Measuring cultures

Measuring cultures

During the last weeks, we have seen in class how to measure cultures, taking into account different methods such as the six dimensions of Hofstede and the globe study in which I will concentrate. Firstly, I will begin giving a small introduction about the Six Dimensions of Hofstede, then I will continue with Globe study and finally I will exposed my research question which is about the accurateness of the Six Dimensions of Hofstede and explain it through personal experience.

The six dimensions of Geert Hofstede,  are patterns that helps to understand culture around the world according to certain characteristics such as: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. In addition    

1. Power distance:  talks about how unequally distribution of power is tolerated by the less powerful member of the society.
2. Individualism: this dimension talks about whether people preferred to work in groups (collectivism) or alone.
3. Masculinity: It depicts the degree to which masculine traits like authority, assertiveness, performance and success are preferred to female characteristics like personal relationships, quality of life, service and welfare.
4. Uncertainty avoidance: has to do with the fact that the future can never be known. Also refers on how people is affected of uncertain events.  
5. Long-term orientation: has to do with the fact on how people deals with links of the past and challenges of the present and the future.
6. Indulgence: this dimension talks about how people controls theirs desires and impulses. 

As stated above, we can have a more accurate perspective of how other cultures behave and how they do things. For example, the United Kingdom is a country with a low uncertainty avoidance and high individualism; according to this, we can assume that British people tends to not worried much about the future and the society prefers to work individually rather than in groups. It is also interesting to see how English speaker countries has similar results when talking about the dimensions as a whole, all countries share similar scores in power distance, individualism and indulgence.  

(Hofstede Centre, 2015)

By the other hand, we have the Globe Study in which in my perspective is more useful to measure cultures because takes into account more variable that are important when studying cultures especially culture regarding business organization. The Globe Study is a study based on Hofstede investigations but with emphasis in managerial. Additionally, the globe study also classifies countries within clusters called the “Societal Cluster”. There are 10 cluster and each cluster is evaluated according to some factors such as Performance Orientation, Institutional Collectivism, Gender Egalitarianism, Uncertainty Avoidance, In-Group Collectivism, Future Orientation, Humane Orientation, Assertiveness and Power Distance.

1. Performance orientation: talks about how communities encourage, innovation, high standards, excellence and performance improvement. (Grove, 2005)
2. Uncertainty avoidance: has to do with the fact that the future can never be known. Also refers on how people is affected of uncertain events (Grove, 2005)
3. In-Group collectivism: According to Tallinn University In-Group collectivism is “the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families” (Tallin University, 2009).
4. Power distance: talks about how unequally distribution of power is tolerated by the less powerful member of the society.
5. Gender Egalitarianism: talks about how inequality is treated between genders.
6. Humane orientation: talks about how organizations encourage friendship between co-workers, kind to others and generous (Tallin University, 2009)
7. Institutional collectivism: According to Tallinn University institutional collectivism is “the degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action” (Tallin University, 2009)
8. Future orientation: According to Tallinn University, Future orientation is “the degree to which a collectivity encourages and rewards future-oriented behaviours such as planning and delaying gratification” (Tallin University, 2009).
9. Assertiveness: According to Tallinn University Assertiveness is “the degree to which individuals are assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their relationships with others” (Tallin University, 2009)

In conclusion, the Globe Study provides better and more actualized information than the Hofstede Dimensions because takes into account more extensive dimensions that are universally accepted in terms of leadership and explains how cultures influence leadership.

Are the six dimensions of Hofstede adequate and accurate to reality?

Some researches argue that the six dimensions of Hofstede is not an accurate tool to study culture because it lacks of relevancy “surveys are not an appropriate instrument for accurately determining and measuring cultural disparity” (M.L.Jones, 2007). In addition, some others argue that Hofstede assumes that the domestic population is homogeneous when is obvious that within countries coexist different cultures. Finally and most important, researchers argue, “The study is too old to be of any modern value, particularly with today’s rapidly changing global environments, internationalisation and convergence” (M.L.Jones, 2007)

For example:

While doing some research about China, I found something interesting about the dimension of uncertainty avoidance. According to the Hofstede Centre “At 30 China has a low score on uncertainty avoidance… The Chinese are comfortable with ambiguity; the Chinese language is full of ambiguous meanings that can be difficult for Western people to follow” (Hosftede, Centre) Indeed, Chinese language is full of ambiguity, different meanings for the same word and different pronunciation (I have been studying Chinese for one year and a half) However, working with Chinese people is completely different. Somehow, they always try to avoid certain issues that are ambiguous for them certainly

My personal experience working at the Confucius Institute of Medellin taught me that Chinese people avoids constantly ambiguity. For example, last year my boss asked me to work with Chen a Chinese professor in a program presentation for a high School, Chen was supposed to present the program in English or Spanish to the directors of the high school. However, she was scared about the situation because it was her first time presenting a program, so she decided to leave me the presentation without saying anything until the day before. It was Thursday in the morning and I went to the institute to leave all the information required to the presentation ready in a USB. Later Chen approaches to me and told me that she need me to do the presentation because she was not prepared to do it in English. I tried to convince her giving some arguments such as “You are the one that knows the program, therefore you will be available to explain it better than me” but she was convince that making a mistake would mean the remote possibility of being fired. In addition, she was avoiding to give the presentation in other language rather that Chinese, she was feeling insecure about their English skills (by the way, she has good proficiency in English) and she preferred to avoid and humiliation to their bosses[1].  

Moreover, doing business with Chinese people is somehow stressful because it requires time and patient to make a deal. This is because the first thing Chinese people do is to know better the other person in order to avoid situations that could damage forever the relation.

In conclusion, even though the six dimensions of Hofstede is a good tool to understand some cultures, it is not completely accurate because thanks to the globalization and interdependence some cultures are moving from their specific unique characteristics to other universal characteristics. For example, shaking hands (it was not common in Asia, now is more accepted), the way to receive presentation cards (in Asia this tradition is changing, while in the past was not adequate to receive presentation cards with one hand, now they are more relax in this situations) and Asians even though they stills used signatures stamps they are using also written signatures.

Bibliography

Grove, C. N. (2005). Introduction to the GLOBE Research Project on Leadership Worldwide. Retrieved from http://www.tlu.ee/~sirvir/IKM/Leadership%20Dimensions/performance_orientation.html

M.L.Jones. (2007). University of Wollongong. Retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1389&context=commpapers

Tallin University. (2009). Leadership Dimensions: Culture and Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.tlu.ee/~sirvir/IKM/Leadership%20Dimensions/ingroup_collectivism.html

---

[1] This is my personal opinion.