Hofstede’s Cultural Dimesnion and Five Bases of Power

RUNNING HEAD: POWER AND CHANGE
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Power and Change
Essay
System 0032
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Power and Change
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Hofstede’s Cultural Dimesnion and Five Bases of Power
The essay provides an insight on organizational change management. The essay includes a
comparison of Singapore and Australia in terms of Hofstede’s cultural dimension. This theory is
based on the cross cultural communication. This theory focuses on the cultural influence on the
value of members and also describes how values affect the behaviors of other. This essay also
includes how this national culture influences the five bases power framework of French and
Raven. The authors define five powers as legitimate power, coercive power, referent power,
reward power and expert power. The essay also highlights the role of power in efficient and
inefficient way if organizational change is happening in Australia or Singapore.
According to Geert Hofstede (2010), the cultural dimension of both the countries Singapore and
Australia is analyzed using this theory. The comparison of culture is done on the basis of six
dimensions that are; power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism,
masculinity and femininity, indulgence and long term orientation. Furthermore discussion on
cultural dimension of both the countries is given below on the basis of these six dimensions
(Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 2010).
This dimension individualism/ collectivism highlights the behavior of the people whether they
like to be work individual or in teams. The individualism index value for Australia is 90 whereas
Singapore score is 20. On the basis of this dimension it can be analyzed that Singapore is
considered as the collectivistic society. In organizational context, in Singapore an employee
prefers to work in team and culture of the country promote collectivism instead of individualism.
Here communication plays an important role in order to bring collectivism, harmony in groups
are maintained with open communication (Loh, Thorsteinsson and Loi 2019). On other side
Australia has individualistic culture where employees are expected to take initiative and remain
self-reliant. Australian culture preferred individualistic approach with the exchange based system
in working and therefore recruitment, selection and promotion is based on the merit and evidence
(Brewer and Venaik 2011).
This dimension power distance is used to measure the power and its influence on members. It
also includes the extent at which lesser powerful members in the organization expect and accepts
the unequal distribution of power. In high power culture the employees in an organization don’t

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possess power to take decisions all they have to do is to listen their superiors whereas in low
power distance the relationship between superior and subordinates is strong regardless of their
status or rank in the organization. In relation to this dimension Australia power distance index is
relatively low that is 36 and this is lower than the world average power index that is 55. This
states that Australian organizations follow hierarchy for the convenience and superior and
subordinates are free to communicate with each other regardless of any status. The manager
relies on teams for their work and expertise with continuous and effective communication. In
comparison with Singapore, the power distance index is 74. Organizations in Singapore follow
centralization of power and all the power remains in hand of top management. Employees have
to follow the rules and rely on the instruction of superior (Venaik, Zhu and Brewer 2013). There
is strict control over the employees and organizations follow a formal structure for
communication that gives limited control in hand of subordinates. Therefore in comparing both
the countries on the basis of this dimension it is concluded that Australian culture is low power
distance as comparison to Singapore.
The dimension of uncertainty avoidance deals with the level of comfortableness of people in
uncertain situations. The cultures that avoid uncertainty try to implement rules and laws in order
to avoid unusual situation. On other side in uncertainty acceptance culture people accept the
difficult situation and are flexible in nature to change themselves according to situations.
Australia scores 51 in this dimension that reflects that Australians likes to be in the stable
environment or culture rather than accepting changes easily (Tenhiälä et al. 2014). On other side
Singapore scores 8, which states Singapore people can avoid uncertain situations.
This dimension of masculinity and femininity is focused on the dominant values of the society.
Masculine stands or tough, focused on material success and assertive. Feminine is concerned
with the quality of life and less focus on the materialistic things. Australia scores 58 in this
dimension and considered as a masculine society Behavior of people is accordance with their
values, people there are proud of their achievements and success. In organizational context, the
employees get promoted or hired on the basis of their achievement and success and sort all the
conflicts and problem at individual level in order to win the situation. In this dimension
Singapore scores 48 and taken as a feminine society. In organizational context being humble,
polite and patient are the important criteria. This leads to team building and strong relationship