Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt
International Tourism Management

 

You are on www.arlt-lectures.com

Best viewed with Internet Explorer

 

 

 

ITM Master 3. Sem.
8103: International Management III

 

Geert Hofstede

 Industrial age: »The big are eating the small«

 Service age: »The fast are beating the slow«

 Knowledge age: »Socially competent companies win against
 socially incompetent companies«

 

 Hofstede´s Five-Dimensions Model  

 

Starting with IBM 1970s:

If all engineers are working in the same company and having the same education but still behave very differently, there must be cultural differences.

 

 

 

Culture, understood as the accumulation of shared meanings, rituals, norms and traditions among members of an organisation or society, is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes members of one group or society from those of another.

 

Therefore culture is not a phenomenon in its own right. It is the difference perceived, and only then perceived, by one group when it comes into contact with and observes another one. It is important to point out that the idea of pure cultures meeting in intercultural exchanges without much knowledge about the other culture is outdated.

Today almost everybody outside a given culture has some information and knowledge about that culture, however superficial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CULTURE AS AN ICEBERG

 

 

The foundation for most cross-cultural interpretation is the work of Geert Hofstede. He developed with the help of large-scale samples starting in the 1970s cultural index scores for five constructs:

Power distance,

Uncertainty avoidance,

Individualism/Collectivism,

Masculinity/Feminity and

Long term/Short term orientation.

 

 

 

 

These dimension are acquired through “mental programming”, learned patterns of thinking, feeling and potential acting.

 

Three level of uniqueness are distinguished:

The inherited universal human nature,

the learned culture specific to certain societies or groups within a society, and

the inherited and learned individual personality.

 

 

 

 

Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions with scores for China, Japan, USA and Switzerland (lowest possible score 1, highest possible score 118)

 

Dimensions

China

Japan

USA

Germany

(1) Power Distance. The extent to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.

80

54

40

35

(2) Uncertainty Avoidance. The extent to which a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations and tries to control the uncontrollable.

30

92

46

65

(3) Individualism is the degree to which individuals are supposed to look after themselves or remain integrated into groups (Collectivism).

20

46

91

67

(4) Masculinity refers to the distribution of emotional roles between the genders, it opposes “tough” masculinity to “tender” feminity.

66

95

62

66

(5) Long-term orientation refers to the extent to which a culture programs its members to accept delayed gratification of their material, social and emotional needs.

118

80

29

31

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consequences:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example: Conflict Management - The textile dyeing company

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do's and Don'ts vs. What's and Why's

 

  

CULTURE AS AN ICEBERG

 

 

 Many intercultural trainings concentrate on the "Do's and Don'ts" of different cultures:

 - Give and receive a namecard to a Chinese persons always with both hands

 - Avoid the number 13 in western countries

 - Do not give knifes or scissors as a present in China

 - Do not slap a German person on the shoulder as a greeting

 - Do not give money as a gift in Bulgaria ... etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two arguments:

a) For an internationally active manager, it is impossible to know the "Do's and Don'ts" of all cultures and sub-cultures (always use a 100 US$ bill when snorting cocaine at a Manhattan party...) in the world.

 

b) Reducing the cultural differences to "above the sea-level" features will not help you to understand the underlying differences and will not help you to understand the relativeness of your own cultural behaviour.

 

 

 

 

 Let us try to understand the "Why?" behind some different behaviours and customs for some typical occurences:

Examples

 - telling the truth / being polite

 - punctuality / flexibility

 - quoting sources / following mainstream

 - learning from theories / learning from examples

 

 

 Please form four groups and develop a list of 5 Do's and 5 Don't for Germany and for another country of your choice. Try to analyse the cultural reasons behind the behaviour using your background knowledge (including Hofstede).

After 20 minutes each group should present the list and the explanations.

 

 

 

 

 

Last session of today: Experiences with cross-culture communication

 

 

 

  Contact: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt FRGS
Bachelor and Master Program International Tourism Management
arlt@fh-westkueste.de, Office 2.018, Tel. 0481 8555-513
Consultation hours (during lecture period): Friday 10.00 - 11.00 h

home.gif