Name: KEN Fajriansyah Firdaus

Student ID: 12418093

Critical Review 5
Question 1: Explore and discuss theoretical and practical implications of one of the cultural
theories that you’ve learned today for managing people in the contemporary global business
environment.
Dr Geert Hofstede established several distinct cultural aspects that accounted for
variations between the cultures of various individuals from different countries, which
organizational management and employees must address well in order to comfortably co-exist
within the organization, based on his connections to people working for the same organization
(IBM) in over 40 countries around the world. Why can't individuals use national culture
dimension scales and scores? Through a post hoc study of national average values of IBM
workers, Hofstede defined four dimensions of national culture (Hofstede, 1980). Individually,
however, the objects used to calculate these national culture dimensions are unrelated. The
intercorrelations between the three things used to measure uncertainty avoidance, namely rule
orientation, job stability, and stress, are, for example, low and even negative at individual level
but high positive in national level. In conclusion Hofstede's national cultural aspects were created
at the national level. They were supported by variables that were correlated across nations rather
than between individuals or organizations.
For managing people, in every country have a different treatment base on the behavior of
the people itself, for example in Indonesia the power distance is more into large power distance,
but the employee is more talkative to the boss, because the chit chat behavior that Indonesian
people have. Although the nation culture and the Hofstede culture are little different like most of
Indonesian are afraid of their bosses, and the boss itself make a lot of decision in term of work.
Some of company are having a small emotional distance, they work as a family but in the end it
they have a large emotional distance. This kind of phenomena are happening in Indonesia, when
sometimes the company act like family in order to make the employee feels accepted in the
circumstance, but the negative things is the company want to have sympathy from the employee
to make them do the over hours and contribute more in to company without a proper wage.
Comparing to other country that have a small power distance for example USA where all
people feel entitled to a certain amount of power. Cultures with a low power distance between
them and their control “Expect and embrace more consultative or democratic power ties.
Regardless of formal roles, people relate to one another more as equals.” When it comes to
making decisions or proposing new ideas, those in lower positions are willing to question and
challenge those in higher positions. In a lower power distance society, for example, if anyone
wanted a raise at work, they would approach their employer and ask for it.
Power distances have a lot of impact in terms of working culture in every nation, but the I
can conclude that power distance is the amount of power distributed to authority and subordinate
figures in their respective cultures. Knowing the different power distances in cultures will help
one form and maintain intercultural knowledge and understandings.
(Words Count: 485)
Name: KEN Fajriansyah Firdaus
Student ID: 12418093

Reference

1. Holder, G. (2012). Power Distance. Retrieved May 19, 2021, from

http://hopeinterculturalcomm.weebly.com/power-distance.html#:~:text=Power
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%20power.
2. Peterson, M. F. (2007). The heritage of cross CULTURAL management research.
International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 7(3), 359-377.
doi:10.1177/1470595807083371
3. Venaik, S., & Brewer, P. (2013). Critical issues in the hofstede and Globe national
culture models. International Marketing Review, 30(5), 469-482. doi:10.1108/imr-03-
2013-0058