Cultural Distance as a Cultural Construct

Running head: CULTURAL DISTANCE AS A CULTURAL CONSTRUCT
Cultural distance as a cultural construct
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CULTURAL DISTANCE AS A CULTURAL CONSTRUCT
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Assignment 1 – Role and significance of cultural distance
Introduction
With the inception of the human civilization, the aspect of culture came in to being.
Culture is defined to be the various ideas, social behavior, customs and values prevailing among
the people of the society. In other words, the shaping of the personality of the individuals depend
to a large extent, on the particular culture they are ascribed to. This signifies that individuals of
the community do not share the same culture (Ferris et al., 2018). The culture of people differ
from one geographical place to the other. In this regard, it can be observed that the cultural
differences as existing within the community, now has the potential to give rise to conflicts and
hostility within the society. In order to understand to role and significance of the cultural
distance, this essay attempts to define the issue of cultural construct. One of the cultural
construct selected in the course of this essay is that of cultural distance which has been examined
and analyzed in the essay. The relevance and the limitation of this cultural construct of cultural
distance has been discussed in this essay. The essay concludes with the importance of
understanding the various cultural constructs as present in the society for the effective
functioning of the human beings.
Cultural Dimension theory of Hofstede
Geert Hofstede conducted a survey on the employees belonging to IBM, between the
years of 1967 to 1973. His main objective was to identify the various cultural problems which
are faced by the employees within their place of work. Hofstede framed the cultural dimension
theory for the better understanding of the cross cultural communication that occurs within any
business firm. This model aims to understand the effect of the values and the cultures of a society

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on its individuals and how such norms and values enables in the shaping of the personality and
behavior of such members of the community (Peng, 2017). In this regard, Hofstede identified six
different dimensions of cultures such as the power distance index, individuals and collectivism,
masculinity and femininity, uncertainty avoidance index, the long versus short term orientation
and the indulgence versus restraint value.
Definition of cultural distance
Human beings cannot live in isolation; they are required to live within a community of
people. This is due to the fact that they are in need of fulfilling certain desires of themselves
which can only be fulfilled when they are in a relation with somebody else. For instance, in order
to feed themselves, they either need to purchase their food products from the retailers in the
market. To live within a community means to live in harmony with the people of the society.
This harmonious relationship among the people is dependent upon the culture of the people.
Within the larger human community of the world, there exists various cultures. The
individuals ascribes to them depending upon their place of origin. In this regard, it can be
observed that the people of a particular place has certain cultural values, customs and traditions
which are different form the values, traditions and customs of the other places in the world
(Adekola & Sergi, 2016).
Cultural distance refers to the aspect of the varied cultures which are present within a
particular field of observation (Rodriguez & Boyer, 2018). For instance, in the context of a
business organization established in the contemporary globalized world order, the primary
motive of the entrepreneurs is to expand their manufacturing process over most of the regions of
the world as this would yield them the desired profit margin. However, a main challenge that is