Beyond Hofstede
International Management in a globalized world is
faced with the task of successful "Diversity Management". It has to take into
account that no longer simple "intercultural" concepts are working, as almost no
country has a "pure" national culture without strong outside influences, as more
and more staff members, customers, business partners are not rooted in just one
culture. Still, management without careful tuning to cultural influences is
bound to fail.
Geert Hofstede has been for many years the "father"
of the most common way of analysing culture within business activities, he is
one of the most quoted social scientists in the world.
Hofstede is very successful because:
- first to market
- value-based (easy to measure and
quantify)
- easy so understand and use
Some of the reasons to look "beyond"
Hofstede:
- Increasing fluidity of culture
- Nations have weakened, Multinational
Companies/brands have gained more strength
- Consumers / producers are more aware of different
cultures and more self-reflexive
- New research results
available
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Five main insights (Ch. 1):
- Meaning of culture needs to be enlarged
- Assumptions about culture have to be clearly
identified
- More complex forms of culture need to be
embraced
- Dynamism in culture has to be accounted
for
- Embracing Diversity: Necessity to take an
interdisciplinary, multi-method, complementary philosophical approach
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