Essay: Significance of Hofstede Cultural Dimensions in Business

This essay examines the impact of Hofstede's cultural dimensions on organizational operations and international business. It explores key dimensions like power distance, individualism, collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance, highlighting their significance in shaping work environments and strategic policies. The essay emphasizes the importance of understanding these dimensions for effective planning, communication, and risk management in international contexts. It provides examples of how cultural differences affect organizational structures and performance, and suggests measures to promote collectivism, manage individualism, and improve communication within organizations. The analysis underscores the need for organizations to adapt their strategies and frameworks to align with cultural nuances, fostering connectivity with stakeholders and achieving growth objectives in diverse environments. The essay concludes by emphasizing the critical role of cultural dimensions in the success of international businesses and offers recommendations for managing cultural differences effectively.

How we think and behave
essay

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Significance of Hofstede cultural dimension..............................................................................1
Importance of Hofsted cultural dimension in International level...............................................1
Suggestion to be added to cultural dimension.............................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Behaviour of the person is greatly based on the mindset and cultural background to which
the individual belongs. It is significantly based on the mindset and thought process that support
management of work in diverse environment. The essay covers the impact laid by Hofstede
cultural dimension on the performance of the organisation. The significance of the cultural
dimension. Besides this, its importance in the international business. Besides this, effective
suggestions are been given that will help in proper assessment of the cultural dimensions applied
within a company or a country.
MAIN BODY
Significance of Hofstede cultural dimension
The elements of Hofstede Cultural dimension will impact the overall operations and
activities that will help in carrying out of the functions in an effective and significant manner. It
supports proper planning of the operations, behavioural aspects of the individuals and
organisation (Ojala, 2015). The elements of Hofstede cultural dimensions like individuality,
uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, power distance etc. will help in developing work and overall
operating culture within a country.
Following of these measures within an organisation will help in proper planning of the
behavioural aspects of an individual or an organisation. For example, cultures of the countries
with high level of power gap will tend to have more hierarchical and liner structure within their
organisation. These assist in proper rise in communication and achieving of goals. On the other
hand, the individualism will improve quality of goal but if a country or organisation aims to
achieve maximum number of goals, the approach of collectivism can be used. Masculinity and
femininity are the factors that will help in proper planning of the achieving measures for its
goals. A masculine culture will have more assertiveness and competitive in nature on
international level.
All this measures will help in carrying out of the activities that will help in the proper
planning of the operations. It supports these elements leads to proper assessment of the
functionalities. It also assists to have a rise in improvement of their efficiency of an organisation
to achieve its business objectives.
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Importance of Hofstede cultural dimension in International busienss
The Hofstede cultural dimension factor is relatively important for an organisation to plan
its business operations and thus will lead to carrying out the functions and growth measures.
Elements like power distance, uncertainty avoidance, approach of collectivism and maintaining a
decent level of masculinity help organisation to improve performance. It supports in meeting
operational objectives of an individual person or organisation as whole in the most significant
manner (Frijns, Dodd and Cimerova, 2016). These elements of the cultural dimension approach
will help in planning out the operations helping in carrying out of services and thus, will lead to
motivate the firm to have a great level of operations. As a country’s business environment is
greatly influenced by the culture, these dimensions are important for planning of business
operations. It supports the development of strategic policies and framework helping in carrying
out the operations. It also leads to meet the needs and operational requirements of the
organisation.
These elements will also have a great deal of impact over the operational environment and
woirk culture within a business enterprise. This will help in meeting the business objectives in
most effective way. For example, the uncertainty avoidance measures by international
organisations is important because it supports in identifying the risk factors caused due to arising
in involvement of different global cultures (Koch and et.al., 2016). The risks or uncertainties
which are faced by an organisation will be mitigated which can cause unwanted situations at an
international enterprise and affects its performance level.
Similarly, the power distance approach is significant as it will help in identifying the
communication differences and gaps between different executives in various companies or
countries in an organisational structure and removing it in order to improve firm's performance.
Its proper and effective rectification supports improvement of the performance of an organisation
(Dimensions of National Culture, 2019). The low power distance is important as it causes the
organisation to have a good level of promotion of equality and eradicating the indifferences and
negative belief at work place of an institution. The low level employees will be treated with
dignity and this will make the organisation amiable for the work force.
The idea of individualism is vital as it focuses on the personal goals and achievement of a
person on the individual level. However, this is not much beneficial for an international company
or a nation. For the significant growth, the practice of collectivism is essentially required to be
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followed for increasing the team bonding and effective performance of the organisation.
Controlling of the individualism and promoting the practices of collectivism will help in proper
identification of the individual and team requirements, leads to taking of suitable steps
accordingly to operate the business on international level. These elements will help in carrying
out the operations as per different international countries and their cultures and coming up with a
common, feasible solution.
As on the international level, the companies are prone to face multiple cultures and
ideologies, these dimensions are required to monitored and managed for a good and proper
performance. They help to look after these and set their business framework and business
strategies according to their culture (Schlägel and Sarstedt, 2016). This will not only support in
developing their connectivity with their stakeholders but also in identifying their growth
objectives and health measures promoting execution of business operations as per the culture of
the organisation. It also supports development of effective and suitable measures and strategies
which will help in effective management of different cultures of countries and organisations, on
international level.
Suggestion to be added to cultural dimension
Various suggestive measures can be taken within the organisation that will help in carrying
out the growth and suitable management of various cultures.(Laitinen and Suvas, 2016). Some
major recommendations are:
 Suitable management of the individualism and self centric behaviour at the work place in
order to promote collectivism and team spirit to perform operations of an enterprise.
 Measures like avoidance of power gap and promoting the practice of collective working
will help the organisation to improve their quality of services.
 Effective communication and perfect balance of masculinity and femininity can be
observed to have a suitable rise in performance of a international firm.
 Besides this, detail assessment of the market trends and customer perceptions will be
carried out by the organisation in order to manage the uncertainty avoidance operations
at international level.
CONCLUSION
Hence, on the basis of the assessment that is been carried out above, it can be said that
Hofstede cultural dimensions impacts the overall operations and functionality of an organisation
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to a greater extent. Proper significance of the cultural dimension measures is been presented with
the reference to the importance of cultural dimension for an international business. Other than
this, suitable recommendations are presented for the organisation to improve the overall
operations related to cultural dimension.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Frijns, B., Dodd, O. and Cimerova, H., 2016. The impact of cultural diversity in corporate boards
on firm performance. Journal of Corporate Finance. 41. pp.521-541.
Koch, P.T. and et.al., 2016. Cultural friction in leadership beliefs and foreign-invested enterprise
survival. Journal of International Business Studies. 47(4). pp.453-470.
Laitinen, E.K. and Suvas, A., 2016. The effect of national culture on financial distress prediction
modelling: evidence from European countries. International Journal of Accounting and
Finance. 6(4). pp.299-318.
Ojala, A., 2015. Geographic, cultural, and psychic distance to foreign markets in the context of
small and new ventures. International Business Review. 24(5). pp.825-835.
Schlägel, C. and Sarstedt, M., 2016. Assessing the measurement invariance of the four-
dimensional cultural intelligence scale across countries: A composite model
approach. European Management Journal. 34(6). pp.633-649.
Online
Dimensions of National Culture, 2019. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.hofstede-
insights.com/models/national-culture/>
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