Hofstede’s Cultural Orientation of the Workforce Essay

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Updated: Mar 20th, 2024

Culture has been cited as creating a form of conflict within organizations. Using Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture compare and contrast culture and its impact on the workforce in Australia and a country of your choice

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Introduction

Culture is a critical variable in the operation of any organization. A myriad of definitions have been proffered to explain this paramount element and in this paper, Hofstede’s definition of culture shall apply. He defined culture as, “A collective programming of the mind which distinguishes one group from another…or mental programming patterns of thinking and feeling and potential acting (Gaspay, Dardan & Legorreta 2008 ).

Culture is significant as it is learned over extended periods from one’s birth through interaction with the environment and society at large, which makes it difficult to uproot from an individual’s or society’s psyche (Kirkman, Lowe & Gibson 2006). Consequently, since individuals from various societies make up the workforce in any economy, it is prudent to understand the effect of culture on such a workforce (Bartels 1967). The easiest way to go about gaining this information is by reviewing organizational interactions with staff members in their day-to-day engagements or tasks and this paper shall carry out a basic review comparing the culture of Indonesia and Australia and the various effects that such cultures have on the workforce. Australia and Indonesia are closely related and even similar in many ways. For instance, their geographic location is localized, as the two countries are close to each other. Secondly, they share numerous commercial trading partnerships, security links, people-to-people relations, and political affiliations (Yoo, Donthu, & Lenartowicz 2011).

Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture

Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture include “power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism vs. individualism, Confucian dynamism, and masculinity versus feminity” (Furrer et al. 2000, p.360). However, this paper shall only discuss four of these except Confucian dynamism.

Power Distance (PD) refers to the extent of unequal power distribution within the society (Gaspay, Dardan & Legorreta 2008). This definition is inclusive of the indoctrinated belief in expectation and acceptance of such unequal distribution that is exhibited by the members of the society. Evidence of such indoctrination is manifest when expatriate authorities come into the system and attempt to reform it by encouraging more participation and egalitarian management practices. Hofstede indicates that a society can have either a large power division (LPD) or a Small power division (SPD) (Gaspay, Dardan & Legorreta 2008).

Large Power Division means that a few people at the top of the hierarchy wield the available power whereas the majority is at the bottom with little or no power. These subordinates are accustomed to respecting the superiors and taking instruction from them on every aspect. There is little or no room for interpretation as such instructions are often detailed and require strict adherence at the risk of penal sanctions if one were to defy them (Rapp, Bernardi & Bosco 2011). This scenario is a depiction of Indonesia’s work environment. The hierarchy is characterized by tiers that feature an increase in power as the levels increase. The management is centralized and this element becomes apparent during decision making where decisions and policies are made and passed at the executive level only for them to trickle down in the form of directives. Therefore, this aspect reduces the rate of employee buy-in into the organizational culture and it explains why turnover ratios are so high in Indonesia.

On the other hand, Australia is different as it features a culture of small power division. Power is equally distributed across all levels and employees play a major role in promoting the organization’s objects as they are constantly consulted and engaged in any policy considerations as well as important decision-making that affects them. Managers in Australian companies give general instructions with a lot of room for interpretation and the employee has a lot of discretion in discerning such interpretations.

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The advantages of having a small power distance include the increased potential for innovation that is guaranteed by allowing open channels of communication that encourage employees to apply their creativity and consult on the same. Innovation requires a comprehensive flow of information, what Hofstede defines as “organic characteristics” that include a lack of hierarchical authority and less centralization (Ralston,Furrer & Van Deusen 2011). These features encourage interaction (communication wise) among employees and uninhibited exploration necessary for fostering innovation.

The second dimension is uncertainty avoidance, which denotes the flexibility of the society concerning ambiguous or uncertain situations; in other words, it is the society’s perception of risk. People in a low uncertainty avoidance society are risk-takers. They shun rigidity and extreme formality in their organizations. On the other hand, people in a high uncertainty avoidance society are averse to risk and thus they favor rigidity and formality in their organizations. The low uncertainty avoidance societies are more prone to innovative developments than their high uncertainty avoidance counterparts are because it often requires one to embrace risk to invest in innovative ventures. In the exploration of technological developments, for instance, the experimentation is often expensive and takes a lot of time. Consequently, most organizations and societies are not ready to place a stake in this field for they cannot afford to or due to the uncertainty, which surrounds such a decision (Dolan & Garcia 2002). Australia and Indonesia both exhibit a low uncertainty avoidance ratio, which means that they have informal structures in their organizations and allow for unstructured decision-making paradigms. It also means that both countries’ workforces have an equal chance of gaining innovative expertise.

The third dimension is individualism vs. collectivism. An individualistic organization would be one that has a culture of people promoting their interests as employees as opposed to concern for societal or utilitarian principles. In such a culture, autonomy and variety are prominent qualities among the members of the workforce and Australia has such a culture. The workers are autonomous and highly competitive as they seek to rise above the masses to achieve success, wealth, status, and recognition for their efforts. They rarely have organizational loyalty as they look at job mobility as an option for progressing. The variety that they are exposed to and accustomed to is a good thing for it encourages innovation, which means doing things differently.

Indonesia on the other hand has a collectivist culture. The people have a group mentality and so teamwork is very well done. The emphasis is on how the group can succeed and any competition is on the group level. To the extent that teamwork is instrumental in any organization, Indonesia is likely to be more successful than Australia is due to its culture. This collectivism is so rampant that employees value their cliques more than they value their bosses’ opinions, which is a unique trend. However, that trend perhaps explains the common occurrence of trade unions and other civil rights advocacy instruments in Indonesia. Whereas in Australia a person would be heard saying, “I did this”, in Indonesia the more common saying is, “we did this”.

The fourth cultural dimension is masculinity versus feminity. Masculine cultures are performance-driven. That is to say that they really value recognition and reward systems and normally any innovation is due to the pursuit of these goals, thus it is more of collateral. Such a culture respects assertiveness in seeking to achieve one’s ambitions, which usually means financial bonuses, prestige, or self-actualization (Bartels 1967). The person that overcomes the most obstacles and takes the greatest risk while on such a pursuit is revered by society and men, who are the traditional heroes, occupy executive positions in organizations. Whereas society regards men as assertive, women of equal standing are described as aggressive and societal norms discourage their participation in the rat race. Australia has a slightly masculine culture and its workforce is both task-oriented and results-focused.

Indonesia on the other hand leans more towards feminist tendencies as compared to masculine dispositions, which is to say that the emphasis is more on utilitarian goals than it is on wealth or social status. Philanthropic acts are common in such a culture and a manifestation of this assertion is in the high personal taxes imposed on people to support social security. There is also little differentiation between men and women working in the same position.

Conclusion

This paper has addressed the question of the cultural orientation of the workforce based on Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture, but it has only touched on the first four, leaving out the fifth, viz. Confucian Dynamism, due to unavailability of comparative studies about Australia and Indonesia. In all four, the only similarity between Australia and Indonesia in terms of character is on the “uncertainty avoidance” dimension. Consequently, it would be difficult to adapt to the Australian workforce if one has been socialized in Indonesia just as it would be difficult to work in Indonesia when one has been socialized in Australia. However, these differences do not seem to have too much of an adverse effect on the economies of either country and it is safe to assume that each country has perfected the skill of harmonizing its culture and maximizing the related strengths for the benefit of business performance.

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Reference List

Bartels, R 1967, ‘A Model for Ethics in Marketing’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 31 no.1, pp. 20-26.

Dolan, S & Garcia, S 2002, ‘ Managing by values: Cultural redesign for strategic organizational change at the dawn of the twenty-first century’, The Journal of Management Development, vol. 21 no. 2, pp. 101-117.

Furrer, O, Liu, B & Sudharshan, D 2000, ‘The relationships between culture and service quality perceptions: Basis for cross-cultural market segmentation and resource allocation’, Journal of Service Research, vol. 2 no.4, pp. 355 -371.

Gaspay, A, Dardan, S & Legorreta, L 2008, ‘”Software of the Mind” – A review of applications of hofstede’s theory to it research’, Journal of Information Technology Theory and Appplication, vol. 9 no. 3, pp. 1-37.

Kirkman, B, Lowe, K & Gibson, C 2006, ‘A quarter century of Culture’s Consequences: a review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede’s cultural values framework’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 37 no. 3, pp. 285-320.

Ralston, D, Furrer, O & Van Deusen, C 2011, ‘A Twenty-First Century Assessment of Values Across the Global Workforce’, Jornal of Business Ethics, vol. 104 no. 1, pp. 1-31.

Rapp, J, Bernardi, R & Bosco, S 2011, ‘Examining The Use of Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance Construct in International Research: A 25-Year Review’, International Business Research, vol. 4 no. 1, pp. 3-15.

Yoo, B, Donthu, N & Lenartowicz, T 2011, ‘Measuring Hofstede’s Five Dimensions of Cultural Values at the Individual Level: Development and Validation of CVSCALE’, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, vo. 23 no. 3-4, pp.193–210.

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