Comparing Australian and Indian Cultures

This assignment explores the distinct and shared cultural characteristics of Australia and India. It draws upon a variety of sources, including academic research articles and publications, to analyze various dimensions of culture such as values, social norms, communication styles, and work ethics. The comparison aims to shed light on both the convergences and divergences between these two nations, providing valuable insights into cross-cultural understanding.

Running head: DIFFERENCES IN WORKING CULTURE OF AUSTRALIA AND INDIA
DIFFERENCES IN WORKING CULTURE OF AUSTRALIA AND INDIA
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The Globe project mainly helps in developing ideas about how different cultural values
are related with different forms of organizational practices, conception do leadership, different
forms of economic competiveness of the societies as well as different human conditioned of the
members (Mollmann et al. 2015). They help by providing nine important dimensions which are
used as parameters in measuring the working styles and cultures of different organizations in
different cultures. They also help to point out the different cultural differences that occur in
workplace of two nations and help multinational companies to develop strategic plans to manage
employees of both the culture effectively (Venaik and Brewer 2013). Developing information on
each of the nine parameters will help the leaders of the multinational companies to develop a
plan for effectively managing diverse workforce effectively and how new innovations ac help to
overcome the negative aspect of each of the nation’s workplaces. In the present study, Globe
theory is used extensively in comprising the nations of Australia and India so that the cultural
differences in the organizations can be studied and thereby acted upon for betterment.
The first point that needs to be discussed is the power distance parameter between the
two nations of Australia and India. Power distance can be defined as the degree to which the less
powerful members of the institution or the organizations within a particular nation expect as well
as accept the fact that the power in their organization is distributed unequally (Ponnuswami and
Harris 2017). It mainly reflects the fact that the inequality of the society is endorsed by the
employees as well as the team members. The working culture of Australia has a very low score
in the power distance variable. This is mainly because within the organization of the nation, the
hierarchy of power is mainly developed and established in a way where superiors are always
accessible. Here the managers are mainly found to develop very good bong with employees

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overcoming the status of their position and rely on the employees individually and both as a team
for their expertise. In such a working atmosphere, it is found that managers and employees
consult their working, strategies, intentions and others and share information frequently (Shah
and Baker 2017). Moreover, the style of communication is mainly kept informal with a more
direct and participative approach. On the other hand, India score very high in the power distance
where the working members themselves appreciate hierarchy as well as a top down structure
not only in organization but also society. Here the employees are mainly found to be dependent
on the boss or other power holders for their directions and are seen to accept unequal rights that
may exist between the power position holding people and that with the other employees who are
lower in ranking systems in the hierarchy. The accessibility to the people holding higher position
is only limited to the immediate power holder but this capability gradually decreases of the
people who are higher in the line. They are mainly follower of paternalistic leaders who provides
them rewards for maintaining their loyalty towards them (Zealand 2013). Employees themselves
expect to be directed clearly form the upper authorities. Control over the employees is accepted
and to even on the level of psychological security. The employed develop every formal attitude
towards the employees and communication is mainly followed to be top down and directive. It is
also seen that the employees never provide negative feedback to any persons that are up the
ladder of hierarchy.
The second point according to globe theory is uncertainty avoidance. It can be defined as
the degree to which the different members of the organization of a particular culture feel
threatened due to any unambiguous as well as unknown situations. It also describes the created
beliefs and institutions of the members by which they try to avoid the uncertainty. In simple
words, it can be stated that this dimension mainly looks over the ways by which a society or the

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organization deals with the fact that future is unpredictable and whether they should control the
future or let the future take its own score (Hallam 2013). Australia scores an intermediate
position while handling uncertainty avoidance of 5. This states that the Australian culture is
tolerant of the uncertainty. In such a situation, people do not show any aggression as well as
emotions in different ambiguous situations. Moreover the laws found in Australia to manage
these situations are not very precise. Very few rules which include religious as well as legal are
present to keep out of uncertainties. On the other hand India score 40 and thereby shows a
medium low preferences for avoiding uncertainty in the organizations. The Indian firms develop
an idea that nothing is perfect and therefore things might not go as planned which shows their
acceptance of imperfection (Warmer 2014). Researchers have stated that India can be described
as the patient country where the tolerance for the acceptance is high. People in this type of
working area do not feel driven or compelled to take different actions initiatives and thereby
settle in to their own established riles. They are always ready to adjust which may mean either
turning a deaf ear to rule being flouted to developing a solution to insurmountable problem. This
aspect may either lead them to misery or make them an empowering aspect of the organization.
It is traditional proverb where it is said that nothing is impossible India if one knows how to
adjust.
The next criteria which would be compared between the two nations of Australia and
India are the humane orientations. It can be deified as the degree by which organizations involve
in encouragement as well as providing rewards to the individuals of the organization (Popli and
Rizvi 2015). This would be based on the criteria being fair, altruistic, caring, and being kind and
also generous. For Australia, Human orientation score is towards the higher side and has a scale
of 6 out of 7.. Here it is seen that organizations in the nation provide importance to the interest of

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the others and people are motivated primarily by a need for belonging as well as affiliations.
Here members are encouraged to promote well being of others in the society and organization.
Leaders are seen to implement strategic changes is they face cultural conflicts. They try to spend
resources for betterment of the relationship between members, to provide them reacts and
feedbacks and many others. They encourage people to talk about the positive sides of their
coworkers and admire them (Gribble and McRae 2017). They try to develop the organization as
a close knit family influencing a reflect balance of formal and informal atmosphere. In case of
India, the same score is found to be medium which is about 4 out of 7. Here, mainly due to the
high power distance, bond formation among the employees and the higher authorities are not
strong. A more formal environment is found here where individuals are expected to meet their
targets and perform their work responsibly (Murray 2015). However, collectives only intervene
in case of these employees who fail to meet their targets and have poor performance. They
selectively intervene when required unlike Australia who mainly depends of sitting unity within
the teams.
Collectivism (Institutional) may be defined as the extent to which different organizational
and societal practices encourage and also reward collective distribution of resources and also
promote collective actions. Collectivism in groups can be defined as the degree to which
individuals within the organizations express loyalty, pride and cohesiveness in the workplace as
families. In this context, individualism may be defined as the extent to which a person’s provides
importance to his own value and interest while meeting up the objectives of the organizations
where his own interest prevails over the interests of the groups (Matthew, Hicks and Bahr 2013).
In the individualism score level, Australia is seen to have a very high score in of 90 in the
dimension. This states that Australia has highly individualist culture. Researchers have stated

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that society in Australia is loosely knit where the people mainly have expectation that they would
look upon themselves along with their immediate families. The people in their nation have
expectation that every individual should be self reliant as well as display initiatives (Earnest et al.
2015). Here people stand up for themselves and for their immediate families. They need to
choose their own affiliations. The ties between people in such society are loose. Here the culture
is more based on rewards and bonuses which are linked to the different individual performance
as well as they also promote the fact that task are important over personal relationship. On the
other hand, India mainly has the intermediate score of 48 which states that they are neither
totally collectivist nor totally individualist. On the collectivist background, it is seen that there is
a high performance of the Indians for their belonging to a larger social frame work where the
individuals are expected to act in accordance to the greater good of one s defined in-groups
(Haski-Leventhal et al. 2016). The actions of every individual are influenced by a large number
of concepts which include opinion of the family, extended family, neighbors, work group and
other such wider social networks. The employer employee relationship is based on expectations
where loyalty and productivity is expected by the employers form employees and familial
protection from employers expected by employee (Almeida and Fernanado 2017). They are
integrated in cohesive group right form their birth and protect their groups through their lifetime.
Here the interest of the group members acts more importantly over the individualistic interest.
The next criteria according to the Globe theory would be the gender egalitarianism. It can
be described as the degree to which an organization can reduce or minimize gender equality.
Australia has reached far in establishing the gender equality in organization (Saaya et al. 2016).
According to the government, women are now accounting for about 46.2 % of the local
workforce where a major part is formed of part time workers and then followed by one third

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portion of full time employees. Moreover, the researchers are of the opinion that women in
Australia are over represented in lower lying part time jobs and underrepresented in executive
positions. Moreover they also face harassments and discrimination at workplace. However the
condition had been developing over the years with stricter rules and policies of organization and
great initiatives taken by the government to ensure women job placement (Moorhead et al.
2014). Indi is very poor in consideration of gender equality in workplace. It has been found that
women belonging the age of 30 earned 23.07% less than men while woken living in the age
group of 30 to 40 years earn 30.245 of less than women. The old age culture and traditional
beliefs of good household comprising of a skilled housewife is the main reason for withdrawal of
professional after women are married. Moreover, the society is highly patriarchal where most
families do not encourage women empowerment (Rivera 2016). In 2014, total patriarchal of
women in labor force was pegged at 24.2% with a decrease of 23% decline in the female labor
force over 25 years. Moreover discrimination, assaults and others are also a common scenario of
India workforce.
Assertiveness, according to the Globe theory can be defined as the extent where the
individuals are assertive, confrontational as well as aggressive in their relationship with the
different members of the organization. In the Australian workplace, there is high degree of
assertiveness as people believe directness to be of better benefit and an effective way of
communication (Candler 2014). However people do treat each other politely but within that they
never fail to mentioned their point of view of provide positive or negative feedback accordingly.
Orders are often placed as requests in soft forms. It is common for the employees to address their
boss in the same way s their colleague. Mostly first names are the most common forms of
address. Fewer formalities are followed in the workplace and people like to be more assertive

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which is also respected by leaders. Meetings may start with casual humor which in most cases is
dry and anti-authoritarian. Providing both positive as well as negative feedback in a polite way
makes an individual respectful to the leaders as they think him to be participative in the
discussions. On the other hand, India score low in assertiveness in communication procedures.
Indians are found to be more submissive in their communication and a greatest reason is the
power influence of the hierarchical system in India (Grijalva and Newman 2015). Very few
scopes are received by the workers where they and voice out their concern or can suggest
something to the higher authority which would b beneficial for the authority. Neither they are
approached for suggestion, nor do they provide feedback. Negative feelings when developed by
employees against higher authorities are often kept suppressed which results in job stress and
lead him to resign but open communication is not preferred (Bell and Anscombe 2013).
Moreover, women are found to be the one showing more submissive behaviour than men.
Although most of the culture of Indian workforce provides people with less scope for being
assertive, but gradually new leaders are on the fields who are trying to include young minds
together where employees are given the scope for confronting the ideas of the leaders and
employers helping them to establish more successful organization.
The next criteria according to the Globe theory is the degree to which individuals engage
in different future oriented behaviors for betterment f the organizations like planning and
investing for future and others. Long term orientation is a dimension which mainly helps the
society to adopt ways by which it can maintain link with its own past while dealing with
different challenges both of the present and that of the future normative societies who score less
on this criteria mainly like to maintain time honored traditions as well as norms where they
develop view towards the changes in society with suspicion (Singh and Gatina 2015). However,

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those cultures which score high on the criteria mainly believe in encouraging different thrifts as
well as efforts in the modern education so that they can be well prepared for the future. Australia,
very surprisingly is found to have low scores in this criteria for about only 21. They are mainly
found to fall into the categories of normative societies where employees remain mainly
concerned with establishing the absolute truth. They are mainly normative in their thinking and
exhibits great respects for the traditions. They have relatively lower propensity to save the future
and do not work with strategies which would help in handling threats in the futures (Geerlings,
Thompson and Lunderberg 2014). They mainly focus on the achieving of the quick results rather
than deciding and planning for future about how to handle any threats if they arrive. However,
India on the other hand has an intermediate score of 51. India mainly believes in the work of
karma which mainly dominates through a greater part of religion and philosophical thoughts.
India have a great tolerance for religious views and for them Hinduism besides being a religion is
also a philosophy. It has provided the weaker with an amalgamation of ideas, views, practices
and others they accept the fact that there are many truths which often depends upon the seeker
(Kulkarni 2014). Societies which have a high score on pragmatism do not pay importance to lack
of punctuality and develop changing game plan with changing reality as well as general comfort
for discovering fated path as one foes along unlike playing of exact plan like the Australians.
The next criterion according to the Globe theory is called the Performance orientation. In
this case, it can be defined as the extent to which a collective encourages as well as provides
rewards the group members for improvement in their performance and also for excellence. It is
seen that Australia usually experiences a higher score in performance orientation (Kirmayer et al.
2013). This is mainly because the leaders or budding entrepreneurs in this nation of Australia are
always encouraged to develop determination among the workers where they themselves will feel

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like providing more to the organization. They can be either rewarding them financially or by
making them more famous or acknowledging their achievements (Wu et al. 2015). The leaders
seem to provide more importance in team building rather than on individual productivity as they
believe that good teams with motivated individuals will automatically produce higher
productivity. Such a culture is not much cared by the Indian working culture. They mainly fail to
develop innovative strategies for motivation for the workers and therefore most of the employees
of the organizations develop boredom (Bhattacharya and Cummings 2014). No means of
encouragement exists in the organization as a result of that motivation is not built and this
contributes to stress among the people.
The next criteria that should be discussed are the indulgence versus restraints. Indulgence
can be defined as the extent up to which people try to control the different desires as well as
impulses basing upon which they were raised. Relatively strong control is called the restraints
and relatively weaker control is called the indulgence. Australia has been seen to have a higher
score of 71 in indulgence. It has been noted that people in the societies of the nation exhibits a
willingness to realize various types of impulses as well as desires mainly in the matters of
enjoying lives and having fun. They are mainly believer of optimism and develop a very positive
attitude. However in addition to this, it is also seen that they are placing higher degree of
importance on leisure time and thereby spends money as they wish and act as they feel like
(Mollmann et al. 2015). On the other hand, India develops a core of 26 in this dimension in the
indulgence thereby showing that they are mainly a follower of culture of restraint. Such
societies and workplaces are found to be more inclined to a tendency to cynicism and also
pessimism. Such restrained societies of India do not provide importance on leisure times and
they learn to control the gratification of their desires. People who are followers of restrained

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societies also develop the perceptions that their actions are restrained by social norms and they
feel that indulging themselves is not morally right (Chokkar et al. 2013).
From the entire discussion above, one can easily understand that there is indeed a huge
difference in the working culture as well as the working system of the two nations of Australia
and India. According to the marks provided to each of the criteria of the Hofstede index, scores
have been provided which helps in depicting the culture which is followed in both the nations. In
case of power distance Australia is seen to develop a low score than India which is a good factor.
This is because it shows that the Australians face less distance between the different ranks of
people in the workforce and thereby the employers and employee can emerge easily with each
other in discussions which bring positive outcomes. However in India the power distance is quite
large showing less transparency between employers and employees. Secondly, Australian show
higher score in individualism and Indians show lesser score. This is a negative aspect of the
former as every workplace need to adapt to collectivism as everyone should work as a team and
provide help to each other which will in turn increase the productivity of the organization. This is
because individualist approach which promotes one’s own productivity whereas another
employee is having poorer production is not ultimately helping the organization as a whole.
Australian on the other hand scores well in uncertainty avoidance than Indians stating that they
can be more adaptive in risky situations and can cope with their anxiety by minimizing
uncertainty. India should try to be work on this dimension to become more proactive in their
organization. Again another good aspect which is better in India but not so much good in
Australia is the long term future orientations. Indians are more adapted to the mentality of
changing the situations it demands and are more flexible to change with the situations for future.
Australian tend to work according to fixed traditions which reflect a negative aspect as it may

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harm their productivity is certain threat appears in the future. Assertiveness and performance
orientation are also two other comments of the Globe theory and the score are higher in
Australians than Indians. It actually reflects that Australia has strong leaders in the organizations,
who teach proper communication skills among the workers that create an environment of open-
mindedness and transparency. They influence performance of the employees through motivation
and proper feedback skill with correct tones and attitudes that make employees feel respected.
India lacks such skilled leaders but with the modern generations, leaders are arriving in the
cultures of India who are following a transformational leadership styles which will bring positive
results. Both the organizational culture in both the nations is hard on women in gender
egalitarianism although condition of Australia is much better than India. Therefore this
information would be highly beneficial for a multinational company if they try to establish
overseas branches as these will help the leaders to develop strategies of management properly.

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Appendix:
Source: (hofstede.com 2017)

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