Culture and Organizations Software of the mind Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival

Culture and Organizations “The objective of this book is to help in dealing with the differences in thinking, feeling and acting of people around the globe.”

Culture and Organizations Hofstede: Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another

Culture and Organizations Hofstede’s work provides quantitative comparisons in over fifty countries on the influence of culture in the workplace The dimensions represent a kind of cultural map of the world A dimension groups together a number of phenomena in a society which were empirically found to occur in combination.

Culture and Organizations Hofstede describes in part II five dimensions of cultural behavior: -Power Distance -Individualism vs. collectivism -Masculinity vs. femininity -Uncertainty avoidance -Long term thinking vs. short term thinking

Culture and Organizations Dimension: Power Distance “More equal than others” Story: Once upon a time little Melchior went to the bakers shop to buy a bread for his mother. He queued up in line, when suddenly…..

Culture and Organizations Dimension: Power Distance Not all people are equal. Physical or intellectual differences between people are obvious. How do people handle the inequality in power? PD informs us about dependence relationships in a country. The distance between bosses and subordinates can be small or large.

Culture and Organizations Dimension: Power Distance PD: The extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. (family, school, community, workplace) Small PD: limited dependence relationships of subordinates on bosses, a preference for consultation, a small emotional distance. Large PD: dependence of subordinates on bosses, emotional distance between subordinates and bosses is large.

Culture and Organizations Dimension: Power Distance Malaysia104 Netherlands 38 Finland 33 Austria 11

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Individualism/Collectivism “I, we and they” Story: Once upon a time a young boy with an Arab background was a very promising Football player. His trainer selected him to play an important match in the first team. The boy was very happy, but ……

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Individualism/Collectivism When a child is born it already is part of a group: a family. In some countries that is just the parents and other children in the family. In other countries the family is a big group with grandparents, uncles, aunts, all members of one group.

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Individualism/Collectivism Individualism: Societies in which ties between individuals are loose, everyone is expected to look after himself and his immediate family. Collectivism: societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive ingroups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The richer a country is or gets, the more individualistic.

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Individualism/Collectivism Usa91 Netherlands 80 Finland63 Guatemala 6

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Masculinity/Femininity “He, she an (s)he” Story: Once upon a time there was little country in which unions and government sat together to resolve their problems and find compromises for conflicts. They even gave this system a name……

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Masculinity/Femininity In one country modesty is a desired behaviour, in another you are supposed to be assertive. Human societies consist of men and women, the differences between the sexes are the same everywhere, gender behaviour differs.

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Masculinity/Femininity Men are supposed to be assertive, competitive and tough. Women are supposed to take care of home, children and people in general, the tender roles.

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Masculinity/Femininity Japan95 Finland 26 Netherlands14 Sweden 5

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Uncertainty avoidance “What is different is dangerous” Story: Lots of people are afraid of flying. These people prefer to stay at home, but…….

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Uncertainty avoidance The future is uncertain but we have to live with it anyway. Uncertainty is an subjective experience, a feeling. Uncertainty avoidance is the extend to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain and unknown situations.

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Uncertainty avoidance Strong avoidance: people busy, emotional, aggressive, active. Weak avoidance: quiet, easy-going, indolent, controlled, lazy.

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Uncertainty avoidance Greece112 Finland 59 Netherlands 53 Singapore 8

Culture and Organizations Dim.: Long term vs. Short term This dimension is added later by Hofstede. LT: Large savings, perseverance to slow results, sparing with resources ST: Small savings, quick results expected, pressure to keep up with

Culture and Organizations Differences between cultures have a big influence on organizational structures. The same case was solved in three totally different way by French, German and British students. Globalization and merging companies (take KLM) are increasing.

Culture and Organizations Parts of a new merged organization have to function in harmony, they all use windows software. Technically there is no problem. The mental programming, the software of the mind however differs from one cultural background to another!

Culture and Organizations Thank you for your attention!