As I first began the research into the key characteristics of national culture within the United States of America I used Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as a point of reference and to use the basis of his research and theories to help guide myself as I explore Apple Inc., based in the United States of America. Hofstede (1980) himself defined culture as “the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people form others.” Hofstede was the Research Director for IBM during the 1960’s and so he conducted his research on employees in 50 different countries within the company. This gave him an initial basis of 4 key dimensions, Power Distance, Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity-Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance. This was then latter stretched to 6 key dimensions as he added Long Term vs Short Term Orientation and Indulgence vs Restraint. Each of these dimensions are scored using a score of 1-100. If we put his research into action, we can find out what is the national culture of the USA.
First up we have Power Distance. According to his score we can see that the USA has a score of 40. To understand what this means then we must first understand what he means when he refers to the term Power Distance. This is the extent in to which the less powerful members of society understand and accept that power is distributed unequally and that there is a somebody who is ore powerful than them and can control certain aspects of their life. This not only implications for society such as the government and democracy but also for the world of business and its managerial styles. A score of 1 would show that society strongly believe in power being equally distributed and a score of 100 would show that that society thinks there should be a firm hierarchal order in which everybody has their own role. The USA’s score of 40 gives me a clear indication that whilst they accept and understand that there is a hierarchical structure to an extent they lean towards there being equal power within members of society and that injustice needs to be explained.
Individualism comes next and here we see using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions that USA is one of the highest ranked countries with a score of 91. Defined from Hofstede in 1980, individualism is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. This shows me that the society doesn’t rely on each too much and that everybody understands that as a collective they look after each other and their families before anything else. Also, that Americans can find it difficult to connect meaningful relationships with friends which often leaves them either alone or with their family as their social group.
A score of 62 for the United States of America for masculinity vs femininity shows that society is a more masculine one. A masculine society tends to be more towards achieving certain goals and will put success over most things. They concentrate their efforts in almost anything they do towards being either the winner or the best in their field which can translate into both work or general activities. These masculine traits take precedent over feminine traits such as caring for each other or choosing quality of life over most other goals. Whereas success is prevalent for masculine societies quality of life shows success and being the best and everybody knowing it is not desirable. This shows that the USA society is taught early on in their schooling lives that they should strive to be the best that they possibly can and therefore they go about attempting to rise up in societal ranks either by gaining promotions or simply moving to a better neighbourhood simply to show off their success.
Uncertainty Avoidance is how the society chooses to tolerate situations where they are uncertain of the outcome and if they feel comfortable in a situation where there is no structure. A high score would mean that they avoid an ambiguous situation at all costs and a low score would imply that they are comfortable with the unknown and are willing to let whatever will happen, happen. The just below average score of 46 shows me that America as a society are more willing to accept new ideas or opinions from people as well as new situation that may arise, but the outcome of situations still impact their decision making and behaviour.
For the first of his two new additions to they key dimensions comes Long Term vs Short Term Orientation. “This dimension describes how evert society has to maintain some links with its own past whilst dealing with the challenges of the present and future” (Hofstede, 1980). A society with a low score shows that they are more traditional and will perceive any large changes in societies with caution and suspicion. If the society score a large score than they will embrace a shift in modern change and will be more perseverant with it comes to tasks. The USA has a very low score of only 26 which gives me the insight that Americans are not the most pragmatic of societies and they are a very religious society which shows their strong link with tradition with 83% of them identifying as a Christian. This also shows that Americans are more likely to want to check new information before making a decision which links in with the societies strong idea about ongoing issues such as abortion, guns or euthanasia.
The final dimension is Indulgence vs Restraint. America scores relatively highly with this dimension with a score of 68. This highlights to me that the USA is an indulgent society. An indulgent society is one that allows for them to enjoy life and have fun during their time on Earth as opposed to Restraint where they fight the urges of desires and operate amongst strict maxims and norms. America as a society have a famous issue with alcohol and drugs and more commonly excessive partying portrayed in popular culture.
Influence of National Culture on Business and Management Practices Within the United States of America
Geert Hofstede’s research is very important in not only understanding how the USA behaves as a society in general aspects of life but also in understanding how companies operate business not only domestically but also internationally.
Here is where we can use his key dimensions from his Cultural Dimensions to further help us assess and understand how Apple Inc. might go about their business and manage in the United States of America.
As we remember the first key dimension was Power Distance. With the relatively low score of 40 we are able to see that within American organisations aim to build an efficient and convenient hierarchy so that both employees and managers are able to easily access each other to have an effective communication system. They also utilise their skills by relying on each other to get the done in the most efficient and effective way possible so that the company never suffers and is able to maximise profits. As we can see in Figure 1 Apple Inc.’s hierarchical structure is simple to allow all employees of the company to work together easily.
We are able to combine this with the score we saw from Power Distance with Individualism.
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