4 assignments

Instructor Comments

Executives manage employees of different nationalities and cultures. They often do business in different countries or with representatives who live in different countries and cultures. Geert Hofstede is a researcher who developed a set of national culture dimensions. Hofstede’s original ideas regarding differences in national culture resulted from a large scale research project that captured insight from surveys completed by over 100,000 employees of IBM working in their offices in 64 countries in the 1970’s. He then followed up this research with more data collection from managers in 19 countries, students and airline pilots in 23 countries, and consumers and government managers in 14 countries.

From this enormous set of data, Hofstede and his research team identified five independent dimensions of national culture differences. These dimensions include:

· The distribution of roles between genders in a society;

· The tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity in a society;

· The extent to which a society has a long or short term orientation;

· The extent to which the less powerful members of society accept that power is distributed unequally; and,

· The degree to which individuals in a society are integrated into groups.

A worthwhile reading for this assignment is Hofstede's consequences: The impact of his work on consulting and business practices by John Bing. It is referenced in the Syllabus where the readings are noted for this course.

Assignment

This assignment seeks to help you understand the answer to a broader concern and that is, “How are some national cultures similar?” You should base your responses to the following questions on your analysis of the ideas of Geert Hofstede.