Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions

Culture is different in every country

My class with Dr. Johanssen today was interesting. We learned about how culture plays an important role when we are forming relationships with people from another culture. In order for a business person to do business in China, one must understand the "Chinese Way".

Dimensions of National Culture
Professor Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. He came out with four groups to understand the cultures in different countries.

" Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster."

Prof. Geert Hofstede, Emeritus Professor, Maastricht University

He grouped culture into four different dimensions:

• Power Distance

This dimension expresses the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. The fundamental issue here is how a society handles inequalities among people. People in societies exhibiting a large degree of power distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification. In societies with low power distance, people strive to equalise the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of power.

• Individualism versus Collectivism

The high side of this dimension, called Individualism, can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. Its opposite, Collectivism, represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular in-group to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. A society's position on this dimension is reflected in whether people’s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “we.”

• Masculinity versus Femininity

The masculinity side of this dimension represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material reward for success. Society at large is more competitive. Its opposite, femininity, stands for a preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life. Society at large is more consensus-oriented.

• Uncertainty Avoidance

The uncertainty avoidance dimension expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. The fundamental issue here is how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen? Countries exhibiting strong UAI maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour and are intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas. Weak UAI societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles.

This was added later: Long term Versus short term orientation

The long-term orientation dimension can be interpreted as dealing with society’s search for virtue. Societies with a short-term orientation generally have a strong concern with establishing the absolute Truth. They are normative in their thinking. They exhibit great respect for traditions, a relatively small propensity to save for the future, and a focus on achieving quick results. In societies with a long-term orientation, people believe that truth depends very much on situation, context and time. They show an ability to adapt traditions to changed conditions, a strong propensity to save and invest, thriftiness, and perseverance in achieving results.

His official website is interesting, there is a function where you can compare multiple different countries at once. Do check it out at http://geert-hofstede.com/

Being curious, I compared United States, China and Malaysia. Below are the culture dimension scores for each.

Power Distance
United States scores a relatively low in this area compared to China and Malaysia. Being born and bred in Malaysia, the score here truly reflects the current situation there. Despite being a democratic nation, we have a government who holds the absolute power and must be obeyed at all times. There is barely any equality in our nation.

Individualism Versus Collectivism
United States scores a relatively high in this area compared to China and Malaysia. Their culture seems to be more independent. Generally, I would say Asian culture is more of a collectivist culture as people usually work together to achieve a common goal.

Masculinity Versus Femininity
The scores for all three countries are about the same. In the world today, I believe most countries are still quite masculine where society strives for excellence all the time.

Uncertainty Avoidance
China has a lower score in this area. They are more willing to take risk even though there is uncertainty.

Long term Versus Short term
China has a significantly higher score in this area. They often think of the long term goals when they approach things. They tend to adapt to situations very quickly.

In present day, though these countries have very different scores, it would be interesting to observe how these scores will change in the future. Will the difference in scores become narrower or broader?