WEEK 6
DESCRIBING CULTURAL
DIFFERENCES
MNGT 583 – Özge Can
How to Unpack Culture?
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Essence of culture => the content and structure of the
basic mental representations members of particular
social groups share.
Complex interactions of values, attitudes, and
behavioral assumptions of a society.
How can we unpact this complex concept?
Limited number of ways in which a society can manage
certain problems => developing a system that
categorizes and compares societies on this basis.
Subsidiaries of an American firm:
How Culture Affects Business?
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Strategy formation and implimantation
Organization structure
HRM practices
Conflict management approaches
Negotiation tactics
Leadership styles
Different Models to Compare Cultures:
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Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck’s (1961) comparative
anthropology framework
Hofstede’s study of value dimensions (1980)
Extansions on Hofstede’s study
Shwartz’ value survey (1990, 1992)
Trompenaar’s dimensions (1993)
The GLOBE study (House et al., 2004)
Social axioms (Leung et al. 2002)
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck’s Framework
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Six value orientations to categorize cultures:
 Relationships
to nature
 Beliefs about human nature
 Relationships between people
 Nature of human acitivity
 Conception of space
 Orientation of time
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck’s Framework
Defining “harmony” differently
Hofstede’s Study
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Based on attitude surveys of 117,000 employees of
Iin 40 different countries, Hofstede extracted four
dimensions:
 individualism–collectivism
 power
distance
 uncertainty avoidance
 masculinity–femininity
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Giving every country a score ranging from 0 to 100 on
each of the four dimensions.
Measuring Values: Desirable vs. Desired
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Desirable: How people think the world ought to be
(Qs referring people in general). Norms involved.
Desired: what poeple want for themselves (Qs
worded as “you” or “me”)
Norms: standards for behavior that exist within a
group or category of people
Desirable relates more to ideology, the desired to
practical matters
The Trap of Ecological Fallacy
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Ecological Fallacy => making the mistake of
applying the scores at the country level to
individuals
Within each nation there might be variation on a
particular dimension, such that a particular
individual will not be at all representative of the
mean score.
Individualism-Collectivism
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The extent to which one’s self-identity is defined
according to individual characteristics or by the
characteristics of the groups to which the individual
belongs on a permanent basis;
The extent to which individual or group interests
dominate.
Power Distance
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The extent to which power differences are accepted
and sanctioned in a society.
Uncertainty Avoidance
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The extent to which societies focus on ways to reduce
uncertainty and create stability.
Masculinity-Femininity
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The extent to which traditional male orientations of
ambition and achievement are emphasized over
traditional female orientations of nurturance and
interpersonal harmony.
Extention of Hofstede’s Work -1
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A subsequent study based on Chinese values (Chinese
Value Survey by Bond et al., 1987) conducted in 23
countries.
Four underlying dimensions of cultural value orientations
found:
 Integration
 Human-heartedness
 Moral discipline
 Confucian work dynamism (Later labeled as long vs.
short term orientation)
Extention of Hofstede’s Work -2
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World Value Survey (WVS) coordinated by Ronald
Inglehart (and later by Minkov), covering more than
100 countries
Data-collection took place in 10-year intervals
Freely acessible from the internet
Cultural Distance
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How different national cultures are from each
other?
 Index
of cultural distance => relative similarities and
differences between nations
Criticisms to Hofstede’s Study
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The operationalization of the constructs
The limits to generalize the study findings (data
comes only from IBM employees)
No theoretical base in developing the survey
Other methodological criticisms:
 Problems
with factor analysis
 Many items within a dimension seems unrelated
 Many of the items related to several of the dimensions
Schwartz Value Survey (SVS)
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Content and structure of human values
 Content
=> the criteria people use to evaluate events
and select courses of action.
 Structure => the organization of these values based on
their similarities and differences.
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They derived 56 values that reflected various ways of
satisfying the needs of a society.
The values clustered into 10 groups called value types.
(can be seen as refinement of Hofstede’s earlier work)
7 value types at national culture level:
Schwartz Value Survey (SVS)
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Egalitarianism: recognition of people as moral equals
Harmony: fitting in with the environment
Embeddedness: people as embedded in the collective
Hierarchy: legitimation of unequal distribution of power
Mastery: exploitation of the natural or social
environment
Affective autonomy: pursuit of positive experiences
Intellectual autonomy: independent pursuit of own ideas
SVS – Individual Level Value Structure
SVS – National Level Value Structure
Trompenaar’s Dimensions
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His seven value dimensions (1993) were derived
primarily from the prior work of North American
sociologists and anthropologists
1) Universalism–particularism: Universalism is a belief that
what is true and good can be discovered and applied
universally, whereas particularism is a belief that unique
circumstances determine what is right or good.
Trompenaar’s Dimensions
2) Individualism–collectivism: Similar to Hofstede’s
definition, this dimension concerns the extent to which
people plan their actions with reference to individual
benefits versus those of the group.
3) Neutral–affective: In neutral cultures, emotion should be
held in check, and maintaining an appearance of selfcontrol is important, whereas in affective cultures, it is
natural to express emotions.
Trompenaar’s Dimensions
4) Specific–diffuse: The extent to which individuals allow
access to their inner selves to others. In specific cultures,
people separate the private part of their lives from the
public, whereas in diffuse cultures, these aspects of the
individual overlap.
5) Achievement–ascription: This dimension is about how
status and power are determined in a society. In an
ascription society, status is based on who a person is,
whereas in an achievement society, status is based on
what a person does.
Trompenaar’s Dimensions
6) Time: This dimension is about past versus future
orientations and about the extent to which time is
viewed as linear versus holistic and integrative with past
and present together with future possibilities.
7) Environment: This dimension is the extent to which people
feel that they themselves are the primary influence on
their lives. Alternatively, the environment is seen as more
powerful than they are, and people should strive to
achieve harmony with it.
Trompenaar’s Dimensions
Two dimensions at national level:
Loyal involvement–utilitarian involvement, representing
varying orientations toward group members
 Conservatism–egalitarian commitment, representing
orientations toward obligations of social relationships
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These two can be seen as extensions and refinements of
Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism and power
distance dimensions, respectively.
The GLOBE Study
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The most recent study of cultural differences as a
part of of the Global Leadership and
Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE)
program (House et al., 2004).
It involved 170 researchers working in 62 different
societies and collected data from approximately
17,000 middle managers in 951 organizations.
The GLOBE Study
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Institutional collectivism (from Hofstede)
In-group collectivism (from Hofstede)
Power distance (from Hofstede)
Uncertainty avoidance (from Hofstede)
Gender egalitarianism (Hofstede’s femininity dimension)
Assertiveness (Hofstede’s masculinity dimension)
Humane orientation (from Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck)
Future orientation (from Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck)
Performance orientation (from McClelland + masculinity)
The GLOBE Study
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Institutional collectivism: The degree to which organizational
and societal institutional practices encourage and reward
collective distribution of resources and collective action
In-group collectivism: The degree to which individuals express
pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or
families
Important: All dimensions were measured both as practices
(the way things are; “as is”) and values (the way things
should be; “as it should be”)
Further Examination of
Individualism -Collectivism
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Tightness and Complexity (Triandis, 1995)
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Tightness => The extent to which members of a culture
agree about what is correct behavior, believe they must
behave exactly according to cultural norms, and believe
they will receive or should give severe criticism for even
small deviations from cultural norms
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Complexity => The amount of differentiation in the various
domains of individuals’ lives. The numbers of different roles
available to individuals, the size of communities, and the per
capita gross national product of a country are suggested as
measures of cultural complexity.
Tightness, Coplexity, IndividualismCollectivism
Further Examination of
Individualism -Collectivism
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Vertical and Horizontal (Triandis, 1995)
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Vertical collectivism => See themselves as an aspect of
an in-group, but members of the in-group are different in
terms of status. These cultures are characterized by
patterns of social relationships that emphasize communal
sharing according to need and authority ranking or the
distribution of resources according to rank
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Horizontal individualism=> The self is autonomous and
people are generally equal. These cultures are
characterized by patterns of social behavior that
emphasize equity in resource sharing according to
contribution and distribution of resources equally among
members
Vertical-Horizontal Dimension:
Social Axioms
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As an alternative way to value studies to
understand and compare cultures
Social Axioms (Leung, 2002):
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axioms are generalized beliefs about oneself,
the social and physical environment, or the spiritual
world, and are in the form of an assertion about the
relationship between two entities or concepts.
 Unlike values, they do not have an evaluative
component; they only show a relationship from A to B.
Social Axioms – Individual Level:
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Cynicism: a negative view of human nature, a biased view
against some groups of people, a mistrust of social
institutions, and a disregard of ethical means of achieving
an end
Social complexity: beliefs that there are no rigid rules but
rather multiple ways of achieving a given outcome and that
inconsistency in human behavior is common
Reward for application: a general belief that effort,
knowledge, and careful planning will lead to positive results
Spirituality: belief in the existence of supernatural forces and
the functions of religious belief
Fate control: a belief that life events are predetermined and
that there are some ways to influence these outcomes
Social Axioms – Society Level:
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Four of the five dimensions merged into one strong
factor which was labeled as dynamic externality
The other strong factor: social cynicism
* Social cynicism seem to be a new cultural dimension
since it only moderately correlates with dimensions
from other studies
Other Levels for Cultural Differences
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Within country/ nation differences:
 Regional
 Ethnic
 Language
 Religious
 Gender
 Generation
 Social
class
Two Implications of Culture for
International Management
What people want from work
 Views about leadership
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Using Frameworks & Models of
Cultural Variation:
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“Hidden enthocentricm” by the people conducting
those research; possible misinterpretations
Instead of explaining culture, they should not
constrain the way you assess people from another
culture => “oversimplifying”, “sophisticated
stereotyping”
Do not rely on overly simplistic models of the effect
of culture
Pay attention to the level of analysis => whether it
is the individual or the nation/ society
Using Frameworks & Models of
Cultural Variation:
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Importance of cultural paradoxes
 Situational
context, cultural history, geography etc. are
important
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Pay attention to internal, within-country differences
They are best used for descriptive purposes rather
than in-depth cultural evaluation
The best knowledge of culture comes from direct
interactions/ information fro natives
Making Better Sense of Culture:
1) Approach other cultures with the idea of testing
your “sophisticated stereotypes”
2) Find culltural informants and mentors to help
3) Carefully assess information that seems inconsistent
with cultural stereotypes
4) Learn mental maps that will increase effectiveness
in different cultures