The Impact of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions on Global HRM Practices

This essay delves into the significance of human resource management (HRM) within organizations, emphasizing its role in addressing employee compensation, development, training, and overall workplace culture. It focuses on Hofstede's cultural dimension model as a crucial framework for multinational companies navigating the complexities of global HRM. The essay explores how Hofstede's model, encompassing dimensions like power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, and long/short-term orientation, aids in understanding and managing cultural differences. It discusses the challenges faced by global HRM, such as adapting to diverse cultural values and managing employee expectations across borders. The essay highlights the practical application of Hofstede's model in recruitment, training, and conflict resolution, emphasizing its role in fostering effective communication, talent management, and international relations within multinational corporations. The conclusion underscores the model's value as a guiding framework for global HRM strategies, even while acknowledging its limitations.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Human resource management is one of the essential aspects of an organisation. It is
the human resource people who looks after issues regarding compensation, development of
the organisation, wellness and benefits, training and development, recruitment as well as
employee motivation to build a healthy culture within the workplace (Berman et al., 2019).
They help the organisation to achieve its visions as well as goals. But at the same time human
resource management also goes through a lot of challenges. Therefore, the primary aim of the
essay is to discuss the Hofstede model as one of the cultural model and discuss how it helps
the multinational companies especially HRM to address challenges as well as opportunities in
a global context.
Human Resource Management and Culture
It is difficult for an organisation to build an efficient team without the assistance of
human resource management. They are also responsible for performance as well as appraisals
of the employee. It is they who motivate them to work efficiently by coming up with new
forms of rewards as well as bonus that would suit the employees (Stewart & Brown 2019).
They also resolve the disputes that takes place between the management and the employees
as well as conflicts within team members. Furthermore, they are also responsible for
establishing good as well as friendly public relations. To achieve the above aspect they
organise business meetings and official gatherings to build healthy public relationship with
the organisation. Cultural values are also a part that influences the external factor of the HR
exercises (Nankervis et al., 2016). It is the cultural values that helps in shaping the behaviour
of the employees. For global organisation one of the most challenging issue that they have to
face is to effectively manage people who are working in their organisation (Christensen,
Lægreid & Rovik 2020). The rules and regulations regarding recruitment and treatment of
employees in the global organisations are so linked with the culture that efficient
management becomes difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to find solutions for the global
human resource management to that they can work within the culture effectively (Reiche et
al., 2016). Recently the role of culture has become critical in explaining the difference in the
practices of management across the world. It is the responsibility of human resource
management to take into consideration the political, economic as well as the cultural
dimensions of the society for the smooth functioning of the organisation (Reiche et al., 2016).
Global Human Resource Management

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Global human resource management means employing as well as developing people
within the organisations that operate globally. It means to work with people across
boundaries to formulate as well as implement resourcing, remuneration strategies,
development, policies and practices and career management that will be applied globally to a
workforce. However, human resource management while operating globally can be affected
by a national culture in giving feedback by physical being present with the person,
maintaining subordinate relationships and others (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung 2016). These
are the physical aspect of human resource management that can neither be touched nor seen it
can only be felt. Recently culture has lost its importance in the wake of globalisation that has
built undue pressure on the human resource management to look for ways that can motivate
the employees in different countries (Tung, 2016). Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory
can be applied in the above case to deal with the challenges that are faced by human resource
management globally.
Hofstede Model and Human Resource Management
The cultural dimension theory was propagated by Geert Hofstede that was used as a
framework to understand the cultural differences across the world and to discern the methods
of business that is used across the world within different cultures. The primary function of the
model was to distinguish between national cultures, different cultural dimensions and its
impact on the business setting (Khlif, 2016). Hofstede came up with six categories to explain
the concept of culture within organisation. Firstly, he talked about the power distance index
that showed the extent of tolerating power as well as inequality. High index power means that
the cultural aspects promotes inequity as well as power difference whereas low index power
meant that the culture supported organisational structures that believed in decentralisation
and distribution of power (Beugelsdijk, Kostova & Roth 2017). Secondly he spoke about
individualism and collectivism. Individualism meant that attainment of personal goals has
more importance. Collectivism concentrated on the performance of the group as a whole
(Favaretto et al., 2016). Thirdly he discussed about uncertainty avoidance index where high
certainty shows low tolerance for uncertainty and vice versa (Beugelsdijk, Kostova & Roth
2017). Fourthly he spoke about masculinity and femininity where the latter was denoted with
modesty and tenderness while the former was denoted as assertive. Then he discussed about
long as well as short term orientation in his models (Vasile, 2016). Long-term orientation
focuses on the future and does not accept a delay in the short-term success so that the
organisation can achieve long-term goals. On the other hand short-term orientation only

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
thinks of gaining success in the near future and also delivers short-term success (Vasile,
2016). Lastly the model talks about indulgence as well as restraint. Indulgence here means
that society allows people to enjoy life whereas restraint means that society suppresses the
needs by imposing social norms (Vasile, 2016). According to Hofstede the above six factors
plays a crucial role in influencing the behaviour of the employees in an organisation.
Hofstede Model and its Application to Human Resource Management
There are many international companies that operate all over the world. For these
multinational companies to be effective the latter should take into consideration the impact
they make on the nation as a whole, on its local practices as well as cultural boundaries.
Often this burden comes the human resource management (Obeidat et al., 2016). Therefore,
many of the international companies follow Hofstede’s model of cultural dimension that
helps them in their global endeavours, the model also helps in the smooth transition to foreign
lands. With the rapid increase in globalisation it has now become the responsibility of the
human resource management to make efficient decision making as well as inter-cultural
negotiations (Obeidat et al., 2016). One of the major problems faced by multinational
companies is exploitation of local employees where they want cheap labour to make their
product more competitive. Here comes the cultural differences where these companies offer
minimum wage so that the cost of production is reduced (Obeidat et al., 2016).
One of the first points that MNC’s should consider from the model is power distance
where there is more inquity of wages and employment opportunities. Employees who work in
high participative culture view the HRM as fearful and with distrust and the HRM who works
with these employees are viewed as incompetent and weak (Valaei.et al., 2016) Therefore it
is essential for the MNC companies to consider the above points when they enter into
Western countries, developed as well as developing countries. They should measure the
distance of power with the power index and try to resolve this distance to meet the challenges
of HRM in a global context (Valaei.et al., 2016). Next to solve the problem globally the
HRM can use the concept of individualism as well as collectivism. The primary role of an
HR is to recruit people and train them to sharpen their skills. Therefore during recruitment
they observe whether an individual is fit to work in a group or individually (Minkov et al.,
2017). Hofstede also believed that employees from collectivist society are more concerned
with reputation of an organisation. Similarly the concept of femininity as well as masculinity
can be considered by HRM globally to meet the challenges and opportunities globally. In

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
terms of HRM the concept of masculinity as well as femininity can be described as the
relationship that the employees make with their colleagues. To meet global challenges the
HRM needs to realise that feminine management emphasizes on the concept of interpersonal
relations and quality of life (McSweeney, Brown & Iliopoulou 2016). On the other hand
masculine culture will focus on rewards and efficient performance.
Uncertainty avoidance can further be applied by HRM for the smooth functioning of
the organisation. Since MNC’s hire and train employees coming from different cultural
backgrounds it is necessary to use elaborate written documents as a contract so that further
conflict can be avoided in the organisation. Therefore the HRM seek detailed information of
the employees to increase predictability (McSweeney, Brown & Iliopoulou 2016). By
following this pattern the HRM tries to avoid all kinds of oral information to maintain the
credibility of information. HRM further helps in meeting with long and short term orientation
by following Hofstede model. These goals can be achieved by the MNC’s by observing the
commitment of the employees, giving promotion to deserving candidates within as well as
outside the organisation (Brewster, 2017). Furthermore, this aspect will also help to meet
global challenges as the organisation can hire a group of people to achieve short term goals
and hire people permanently for long-term goals (Brewster, 2017). Therefore by following
Hofstede model the HRM of multinational companies can address the challenge as well as
opportunity of talent management, risk as well as privacy, leadership challenges, cultural
issues, international relations and system of rewards.
Conclusion
Therefore to conclude it must be noted that Hofstede model is one of the models of
cultural dimensions that should be considered by the human resource management of
multinational organisations to meet global challenges as well as opportunities. However, it
should only be considered as a framework and not as a program for the management as all the
factors may not be successful in the long run. Still his work will always be valued by the
organisations as it helps the latter to cope with problems.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
References
Berman, E. M., Bowman, J. S., West, J. P., & Van Wart, M. R. (2019). Human
resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes, and problems. CQ Press.
Beugelsdijk, S., Kostova, T., & Roth, K. (2017). An overview of Hofstede-inspired
country-level culture research in international business since 2006. Journal of International
Business Studies, 48(1), 30-47.
Brewster, C. (2017). The integration of human resource management and corporate
strategy. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35).
Routledge.
Christensen, T., Lægreid, P., & Rovik, K. A. (2020). Organization theory and the
public sector: Instrument, culture and myth. Routledge.
Favaretto, R. M., Dihl, L., Barreto, R., & Musse, S. R. (2016, September). Using
group behaviors to detect hofstede cultural dimensions. In 2016 IEEE International
Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) (pp. 2936-2940). IEEE.
Khlif, H. (2016). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in accounting research: a
review. Meditari Accountancy Research.
McSweeney, B., Brown, D., & Iliopoulou, S. (2016). Claiming too much, delivering
too little: testing some of Hofstede’s generalisations. The Irish Journal of
Management, 35(1), 34-57.
Minkov, M., Dutt, P., Schachner, M., Morales, O., Sanchez, C., Jandosova, J., ... &
Mudd, B. (2017). A revision of Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism dimension. Cross
Cultural & Strategic Management.
Nankervis, A. R., Baird, M., Coffey, J., & Shields, J. (2016). Human resource
management: strategy and practice. Cengage AU.
Obeidat, B. Y., Al-Sarayrah, S., Tarhini, A., Al-Dmour, R. H., Al-Salti, Z., & Sweis,
R. (2016). Cultural influence on strategic human resource management practices: A
Jordanian case study. International Business Research, 9(10), 94-114.
Reiche, B. S., Stahl, G. K., Mendenhall, M. E., & Oddou, G. R. (Eds.).
(2016). Readings and cases in international human resource management. Taylor & Francis.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Chung, C. (2016). Globalizing human resource
management. Routledge.
Stewart, G. L., & Brown, K. G. (2019). Human resource management. John Wiley &
Sons.
Tung, R. L. (2016). New perspectives on human resource management in a global
context. Journal of World Business, 51(1), 142-152.
Valaei, N., Rezaei, S., Ismail, W. K. W., & Oh, Y. M. (2016). The effect of culture on
attitude towards online advertising and online brands: applying Hofstede's cultural factors to
internet marketing. International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 10(4), 270-
301.
Vasile, A. C. (2016). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and management in
corporations. Cross-Cultural Management Journal, 18(01), 35-46.