National Culture within an Organization: Geert Hofstede’s 6 Cultural Dimensions
In his book, Culture’s Consequences, Dutch cultural psychologist Geert Hofstede, brought the term Organizational Culture into common use. His original work at IBM identified 4 dimensions of national culture. Later, he extended this to 6 cultural dimensions.
Watching this video is worth 2 Management Courses CPD Points*.
(See below for more details)
The Nature of Organizations
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This video is part of course module number 6.1.4
Program 6: Managing within Organizations
Course 1: The Nature of Organizations
Section 4: Organizational Culture
Other videos in this section include:
🎬 Introduction to Organizational Culture https://youtu.be/F_jEJBjE_J4
🎬 Cultural Web: Johnson & Scholes on Where Culture Originates https://youtu.be/i9hVuurBvh4
🎬 Quinn and Cameron: Competing Values Model of Organizational Culture https://youtu.be/eOnCetNa7Zc
🎬 Edgar Schein’s 3 Levels of Organizational Culture https://youtu.be/N37Foo0DOgE
🎬 How we Work: Geert Hofstede’s 6 Cross-Organization Cultural Dimensions https://youtu.be/U8CZE1LXpv4
LESSON NOTES
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In the 1970s, Hofstede studied people working for IBM in more than 50 countries. Initially, he identified four dimensions that could distinguish one national culture from another. Working in one large and fairly homogeneous company, he felt he could exclude differences in corporate culture.
Later, he added 5th and 6th dimensions, in cooperation with Dr Michael Bond and Dr Michael Minkov. These are:
Power Distance Index
The degree to which people are likely to accept external hierarchical authority (high index) or to question whether it is fair and legitimate.
Individualism versus Collectivism
A social orientation where people prioritize the rights and interests of either themselves or the group.
Masculinity versus Femininity
This is about goal orientation, between a high degree of assertiveness towards achieving material success or quality or life, welfare, and social relevance. I think now, a term like assertive vs passive goal orientation would be better.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index
This is the extent to which a society will tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity (low index) or prefers structure and routine (high index).
Long- versus Short-Term Orientation
This is a time orientation towards either a long-term view or narrow focus on values, traditions, and social norms.
Indulgence versus Restraint
This is about how much a society allows individual freedoms, or expects people to control their personal desires in favor of strict societal norms.
National cultural preferences manifest within organizations. To the extent that different national cultures exist within a single large organization, it can lead to challenges in creating and maintaining a strong organizational culture – which may be rooted in one particular HQ country and therefore clash with national cultural preferences in some of its subsidiary locations.
Do take a look at our series of videos on cross-cultural teams
🎬 Introduction to Cross-Cultural Teams https://youtu.be/hJhRXuG2duk
🎬 Developing Cross-Cultural Awareness https://youtu.be/caMl06BtW7I
🎬 Dimensions of Cross-Cultural Differences https://youtu.be/A1did08vaX0
🎬 Tips for Cross-Cultural Working https://youtu.be/9G6LiVhrzOs
RECOMMENDED EXERCISE
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1. Assess each of the national cultures you have a STRONG understanding of, along Hofstede’s 6 cultural dimensions (6 MC CPD Points per culture)
2. Look around your organization at colleagues from different cultures. What cultural differences can you see, between theirs and the prevailing organizational culture? (2 MC CPD Points)
3. What impacts do those cultural differences have on workplace relationships, performance, motivation, collaboration, etc (2 MC CPD Points)
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RECOMMENDED READING
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– Understanding Organizations https://geni.us/oB774Do
– Images of Organization https://geni.us/hrOemEs
– Inside Organizations: 21 Ideas for Managers https://geni.us/YwwL
– Gods of Management: The Four Cultures of Leadership https://geni.us/bpPeC5
Managers Need a Basic kit to do your job well. Here are my top recommendations: https://kit.co/MikeClayton/manager-s-work-kit (the links are affiliated)
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