![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i_dtyPfvNhI/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAABU/PelhvmZ11KE/photo.jpg)
In this week’s class we, basically, approached
two topics which were quite interesting in the sense that it made me think that
not everybody perceive things as I do, as I have unconsciously assumed in many
occasions.
The first topic we talked about was
Particularism vs. Universalism, whereas Particularist societies base their
social interactions in the relationships established and give a strong
importance to the obligations they imply, Universalists are more tied to abstract
societal codes, then, when making a decision, Universalists firstly assess what
is socially perceived as good or bad. Therefore, the criteria used to judge
situations are very different, emerging as a possible source of
misunderstanding. An excellent example was the case presented by the teacher in
which your friend, who was driving the car at overspeed, runs down a pedestrian:
from a Universalist individual’s point of view, no matter if the driver was your
friend, he was exceeding speed limit what is not right, and then they would
testify the real speed. On the contrary, a Particularist individual would argue
that, given the relationship with your friend, they feel sort of a duty to help
him by testifying a lower speed. It resulted interesting when we were
asked how our positions would change depending on whether the pedestrian was very
injured or not; in fact, most of us took us a longer while to think about
it.
The second part of the class, we reviewed
Hofstede’s dimensions of culture. Even though I had already approached them
several times in previous courses, I liked a lot the analysis presented by the
professor regarding the implications for communication and negotiation when
dealing with someone from a country with a high/low score on every dimension. Besides, it was the first time I heard about a
critic of the dimensions, I did not know some issues about the study (that the
information had been collected from people from the same company in different
countries for example), so now I’ve got a much better perspective on the
strengths and weaknesses of the model and how to take them into account when
using it as a cultural research tool.
Finally, I found both topics very important not
only in a business context but in daily life. Everyday, even within our social
circle (friends, family, classmates, etc) we deal either with Particularist or
Universalist individuals, and many misunderstandings arise from those different
ways of approaching situations. Then, if we are able to identify which
orientation our counterparty has, we will be able to hold much better
communication and relationships, and it applies from treating with your best
friend to negotiating with a partner in other country. Regarding Hofstede’s
dimensions, I have always found them as a good tool to get a perspective on a
country’s cultural profile, but now I can apply them better knowing the
implications and weaknesses they have.
Reasearch Question: What alternative tools,
apart from Hofstede’s, does a cultural researcher have when assessing cultural
profile?
As one of the most renowned cultural studies in
the world, almost every student interested in the cultural dimension of
international business knows, even by memory, Hofstede’s dimensions of cultures.
In fact, his work has been cited by lots of scholars and practitioners,
probably being one of its key success factors that it is a multi-dimensional
model. In their work, curiously named “Why
not everybody loves Hofstede?”, Shaiq et al. (2011) analyze, for every
dimension, its main shortcomings and assumptions, but also present alternative
models to Hofstede’s. Unfortunately, many, if not most, models found in
literature are dichotomic, it is they present a ying-yang in which the classify individuals, communities and
countries, for example: low-context/high-context cultures,
particularist/universalist cultures,
monochromic/polychromic cultures, etc. Therefore, a good alternative to
Hofstede’s model are other multi-dimensional models that integrate more than a
unique dimension. A good choice is the GLOBE Study which studies cultural
clusters (comprising 62 countries) by improving and going deeper into
Hofstede’s original dimensions and finally presents nine dimensions and six
more for cultural implicit leadership. Shaiq et al (2011) also draw their own
model that adds, apart from the ones from Hofstede, five dimensions:
assertiveness, performance orientation, degree of formality, pragmatism and
gender egalitarian.
References
Shaiq, Khalid, Akram & Ali (2011) Why not
everybody loves Hofstede? What are the alternative approaches to study of
culture?. European Journal of Business and Management.mISSN 2222-2839 (Online).
Vol 3, No.6, 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/EJBM/article/view/539/425
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario