Achievement and Nurturing Cultural Dimension - Essay Example

Hofstede’s 4-dimension culture mode Name Institution name Hofstede’s 4-dimension culture Cultural literacy is important especially for people who work directly in global businesses. This knowledge of understanding that culture is a set of values, norms and beliefs rules held by a specific group of people in a society enables a person to function effectively with a given culture by being culturally sensitive since. This will influence to a great extend the way we think, determining what is wrong or right and we vale as important. Culture affects ethical reasoning, which in turn affect the ethical decision-making .I believe that no culture is superior to others and so is the ethnic group. Culture is shaped Cultures can be different meaning that each has its own values and standard of ethics. Culture is shaped by factors such as religion, social structure, language, education, economic philosophy, political philosophy that surround people. Individualism versus collectivism dimension of culture looks at culture in terms of individuals care for themselves and collectivist care for the group. The current society we live in i believe that everyone is expected to look after themselves and their immediate families. According to Hofstede, this is individualism. As an indivualist, I advocate for and value hard work but when it comes to association the workplace, I tend to have weak association with. Being an individualist, I agree with Hofstede who argued that individual environment the rights of individuals supersede those of the group and individuals are supposed to look after themselves. I do not believe in collectivism point of view of culture that i expect my relatives or other group in the society to look out for me in a family setup for instance the persons who mostly care for us is the immediate family. I work towards my goal and not the goal of the group as stated in the collectivism. I see this as advantageous since the dimension stresses that here individuals who are entrepreneurs tend to be risk takers and have a freedom to focus on their personal goals. According to me taking the individualistic point of view of culture in an organisation is very important this is much attributed by the fact the people tend to be risk takers. Power and distance dimension, power is normally distribution unequally in the society and less powerful members of the society believe that. This also means that cultures accept social inequality among its people. When i look at organisation and the way they are organised i see hierarchies where everybody has his or her own place. The power distribution here is long distance large power distance is characterised by inequality of power between superiors and their subordinates. I believe that societies work this way especially in organisation and place of work furthermore even the place we live, the family. For instance, I do not command the same power as my parent do in society leave alone the family set up. I do not expect also that in the family my children to have equal powers as I do. Similarly at place of junior normally have lower power than their seniors and there is no question about this because that is how it is. I do not advocate for a situation where there is power equalisation or even demand for justification of power inequalities. In case I ever walk to an office or visit a place, where there is inequality of power and wealth distribution i would understand since the weak in such society believe that there is such inequalities. In uncertainty, avoidance dimensions the extent to which culture avoids uncertainty and ambiguity is identified. There are cultures, which are characterised with strong uncertainty avoidance, and in these societies, there are strong uncertainty avoidance rigid codes of belief, dislike uncertainty and ambiguity. In business perspectives, i would strongly advocate for strong uncertainty avoidance by placing values in securities, furthermore having placing more faith systems of rules and procedures in society. Businesses operating under this culture have lower employee turnover and there is formal rules for employee behaviour as well as facing greater difficulty in in change implementation. I would feel comfortable in the scenario rather that in cultures with weak with weak uncertainty avoidance where by a more relaxed atmosphere where practise counts more than principles Achievement and nurturing cultural dimension shows the extent to which a culture emphasizes personal achievement and materialism and relationships and quality and quality of life. In society, the masculinity and femininity dimension of culture is seen by the way society assigns social roles to sexes. Masculinity or low nurture are characterised by assertiveness and wealth accumulation. Femininity also termed as high nurture is characterised by relaxed lifestyles. More concern is given on others than it is given to material gain meaning that relationships are more important. I believe that at personal level assertiveness and aggressiveness is at the heart of every person. This high masculinity helps in amassing wealth. However for values in society what I tend to agree more on is the femininity aspect of culture, which advocates for low masculinity and see the values such as nurturing as of importance to the society. Looking at a situation where wealth or high masculinity values are valued in society is materialism. According to me, people do not survive on material things as it reaches a point where what one needs is people around them. Wealth at expense of care for the society is out of question to me since I believe that femininity values are important in the society. Caring for the larger community is important. I believe that with uncertainty avoidance individualism high power distance and masculinity in business perspective where i strongly stand, leads to professionalism conservatism and secrecy, which in turn lead to authority enforcement and measurement and disclosure. High individualism eventually leads to high professionalism and thus lower need for government regulations. Strong uncertainty avoidance leads to uniformity through rules and regulations. Even though cultures are different, none is superior. These cultures affect the way people make decision in organisation. Read More