Hofstede and GLOBE National Culture Models †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Hofstede and GLOBE National Culture Models. Answer: Introduction: We are living in a global era whereby all people are brought together and closer by technology. This implies that people from different cultures are working together and communicating to their colleagues more and more (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 350). Despite this being exciting, it could turn out to be frustrating and fraught with uncertainty. How does a person relate to another of a different culture management? What does he/she say or not say to start a conversation? Are there any culture-bound taboos that one has to be aware of or not? Establishing connections with different people from varying cultural backgrounds is important to an organization. Building connections is a factor to consider when motivating personnel, structuring projects, and implementing strategies (Tung and Verbeke, 2010, p. 33). How we understand cultural differences is relegated to learning from our mistakes and the general guidelines that have to be followed. Fortunately, Hofstede researched these questions in the 1970s. What emerged after ten years of research and thousands of interviews was a cultural dimension model that today is internationally recognized as a business standard management. Hofstede accessed people working in the same company in over 40 countries where he gathered cultural data and proceeded to analyze his findings (Valente, 2010, p. 1900). Initially, he identified four cultural dimensions that help in differentiating one culture from the rest. He later added a 5th dimension that forms todays model. Hofstede scored every country on a scale of 0 to 100 for the five dimensions (Hofstede, 2010, p. 55). The higher the score, the higher that dimension is manifest in the society and workplace. After gathering sufficient database about cultural statistics, He analyzed his results and found out that there were clear patterns of differences and similarities amid the responses along these 5 dimensions (Minkov and Hofstede, 2012, p. 10). Hofstede research was undertaken on IBM employees only, which enabled him to characterize the patterns of national differences in culture by significantly alleviating the challenge of the differences manifest in a company culture management. The five Hofstede dimensions are: Power or distance (PD) Individualism (IDV) Masculinity (MAS) Uncertainty or Avoidance Index (UAI) Long-term orientation (LTO) In todays workplaces, it has been interesting to see how employees with different cultures react and interact with foreign colleagues in their nation, including Australia. In Eastern Europe nations, the main reaction to foreign workers is age. However, given sufficient knowledge then knowledge is not a barrier to Hofstede dimensions. To begin with, Professor McSweeneys view of national cultures will be presented. The myth of national culture is nothing more than just the collection of media and social imaginings that live in a permanent exception to the realities of a nation. The exception is assumed to waterproof national culture against interaction with foreigners while destroying the meaning of nationals outside the national territory at the same time (Burgess and Gold, 2015, p. 40). The question about whether everything addressing this aforementioned reality is exceptional and contains local causes, then the much people know and think about national culture is dismissed with no validity beyond their borders. The myth states that a nation is like an orphan and in this case an orphan, or an autistic individual who faces massive challenges while attempting to establish a meaning outside the relationship with his/her state-territory-origin (Venaik and Brewer, 2013, p. 469). This is the reason why nation-states pr ovide themselves with the folklore of national animals that face death when they cross the States border, from the Purto Rican coquito the Iberian lynx, which is a Disneyfied model of the primary national virtue, being unable to exist outside of the borders of the State and its imagination. On the other hand, Hofstede survey on Australia provides revealing results on national cultures. Hofstede generalizes about the whole national population in all countries using questionnaire responses from the IBM. There is no evidence that the feedback he gathers is nationally representative of all nations. His 5 model is based on assumptions that every person share a common national culture with the other people from other countries. Hofstedes assumption that all people are equally plausible like those of IBM is a myth and cannot be relied upon. Relying on his assumption requires people to assume that the average national culture is acceptable among all groups of people. However, there is no evidence based on sound reasoning that the average IBM responses reflected the national average. His assumption can be termed as a mere leap of faith. The IBM respondents were already permanently mentally programmed with three non-interacting culture hence subverting its reliability. Based on t hese justifications, Professor McSweeneys view on national cultures is more compelling than that of Hofstede (Venaik and Brewer, 2010, p. 88). Finally, a single culture can be applied in determining the actions of the entire population as postulated my Prof McSweeneys view on national cultures. Conclusion National culture has to be against the kind of activities that people do but has to be okay with them. People with different cultures are able to work together in a different country that offers a different cultural setting that all of the employees are comfortable with. In summary, national culture goes hand in hand with cultural differences, and this forms a national unity. Bibliography Burgess, J. and Gold, J.R. eds., 2015.Geography, the media, and popular culture. Routledge. Hofstede, G., 2010. Geert Hofstede. National cultural dimensions. Hofstede, G., Garibaldi de Hilal, A.V., Malvezzi, S., Tanure, B. and Vinken, H., 2010. Comparing regional cultures within a country: Lessons from Brazil.Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,41(3), pp.336-352. https://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_l84Dj2eXY Minkov, M. and Hofstede, G., 2012. Hofstedes fifth dimension: New evidence from the World Values Survey.Journal of cross-cultural psychology,43(1), pp.3-14. Tung, R.L., and Verbeke, A., 2010. Beyond Hofstede and GLOBE: Improving the quality of cross-cultural research. Valente, J., 2010.The myth of manliness in Irish national culture, 1880-1922. University of Illinois Press. Venaik, S. and Brewer, P., 2010. Avoiding uncertainty in Hofstede and GLOBE.Journal of International Business Studies,41(8), pp.1294-1315. Venaik, S. and Brewer, P., 2013. Critical issues in the Hofstede and GLOBE national culture models.International Marketing Review,30(5), pp.469-482.