Hofstede Culture Theory Essay

Introduction:

This essay gives us an overview of the survey conducted by a Dutch psychologist, Hofstede. He was the first to investigate a cross cultural survey on employees of a multi-national company. He linked culture with worker’s value in a company that how culture influences the worker’s work ethic. Many scholars than replicated their studies on the bases of Hofstede’s study, his publication have been cited a bunch of times. In this essay religions like Hinduism and Confucian have been highlighted that how the characteristics of both of the religions impacts the business attitudes of the employees. 

Geert Hofstede is a well-known German psychologist who conducted two surveys from 1967 to 1973 in the IBM Company; it is a famous multinational company whose headquarter is in the United States. He monitored over 116 thousand workers, which was considered the most large-scale survey conducted on worker’s cultural morals in that era. When his study ended, he concluded that culture is not considered as a separate characteristic in every human being rather than culture is a joint psychological procedure shared by individuals who have the same educational background and real-life experiences which differs from diverse ethnicities, nations and areas. Subsequently, he introduced four main cultural concepts that are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism and masculinity and femininity.  It is clear the notions introduced by the Hofstede had a massive impact on multicultural ground and the whole procedure that chose IBM, a multinational organization as primary sources for investigation. This study indirectly has a corresponding opinion with the survey of multi-cultural corporate etiquette’s dissimilarities (Hong-xin & Gao-feng, pp. 204, 2017).

So, in short according to Hofstede culture is an encryption in the people’s mind. Many scholars conducted their research on the bases of this theory of culture and his theory was altered. China wasn’t included in the original theory however, Chinese scholars included the culture of Confucian and the cultural notion was named: the Confucian dynamism or temporary vs long term inclination (Hofstede & Bond, 1984 as cited in Techo, 2017).

After the inclusion of one of the ethnicities of China that is Confucian a new concept came into being after the alteration of the theory. It has been observed among the Chinese that they gave utmost importance their work comparatively than the people in Western countries. This type of work ethic has been seen in the individuals who practice Confucianism that’s why this new concept is after this ethnicity. This resulted in an influx of income and tangible wealth, which is now of a great importance in the Chinese society. However, a major consequence of the rise in income of the people have resulted in competitiveness in the organizations and firms and also the introduction of the gift giving acts like guanxi (Chen & Starosta, 1997 as cited in Techo, 2017).

One of the major dimensions of Hofstede’s multi-cultural theory is power distance which means that a notion that allows the order or power variations in a community. Hofstede states that culture who are rich in high power favour dominant authority and abrupt order as they try to preserve societal order and the power distribution. Countries that have high power cultural values are more unified with more power in limited hands however, countries that have low power distance do not have that kind of unity which the high power distance cultures have, they are more independent and decisions are consulted with others  (Li and Harrison, 2008 as cited in Esteban, Farinha and Gomez, 2019).

It is possible for the businesses that are in high power distance communities are more inclined to encourage risks in the firms. Likewise, Anderson and Galinsky (2006 as cited in Esteban, Farinha and Gomez, 2019) advises and investigated that those organization that have most power encourage their workers to involve in risk taking activities. 

Brockner et al. (2001 as cited in Karibayeva & Kunanbayeva, 2017) investigated the impact of the concept, power distance within cultural and bureaucratic justice framework. They stated that individuals encourage others to participate in the decision-making process and do not have a positive reaction when there’s very little say in the process. They concluded that in less power distance countries like the United States and Germany people are more inclined towards having a say in the process whereas in the high-power distance countries such as China and Mexico people aren’t that inclined towards to have a say in the decision-making process.

Dissanayake et al. (2015), chiefly focuses on the four concept that are introduced by the German Psychologist that are Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/femininity and individualism/ collectivism. According to him, power distance as a term means that the organizations that are less in power accepts and expects that the distribution of power is unequal in a high-power distance country. He conducted a survey and measured countries of Asia in which India scored 48 which is a society that includes both collectivistic and individualistic characteristics. Collectivism means that people prefer to belong to a bigger intrapersonal group in which humans are expected by others in a society to behave in such a way that will impact everyone positively. In these types of events the behaviours and actions of the people are greatly influenced by many notions like family’s opinion, joint family, neighbors, colleagues and many other social relations that can have an influence on a person. From the viewpoint of individualism, the Community of India is quite controlling in the religion which is called Hinduism. The India has a majority of Hindus and have a believe in a rebirth of a Hindu after his death in a way that each time the person is reborn his current life will be according to the previous life.  Therefore, according to them every individual is accountable for the life they are leading and that will have an affect on the future lives of the individual. These two features of individualism and collectivism is interrelated in a Hindu society and according to this the researcher came up with this score.

According to Hofstede’s Insights (n.d.), India scored an average of 77 in power distance which indicates a gratitude for hierarchy, indicating an appreciation for hierarchy and a top-down structure in culture and administrations. According to Hofstede Insights (n.d.), Real Power is central which it won’t seem to be and the administration count on the compliance of their junior colleagues. Workers expect to get direction from their superiors in order to get the work done. In my opinion, the correlation between power distance and India was right because it has been proved by many other scholars that India practices the top down hierarchy and have been seen on the media as well. He was also right because of the rule by the Britishers in the sub-continent in the 19th and 20th century entrenched the minds of people with this type of structure.

The fifth theory which is about the Confucian dynamics which was later termed as The Long Term Orientation dimension that was revealed in a survey by the Chinese Culture Connection (1987) project. This study aimed to alter the probable Western favoritism in the first study conducted in IBM company planned by an Asian team of scholars and researchers (Hofstede & Bond, 1988 as cited in Beugelsdijk & Welzel, pp. 1473, 2018). This study introduced a new dimension which was not discovered till that time, this dimension was unable to authorize the presence of the Uncertainty Avoidance notion and emphasized the correlation between Individualism and Power Distance concept. Firstly, this concept was called Confucian dimension as it imitated the essence of the Confucian believes. Nevertheless, Hofstede later named the Dimension Long Term Orientation. The nations that got a higher score in this dimension indicated that they think about the future and do not have any issue with a delay in a person’s effort for satisfaction. Societies having a high score in this dimension have traits like strong determination and providence. The countries having short term orientation are seen as selfish that grasp an advantage whenever they can (Beugelsdijk & Welzel, pp. 1473, 2018).  The Chinese currently have different business ethics in order to strengthen the ties among organizations in the long run that is the behavior of gift giving which is also common in the Confucian ethnicity. Moreover, majority of the citizens as well as the government in China practice atheism which indicates that the moral values of atheism are applied in the country and these may also apply in the corporations as well. Thus, it might have an effect on the business attitudes of the executives. 

Conclusion:

The theory conducted by Hofstede was on a large scale and was quite successful as it has been the bases of many other researchers. Hofstede divided the people according to their culture in to four dimensions but also introduced a fifth dimension when a Chinese project was conducted and named if after Confucian ethnicity. India and China are currently growing in power with the passage of time, Hofstede determined the difference between Power Distance and Hinduism/Confucian. Under each dimension he measured every country of Asia and scored them which indicated that India scored high in power distance and individualism/collectivism where as China scored high in the fifth dimension.