Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimension

Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimension

Introduction

The crisis of ideologies and utopias disappearance has left a great void in the contemporary world. Globalization is not only an economic phenomenon but has also been recognized as a geo-political and cultural phenomenon. It can be seen that consequences of globalization can be found in many areas of daily life (Andriopoulos & Dawson, 2008). In fact, the effects of globalization show a significant increase and acceleration of international migration, which brought a seismic shift in society in many areas including politics, economics and culture. This paper aims to discuss the cultural dimensions of Hofstede putting an emphasis on two countries, Germany and the United States of America.

Discussion

Culture and Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions

The culture of a community is formed in a long process of development and subject to constant change. The integration into an existing community or a specific culture is associated with the learning of specific concepts such as values, norms, behavior patterns, and language (Browaeys & Price, 2008). It is also important to know that national culture has a greater impact on employees than the culture of their organizations. No doubt, the organizational culture is important to understand the behavior of people at work. However, it is also a fact that national culture is more influential on working and communication patterns. In order to understand culture, it is essential to know that culture (Moran et al., 2010):

has the role of defining the borders as it creates distinctions between individuals and organizations.

conveys a sense of identity to members of the organization.

facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than self-interest of an individual.

increases the stability of the social system and helps unite the organization because it provides standards of what to do.

it serves as a control mechanism and wisdom, guiding and molding same attitudes and behavior of employees.

The role of culture as an influence on the behavior of an employee seems to be increasingly important. In fact, every organization develops a core group of assumptions, knowledge and implicit rules to govern everyday behavior in the workplace and encourages direct communication between the employees. This means, the shared meaning provided by a strong culture ensures that all point in the same direction and that communication is effective and handled consistent with the philosophy, mission and corporate vision. It is also a fact that culture enhances organizational commitment and increases the consistency of employee behavior (Reisinger & Turner, 2012). From the point of view of the employee, the culture is valuable because it reduces the ambiguity. Organizations should not overlook the aspects of culture as a strong culture ensures effectiveness and success.

Similarly, Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions is an effective tool to assess the culture of any organization. A Dutch social scientist and anthropologist, Geert Hofstede, formulated five cultural dimensions to assess the culture of an organization (Hofstede et al., 2010). The five dimensions are:

Power Distance: This is about the extent of power accepted in society, and it is expected that an unequal distribution of power exists (Hofstede ...