Understanding Hofstede's Theory of Cultural Dimensions and Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator

The paper reflects upon an understanding of Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions. It will discuss the way of how it helps to understand people and their cultures. It will focus upon one of the cultural dimensions as well discuss the results based on Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.

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Construction Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Answer 1.....................................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2.....................................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................4
References...................................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
The paper reflects upon an understanding of Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions. It
will discuss the way of how it helps to understand people and their cultures. It will focus upon
one of the cultural dimensions as well discuss the results based on Myers-Briggs Personality
Type Indicator. Different cultural dimensions help an individual to deal with society by
understanding their culture and behavior. Also, the Personality Type Indicator provides with the
personality that is needed while working in a fast-paced organization. Therefore, the paper will
evaluate an understanding of the culture as well as the behavior of others in society.
Answer 1
Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions is considered to be a cross-cultural
communication that demonstrates the impact of societal cultures on the values of its members
(Khlif, 2016). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions would help me to understand my classmates and
lecturers with the use of six cultural dimensions such as uncertainty avoidance,
masculinity/femininity, power distance, long term/ short term orientation, indulgence/restraint
and individualism/ collectivism. The dimensions explain the relationship between the behavior
and values of the people (Mazanec et al., 2015). This will help me to distinguish between values,
norms, and beliefs of my classmates and lecturers. One of the cultural dimensions such as
uncertainty avoidance will help me to understand the cultural factors of my classmates and
lecturers. Uncertainty avoidance is determined to be the extent where the members associated
with the community are capable of dealing with future uncertainty without having stress. It deals
with community tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. It provides with the truth of the society
that shows the way to what extent a culture makes the members feel comfortable or
uncomfortable in certain unstructured circumstances (Beugelsdijk, Kostova and Roth, 2017).
This particular dimension of Hofstede’s theory would help me to reduce the occurrence
of unusual and uncertain situations with my classmates and lecturers. By planning and
implementing specific laws and regulations to make careful changes that will help me to
understand the cultural aspects of my classmates and lecturers. People who adopt this particular
culture are more tolerant of change and pragmatic. Uncertainty avoidance is classified into three
factors they are high uncertainty avoidance, low uncertainty avoidance, and moderate uncertainty
avoidance (Degens et al., 2017). The difference in culture and behavior is the main factor that

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makes it difficult for an individual to interact with the members of the society. Thus, with the
help of low uncertainty avoidance, it will become easier for me to communicate with my
classmates and lecturers who are different than me regarding culture and behavior. It is
considered to be the extent to which a community, group or organization depends on social
procedures, norms, and rules to alleviate the unpredictability of future events. Low certainty
avoidance will help me to communicate with others conveniently. It will help me to undertake
risk based on the particular circumstances. I will be able to handle the unfavorable circumstances
with flexibility. It will also help me to tolerate different behaviors and opinions of my classmates
and lecturers without having any stress.
Answer 2
After completing my graduation with a diploma, I would like to engage in an active and
fast-paced job. As per Myers-Briggs Personality Type, I am very well suited for the job as it
presents the fact that I possess all the qualities required for the particular job. As per Personality
type indicator, I immediately react to a sudden event that takes place within the organization.
This quality will help to handle the situations adequately and rapidly. I have the quality of
utilizing every second for executing something good. Utilizing every minute helps an individual
to have better management of the work (Bakir et al., 2015). Based on Personality type indicator I
must continue the quality of never being late for the appointments and plan my actions. It can be
seen that a person who wants to achieve something better in life takes advantages of every
opportunity. Therefore, it is observed that I always look forward to grabbing every possible
opportunity comes in my way. I acknowledged that making wise use of every opportunity will
help me to get better results to attain the organizational target.
Every individual possesses some of the weaknesses that need to be changed to get better
outcomes while working in an organization. Hence, I want to change some of my weaknesses
such as I get influenced by my emotions as well as I execute my work in a hurry. It is observed
from the Personality Type Indicator that I easily get influenced by strong emotions that will put a
negative impact on my work. Therefore, in the future, I will learn a few techniques to control my
emotions in the workplace. Moreover, it is noticed that executing work in hurry results into
mismanagement of the working process that will bring negative outcomes (Beugelsdijk and
Welzel, 2018). Hence, I will take care of not to execute the work in a hurry. Before beginning

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with a project, I must go through it thoroughly to get better output. While working in an
organization, it is important to have better communication with the other team members and the
management team. Better communication leads to better execution of the work. Hence, it
becomes significant for me to change my personality of being a reserve and interacting less with
others. I must communicate with the management team and other team members based on the
project to have better knowledge of the project.
Conclusion
The paper concluded by demonstrating the theory of Hofstede's cultural dimensions that
help to deal with the classmates and lecturers. It also provided with the explanation of one of the
cultural dimensions. It is observed that uncertainty avoidance helps an individual to understand
the culture and behavior of others. The paper also aimed to discuss the personality based on the
Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator. The Personality Type Indicator provided some of the
strengths that are required while doing a fast-paced job. It also discussed a few of the weaknesses
that need to be changed while working in an organization.

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References
Bakir, A., Blodgett, J.G., Vitell, S.J. and Rose, G.M., 2015. A preliminary investigation of the
reliability and validity of Hofstede’s cross cultural dimensions. In Proceedings of the 2000
Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 226-232). Springer, Cham.
Beugelsdijk, S. and Welzel, C., 2018. Dimensions and dynamics of national culture:
Synthesizing Hofstede with Inglehart. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(10), pp.1469-
1505.
Beugelsdijk, S., Kostova, T. and Roth, K., 2017. An overview of Hofstede-inspired country-level
culture research in international business since 2006. Journal of International Business
Studies, 48(1), pp.30-47.
Degens, N., Endrass, B., Hofstede, G.J., Beulens, A. and André, E., 2017. ‘What I see is not
what you get’: why culture-specific behaviours for virtual characters should be user-tested across
cultures. AI & society, 32(1), pp.37-49.
Khlif, H., 2016. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in accounting research: a review. Meditari
Accountancy Research, 24(4), pp.545-573.
Mazanec, J.A., Crotts, J.C., Gursoy, D. and Lu, L., 2015. Homogeneity versus heterogeneity of
cultural values: An item-response theoretical approach applying Hofstede's cultural dimensions
in a single nation. Tourism Management, 48, pp.299-304.