Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions

>[Dr. Ben Zugay] Hi, everybody.

The purpose of this video is to expand upon
something that you've read about

with regards to group composition.

We're gonna talk about cultural diversity

from the lens of Hofstede's
Cultural Dimensions.

That will all make a lot more sense
in just a few minutes.

So first of all, you're probably thinking,
"What is this?"

Well, welcome to our first
online lecture for our class.

These online lectures are
designed to take book content

that is either difficult to understand
and explain in further;

or it is designed to take something
that the book just briefly mentioned

and I expand upon it (as this video will);

or for me to talk about something
that is completely brand new,

something that you didn't read about.

So there are very specific purposes
behind these videos.

I'm not going to lecture word for word
about things that you've already read.

I expect that if I assigned a reading,
you've read those things.

So keep that in mind as we go
through these online lectures.

In addition to that, #2,

please do take notes
as if we were in class.

These topics are of interest to you

with regards to our tests
and assessments in this class;

and of course, they are of interest
to you with regards to your career,

so I encourage you to take notes.

Number 3,
I will, throughout online lectures,

occasionally ask you to do things.

I may say, "Hey, pause the video.
Write down something in your notebook,

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with the content and the information.

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so please adjust to your needs.

So let's go ahead and
talk about our content.

So you read about group composition,
the way that groups are made up,

and you know from your reading

that there are essentially two
different categories of groups.

There are groups that are made up
of the same type of individuals,

kind of represented by the purple crayons.

Everyone's kind of the same.

And then you know that there are groups

[whose] members are made up of
whole different types of individuals,

represented by the colored crayons.

And we know that both
groups and both teams

can be beneficial in certain situations.

But you've read about that,
so we're not talking about it here.

But something that caught my eye
as I was reading our textbook

was this quote on bullet point #2.

It says, "Group composition
becomes especially important

as organizations become
increasingly more culturally diverse."

Hmmm. Well, that's an interesting thought.

We know that our country
is becoming more diverse

as the United States.

We also know that the organizations,
in turn, that we work for,

are going to continue
to become more diverse.

I had a chance to work
for the Walt Disney Company.

It's an extremely diverse organization.

I loved working with the individuals
that I got a chance to, from all over the globe

and I'm talking about work with,

not necessarily had visitors
come from all over the globe.

I got to work with individuals
from all over the globe,

and you will as well.

And as a matter of fact,
in our class, you may have a chance
to work with somebody from a different country
within your teams,

and that's really exciting.

So I was thinking more and more about this,
and I was like, "Wow, there's a lot of value
to be added by thinking about cultural diversity,"

and our book just talked about it
in like, a sentence or two.

That's what the purpose of this video is:
to expand upon that.

So here's what we know about individuals
from different countries and different cultures.

We know that even our own, and others, especially

we know that cultures differ
in a number of ways.

Cultures can differ within countries,
but especially across countries, right?

And these differences impact
how people view the world.

That, in turn, impacts how people perform
at work and perform in a team setting.

This absolutely impacts you because
somebody who has a different background than you
(which will be everybody),

but especially individuals who come
from different cultural backgrounds

will bring different selves to work.

They'll be different than you.

So you need to be prepared

to deal with that difference
in a positive way.

So I started thinking:
"What are some tools that I'm aware of

that can help us to understand
the differences from person to person
in a business setting.

Ha! Gert Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

That's a great tool, it's a very well-known
tool within academic research

and from a practical perspective as well.

You will probably hear about this,
maybe not by name,

but you'll definitely hear
about this in the business world.

So here's what we know
about Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

Basically — I'm not gonna read this
right word for word, but basically,

this is a way in which
we can look at cultures

and we can say, "Here is how this
culture is different than this culture,

is different than this culture,
is different than this culture"

by looking at these cultural dimensions.

There are actually six of them,

six different ways that Hofstede measures
differences from culture to culture.

and these differences help
to explain what people value,

what people think in general, etc.

Hofstede defines culture as
a collective mental programming,

so a collective, shared mindset by people

that distinguishes them
from another group of people.

But Hofstede also says

that this does not imply that everybody
in a society things the exact same way.

We know that there are differences with individuals,

but in general, here's what I want you
to gather from this slide,

is that Hofstede's cultural dimensions
are six different ways

in which we can explain
differences from culture to culture.

And in our case, we're gonna look
[at differences from] country to country.

So what are these six differences?

These six differences can be found here.

We are going to look at the first four.
We are not going to look at the last two

because they have a little bit
less to do with business,

but the first four definitely
have to do with business.

So the first way in which a culture can differ
from one to another is in power distance.

Power distance explains how much
less powerful individuals, institutions,
and organizations within a country

expect and accept
that power is distributed unequally.

Okay, what does that mean?

So in countries that score
high in power distance,

you accept the power
that exists within society.

For example, let's say
that the organization

has a lot of power (as most do)
at the top of the organization.

The CEO, she's very powerful,

so we, in a high power distance society
would never question the CEO,

would never question
the senior member on the team,

whatever it may be.

But if we're in a lower power
distance country or culture,

we are okay questioning authority
a little bit more.

We're not okay with that
unequally distributed power.

We're not okay with the power
at the top of the organization.

So that's power distance.

Individualism explains how much
interdependence there is

within a society among its members.

In individualistic societies —

these are societies that score
high on individualism —

these are cultures that really
value the individual, the self.

They are the "I/Me" cultures.
It's about Me. It's about Myself.

But in cultures that score
low in individualism,

those cultures are known as
collective cultures,

and these are cultures that would say
and value things like "Us/We/The Group."

That's a collectivist culture
and they would score low in individualism.

Next up is masculinity.

Masculinity has nothing
to do with gender

but it has to do with
what motivates people.

In societies where masculinity is high,

that's where motivation
comes from being the best.

Or if you are in a feminine culture,
where masculinity is low,

well, you're motivated by doing
something that you like

and that's what motivates you.

The last that we are going to look at
is uncertainty avoidance.

Uncertainty avoidance is:

How comfortable are people
with uncertainty?

How comfortable are they
with ambiguous situations?

In cultures that have
high uncertainty avoidance,

they like to avoid uncertainty.

so they have Plans A, B, C,
all the way through Z.

(That's an extreme example
but you get the point.)

In countries or cultures
that have low uncertainty avoidance,

they're okay with uncertainty.

They say, "Eh, we'll come up
with Plan A as we're doing it."

(Okay, again, an extreme example,
but you see the difference.)

So these are the different ways in which
[cultures] can differ from each other.

Interesting.

So hopefully,

you're looking at this and saying,
"Why should I care about this?

How does this impact me?
How is this practical?"

I hope you're asking that.

So here's what we know.

When you work with others,
there will be differences

in behaviors and values and beliefs
that are different from yours.

TIME 10:00 @ 3:35 on Tues 7/8

You should do your absolute best

to understand the others
that you are working with

in terms of their values,
their beliefs, their behaviors, etc.

When you do this, this helps reduce
unnecessary stereotyping

that absolutely happens

when you work with individuals
from other cultures or other groups

that you don't necessarily
belong to or identify with.

We do stereotype, but the more that you
focus on understanding the other person,

the quicker you can get over that,

the quicker we can work
through the rough spots,

and the quicker we can work together
as a team on what we need to work on.

And Hofstede's cultural dimensions
give us some tools to really—

It's a lens to help understand:

How and why do people
behave the way that they do?

So let me give you
an example from my career.