Introduction
The Hofstede Model has a five dimensional model regarding national or organizational culture namely “Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism, Masculinity and Long Term Orientation”. (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005) The dimensions as emphasized by the model indicate that performances and dimensional adversity of a company depends on its level of aggression. There is urgent need for a company to ensure it avoids mix-ups on the values differentiated by the model at the individual levels.
What is an organization culture? It is a programming done through thoughts as a combination of executable set of instructions and rules, which distinguishes member groups or one company from others. It is attributable to a collective of phenomenon connected to different aspects and departments in the organization or firm for the purpose of guidance through its undertakings.
One acquires organization cultures from the social setting of a firm or organization. When a person changes the job, the organization culture also changes but only to certain levels because the concept following many structure rally behind the Hofstede’s settings.
Unlike many other cultures, the organizational culture resides in the conscious and visible mind or practices in which case the employees perceive the undertakings in the organizational environment concerning set regulations. This paper addresses the conceptual dimensions of the IBM Company with regard to the Hofstede model of organizational cultures.
Power Distance
The most common dimensions used to measure the degree of economy in a firm involve its evolution and modernity, economically and technologically. To suppress other common cultural varieties, a firm ought to ensure existence of low quality information transfer explicitly. The high content requires implicit specification.
The IBM is an international company with vast number of employees. The aspect of power distance involves different solutions regarding fundamental predicaments that employees face in the job settings involving the issue of inequality. In relation to a big international company such as the IBM, the distance entails the dependence of the employees on their superiors, the complexity involving the rules, regulations and the predictabilities.
These factors affect the employees emotionally and are mainly associated with the stress or strain involved in the work setting. The balance between the individual goals of the employees also focuses on the company’s cultural specifications.
Lastly, the Power Distance seems to coordinate other cultures has its basis upon the Ego. The conceptions of balance between ego and social values have a basis of balance. This balance between individual’s egos also has a foundation on monitory values, need for career advancement, the social status such as the standards of living or cooperation and gender differences.
In most cases, the need for rule, dependence/individual goals and decisions will easily influence the male employees while social settings influences their female counterparts but this may vary across the country boundaries.
The power distance correlates to the pressure from wealth of the state were the issue of “individualism and less power distance are significantly related to wealth”. (Hofstede and McCrae, 2004) All dimensions of the phenomena relate to wealth correlates to the small power distance and individualism dimensions. Inclusive specification of the wealth variable in the cultural dimensions may nullify the correlation. For instance, a controlled company or national wealth, the Inter-correlation between these aspects may become obsolete.
Uncertainty Avoidance
This aspect relates to amount or level of stress or strain one maybe undergoing especially in a social setting where the face of the future exhibits unknown possibilities. For instance, the technological changes of the company may pose a lot of strain and stress to the employees whose new requirements may entail retraining to keep to the standards. These make them face the competitive disadvantages from the well-trained and up-to-date prospective employees seeking considerations.
The uncertainty avoidance cannot be a close link to the business risk avoidance. It indicates the social tolerance over ambiguity. It is the determinant factor over the extent to which an employee can persevere comfortable or the uncomfortable job related or social situations in the employment setting. Some people will avoid organizational rules to minimize the unstructured situation such as novel, unanticipated or unknown situations that are different from the norm.
Research indicates that people in the uncertainty defiance conditions are usually emotional and their motivations emerge from personal inner nervousness. (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005) Other people accept the uncertainty and end up being more tolerant over opinions that are different of their expectations. These people are torrent to any organizational change and are willing to go by the organizational change regardless of their difference of opinion, thought or contempt.
Individualism
Employees working in a large company such as the IBM are bond by the collectivism also refers to as “group work”. At an individual level, employees have certain cultural regulations that loosen the ties between the groups. The dimensional difference addresses the bond issue strongly whereby some social group may have strong integration probably due to their social bonds, generation links or loyalty.
Masculinity vs. Feminism
These are issues relating to the division between the gender related emotions. The subject takes rationality over individual attribute whereby the distribution of values ought to ensure parity as a fundamental and societal issue.
The study of the IBM indicates that the feminine aspects have lower differences among various societies compared to the male values. Among the different countries where the IBM Company has branches, the male values are dominant in the line of assertiveness and competitiveness. On the other hand, women have almost similar values focusing on modesty and care.
According to Hofstede and Hofstede (2005), the reference of assertiveness in the model is ‘Masculine’ while the modesty among females is ‘Femininity’. Although the issue may have, the social influences such that the competitive situations that changes the feminine perspective to narrow the gap. Sometimes the differences in the social cultures have deep-rooted values such as taboos that may also influence adversity especially among women.
Long Term Orientation
The perspective relates to the choices people make with regard to their personal focus over efforts in the future or the past. The perseverance and thrift are the values associated with long-term orientation while respect intended for tradition values, fulfilment of social obligations and identity protection are associates with short-term orientation.
When relating the two perspectives in the IBM Company, there are employees who will value important life events and have close links to the past or the present. On the other side, others have the long-term relation focusing those events as occurrences of the future. This implies that there are those employees who deserve gratification in the present while other find comfort when gratification differs for the future.
Conclusion
The moral dimensional model can change peoples’ position regarding their position on the organizational dimension. These moral dimensions represent the basic problems experienced in any company, society or organization. The features may lack proper absolute relative references thus differing, depending on the location but they provide continuity in the companies by providing solutions to the common challenges. (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005)
References
Hofstede, G. and Hofstede, G.J. (2005). “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind”,(Second Edition) New York NY: McGraw-Hill
Hofstede, G. and McCrae, R.R. (2004). “Culture and Personality, Link Traits and Dimension of Culture”, Cross-cultural Research, Vol 38(1), 52-88.