Critically analyse Hofstede's 'Cultural Dimensions' What correlation Essay

Critically analyse Hofstede's 'Cultural Dimensions' What correlation does Hofstede make among groups of countries and ho - Essay Example He was the originator of relative intercultural research. His publication which proved to be a land mark in defining organizational cultural aspects was ‘Cultures and Organization: Software of the Mind’ (1991). He is renowned for his contribution in developing the earliest experiential replica ‘dimensions of national culture’. In this model he established a pattern for explaining the different elements pertaining to culture of global economics, collaboration and communication with reference to multinational company IBM. This model later gave rise to the development of a model for explaining the organizational cultures. Due to his extensive contribution in the field of intercultural research he is regarded as the foremost representative of cultural studies. His research work is now use as a study tool in different subjects including management sciences and psychological studies (Greet Hofstede, 2012). The cultural theory of Hofstede deeply describes the impac t of culture on the inhabitants of a society. Initially he used the factor analysis to develop a model which correlates the values and behavior. At first the theory projected four aspects of culture through which values could be examined. The original model contained individualism v/s collectivism, masculinity (the impact of gender over the cultural values), power distance (distribution of power and the vigor of social hierarchy) and uncertainty avoidance. Later Hofstede included one more aspect to his model, the long-term orientation. The 2010 edition of his famous book ‘Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind’ has an addition of another aspect, indulgence v/s self restraint. Later additions to the original model have enabled to differentiate between evaluation of individual and country level statistics (Hofstede, Geert et al., 2010). The Hofstede’s work on cultural dimensions has stimulated the research in social beliefs. In order to develop his theory Hofstede examined the 116,000 of IBM with varying backgrounds and lifestyles. They all represented 66 different nations of three regions of the world. Research was based on questionnaires and it was undertaken somewhere between 1968 and 1972. After recognizing the five different dimensions of culture Hofstede categorized them as being generalize able for every society or region of the world. As almost all the society have the same cultural issues and aspects. To further analyze the dimensions he developed an index to plot to the countries under consideration as per their scores (Sven Rosenhauer, 2009). The brief description of the model is as follows (Martin Sebastian Scheuplein, 2010): Power Distance It describes the value or ‘power’ that an individual or society possess with respect to others. It is explained in the form of hierarchy that reflects the ‘distance’ of authority between different groups. Low power distance refers to minimum level of inequali ty among the members of society and high power distance reflects the other point of view. Individualism v/s Collectivism Individualism maintains distance from subordinates in the organization and focus more on the achievement of personal goals whereas collectivism encourages the cooperative efforts in order to achieve goals and objectives. Individualism is based on the ‘I’ approach that working alone is better than belonging to a group. Masculinity/Femininity There is an obvious difference between