paper or in practice, has a culture that fairly dictates its everyday functioning. The term culture has many

Delisi (1990) using Schein’s (1984) definition of culture, to examine the relationship between culture and change, defined organisational culture as ‘the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group have invented, discovered or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, and that has worked well enough in the past to be considered valid, and, therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems’.