discussion

What are the important concepts about collectivistic do you need to keep in mind? Perhaps you are on a team that competes globally from that collectivistic culture. What is your behavior and your attitude on that team?

When operating internationally there is a challenge to integrate or understand the culture of the geographic location, the company and work culture, as well as make the cohesive group between multiple cultures. It takes a lot of work to address individual culture, work culture and then to adapt to new organizational culture based on the crossing of boundaries a border. There is an impact of social and cultural anthropology as it relates to the collective organizational environment. The leaders of an organization must effectively lead and manage, communicate and demonstrate the new shared values, and the organizational culture with all employees. This can mean to manage through classical cultural norms and re-structure organizational culture to be more accepted. The collective theories that impact organizations when leading across cultures are from the likes of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx. Whose theories were influenced by government, religion, social innovation or demands, economics and even social movements (Kahn, 2015).

The theory by Hofstede (n.d.) is based on the societal needs and how they organize themselves. In individualism, which is strongest in places such as the U.S., the people are driven by what helps them or gets them ahead as an individual. They feel more independent and are motivated be their circumstances and outcomes. It can also be defined as the way they view their self-image, where they don’t see themselves as a group member (LeFebvre & Franke, 2013).  On the other end of the spectrum you have collectivism, in which the individuals operate more as a group, towards collective goals or feel their contribution of self is to the group. Business are in fact impacted by country location, and there for it is important to understand major theories of social and cultural anthropology, as well the cultural ways of the country of origin and operations in order to have the greatest cross-cultural impact (Lee Park & Paiva, 2018).

In the United Kingdom, the culture climate is not as heavy individualist as the United States per Hofstede (n.d.) dimensions map.  They have more collectivism in their culture, which is a result of what relates to Durkheim’s theory, that social integration creates a better community or society.  There is also more of a functionalist view of societies, and everyone contributes to where they fit in to that society or hierarchy. The hierarchical society relates to Marx’s theory, that every person has a role or is contributing their part to make the society whole. They are collective in their efforts to maintain their societies, and roles within society. While they are not completely collective, there is some level of achievement or competition at the professional role or contributions, which would need to be considered in the cross-cultural organization. That means that the leader needs to consider ethical norms, or social life in order to understand the natural human reaction or activities in the workplace (Zabkowicz, 2017). As well, as Zabkowicz (2017) continues to point out that both individual reward and collective reward can be drivers for this culture and need to be considered in the leading of the organization.