CBS 591

Intercultural Communication

A Comparative Study of Organization Cultures

Focusing on Employees in Two Companies -
CNKI in China & EY in America
Table of content

1. Introduction 2
About the Companies 2

2. Literature Review 3
2.1 Organizational Culture 3
2.2 Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory 3
2.2.1 Power Distance 3
2.2.2 Uncertainty avoidance 3
2.2.3 Masculinity versus Femininity 4
2.2.4 Individualism versus Collectivism 4
2.2.5 Long-term orientation versus Short-term orientation 4
2.3 Organizational Culture in China 4
2.3.1 Large power distance 4
2.3.2 Emphasis on “Guanxi” 5
2.3.3 996 culture 5
2.4 Organizational Culture in America 5
2.4.1 Small power distance 5
2.4.2 Individualism 5
3. Research Question(s) & Methodology 7
3.1 Research Question(s) 7
3.2 Methodology 7

4. Findings 8

5. Analysis & Discussion 14

6. Conclusion 16

7. Limitations & Suggestions for Future Research 17

7.1 Limitations 17
7.2 Suggestions for Future Studies 17
8. References 18

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1. Introduction
Throughout the ages, there is a widespread perception of China and America, former is a
“traditional” country and the latter is an “open” one. Organizational culture is one of the
interesting topics to look into the comparison between countries. Nowadays, more innovative
and technological elements are being promoted to companies, although it is hard to change
the hierarchy in one company, the internal culture may have been influenced. Apart from this,
organizational culture can also bring critical impacts to both organizational and individual
levels (Denison and Mishra, 1995).

However, most of the extant literatures of organizational culture are focusing on the
outsiders’ perspectives, while the insiders’ may contribute relatively higher values to future
studies. Therefore, the following research will explore the views of employees from two
companies, CNKI from China and EY from America. Four aspects (power distance,
individualism, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance) from Hofstede's Cultural Dimension
Theory will be further analyzed and discussed.

About the Companies

China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI)

CNKI, which was launched by Tsinghua University in December 1996, is one of the key
national research and information publishing institutions. It serves as a comprehensive
database to many users in universities, governments, companies etc., and now, there are 10
global service centers established in foreign countries, for instance North America, Japan and
North Korea.

Ernst & Young Global Limited (EY)

EY is one of the largest multinational professional service networks in the world, at the same
time, it is regarded as one of the Big Four accounting firms, that ranked the 7th largest
privately-owned organization in America. In the past decades, EY has also gone into the
other markets for expansion, including operations, HR, technology and financial services
consulting etc. It was founded in 1989 and there are over 700 offices with almost 300,000
employees from 150 or more countries.

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2. Literature Review
2.1 Organizational Culture

Organizational culture has countless definitions as those of “culture”. Generally speaking,

organizational culture can be defined as “a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions that are
shared by members of an organization” (Schein, 1985). Schein also believed that these sets of
values have served as a guide governing the behavior and decisions of the members.

It has been proved that organizational culture could affect the effectiveness of one
organization (Gregory, Harris, Armenaki & Shook, 2009). The study conducted by Siehl and
Martin (1990) is a good example, which has suggested that organizational culture can shape
and affect a worker's attitude, and those attitudes may then vary the effectiveness of the firm.

2.2 Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory

A cultural framework was coined by Hofstede, that is helpful to measure the values of a
culture relative to other cultures. Basically, the framework consists of five dimensions, which
included: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism and long-term
orientation (Hofstede, 2010).

2.2.1 Power Distance

Power distance refers to the distribution of power and equality. When most of the
power is centralized to the superiors of an organization, it is likely to indicate a large
power distance. On the other hand, It will be regarded as a small power distance if the
distribution of power between the superiors and subordinates is equal.

2.2.2 Uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance refers to the attitude towards uncertain and unstructured

situations. When rules and regulations are appreciated in an organization and
long-term career is preferred, the organization will be labelled as “having strong
uncertainty avoidance”. However, organizations with low uncertainty avoidance have
less regulations and people may treat the changes of job as normal routine.

2.2.3 Masculinity versus Femininity

As for the masculinity dimension, they are at the two poles of the continuum.
Masculine culture appreciates an assertive and competitive environment, where

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 workers will get recognition or reward according to their individual performance. On
the contrary, feminine culture values relationships and a harmonious environment,
where conflicts can be resolved through compromise and negotiation.

2.2.4 Individualism versus Collectivism

Similar to the masculinity dimension, individualism and collectivism are also at the
two poles of the continuum. The group interest is prioritized in collectivism culture
over personal interest and employees are working as a team to achieve a mutual goal.
On the contrary, an individualistic organization emphasizes the interests of
individuals. The relationship between employers and employees is a sort of business
transaction.

2.2.5 Long-term orientation versus Short-term orientation

Long-term and short-term orientation referred to the two opposing directions where
the former has an orientation on the future and the latter has an orientation on the past
and present. When people work in a company with a short-term oriented culture, they
have to order relationships by the organization chart and work for personal
achievement. In a long-term oriented culture, persistence is emphasized as an
important trait to achieve future and long-term goals.

2.3 Organizational Culture in China

2.3.1 Large power distance

In terms of power distance, China ranked 12th in Hofstede’s “Power Index Survey”,
which indicated a large power distance in its national culture. In fact, this trait can
also be seen in organizational culture in China. Khairullah (2013)’s findings are
consistent with Hofstede’s research. Discussing with 22 senior managers who worked
in multinational organizations in China, Khairullah found that there was a large power
distance between the subordinates and the superiors. For example, the decision was
often made by the superiors and the mind-set of the subordinates was to follow and
obey the instructions given by their superiors.

2.3.2 Emphasis on “Guanxi”

“Guanxi” is one of the important elements in organization culture in Chinese firms. It

refers to comprehensive networking (Pearce and Robinson, 2000; Tsang, 1998) while

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 such connections are not constrained to kinship but can be any other social ties.
According to Zhang & Hong (2017), Chinese tends to rely on personal trust instead of
contract or system trust at the organization level. In other words, “Guanxi” is a
principle of running business in China.

2.3.3 996 culture

996 culture, which refers to a culture of overtime work without compensation, is

prevailing in China recently. With reference to "2012 annual survey on China's
workplace human balance index",which is a survey that involved 30,000 participants,
revealed that 65.8% of the participants have to continue working in non-official hours.
In addition, employees will also work overtime voluntarily if there comes the
promotion opportunities or company layoffs.

2.4 Organizational Culture in America

2.4.1 Small power distance

With regards to the Power Distance Index (Hofstede, 2010), America scored 40,
which indicated its relatively small power distance. These characteristics are
consistent with the business environment in America. In fact, Cook (2012) suggested
that the cooperation and communication often occurs between different power levels.
The duty of an employee is not only to execute the tasks ordered by their superiors,
but they may also be consulted in decision-making according to their expertise.

Moreover, Hofstede pointed out that employees can easily reach their superiors and
their communication can be direct and participative. In addition, Cook also mentioned
that questioning superiors is common and will be seen as an opportunity for
improvement.

2.4.2 Individualism

According to Hofstede (2010), America is a country with the highest individualistic

score among the nations. Such national traits can be discovered in their organizational
culture. Cook (2012) pointed out that individualism is a common culture of many
traditional American organizations. He suggested that self-reliance and independence
have been valued greatly in American corporates.

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3. Research Question(s) & Methodology

3.1 Research Question(s)

In view of the insights from the scholars, the following essay will be focusing on and
conducted based on these two research questions:

Q1: How do the Chinese/Americans see the organizational cultures in the organization that
they are working for?

Q2: What do they think are the strengths and weaknesses of their organizational cultures and
what needs to be improved?

3.2 Methodology

Since this study is focusing on the personal insights from the employees in two targeted
companies, interview is chosen instead of the quantitative methodologies like questionnaire,
which can be more flexible in obtaining additional information throughout the instantaneous
interviews. The total number of samples is 4 in both CNKI and EY companies, perspectives
from 5 females and 3 males are included.

Designing the Interview Questions

For the interview, a series of questions has been prepared based on Hofstede’s Cultural
Dimension Theory in advance. It consists of 4 parts (12 questions in total): basic information,
power distance, individualism & masculinity and uncertainty avoidance.

Conducting the Interview

Due to the geological and time constraints, text interviews were conducted through social
media like Wechat. Most of the interviewees are interviewed with one-by-one questions, and
instance responses between interviewer and interviewee can be achieved. However, a full set
of questions was sent to those interviewees who cannot fit in the mutually satisfied timeslots,
their answers were sent back to interviewers through Wechat once they had finished .

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4. Findings
Part 1 - Power Distance

Question 1: All employees in both companies indicated that the president or the one who
owns the highest authority has the power to get things done.

Question 2: All employees from CNKI mentioned that they cannot freely chat with their
manager/ boss, and their opinions will be rarely accepted but it is definitely possible to speak
out if they want to. In EY, one interviewee, who is working as a manager, stated that it is not
possible to freely communicate to the boss as they may have their own views. However, the
remaining three interviewees said “yes” to this question and they are welcome to talk to their
direct supervisors instead of the boss.

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Question 3: In CNKI, interviewees have chosen 11 wordings or phrases in total to describe
their boss/ senior, including 5 in positive connotation (有擔當，公正，大局觀，包容，有
責任心), 3 in negative (虛偽，不誠實，沒有眼神交流) and 3 in neutral (嚴肅，安靜，理
想主義). Employees from EY have selected 8 sets of descriptive words or phrases, 5 in
positive (hard-working, easy to get along with, sense of humour, honest and fair with 2
votes), 1 in negative (disgusting) and 1 in neutral (straightforward).

Question 4: All interviewees from CNKI mentioned that they are not satisfied with the
promotion system in the current company, they think it is not clear and fair enough. For those
in EY, one of them feel satisfied because they can be paid more when they work more,
someone had no opinion on it as all companies are now suffering from the pandemic but the
promotion is still a fair system.

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Part 2 - Individualism & Masculinity

Question 1: Employees from both CNKI and EY have given more or less the same responses.
They will stay behind for the unfinished tasks, however, they will leave it for tomorrow if the
works are not urgently in need.

Question 2: All of them have experiences of “overwork”, which means work during
non-office hours or vacation time. Half of the interviewees indicated that they work for more
than 4 hours on average per week, and the remaining half’s is less than 4 hours. For
employees from EY, they stated that it depends, 1-4 hours on average during the peak season,
and no overwork for the “unbusy” period.

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Question 3: For the corresponding working environment, interviewees from both CNKI and
EY feel satisfied with the atmosphere between the co-workers and they work as a team.

Question 4: In CNKI, only one of the interviewees stated that gender is independent to hiring
and promotion, and the remaining three (1 male & 2 females) mentioned males are more
preferred from the view of the company as it is more safe for them to go for business trips. In
EY, all interviewees have indicated the importance of gender equality in their company and
even the whole America.

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Part 3 - Uncertainty Avoidance

Question 1: It can be seen both companies regard innovation as one of the important
components in organization and there is a compensation plan employed in CNKI but EY has
none.

Question 2: If they hold different opinions or ideas, employees from CNKI chose to remain
silent, they will not speak up until they need to do so. For the interviewees in EY, they said
they will try communicating with their direct supervisors in person.

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Question 3: The results from both CNKI and EY are nearly a draw, 4 interviewees chose to
work for a stable job and 3 chose for an unstable job with promotion potential while one of
them mentioned it depends on other personal factors.

Question 4: Only one interviewee from CNKI is willing to stay in the current company for
life, and all the remainings will leave the current companies sooner or later to achieve a better
living.

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5. Analysis & Discussion

CNKI EY

Power Distance Large Large

Individualism Low Low

Masculinity High Low

Uncertainty Avoidance Low Low

Table 1

Figure 1

Power Distance
Before the interview, it is supposed that the power distance is large in CNKI and small in EY.
However, both companies have conducted a large power distance, that indicates they feel the
distance between the president, who is the only decision maker. Interviewees, who have no
power in decision-making will rarely speak out, are regarded as the recipients in the
communication. In this case, two companies are resulting in large power distance, but EY’s is
less “larger” than CNKI’s.

Individualism
Based on Hofstede insight (Figure 1), the scores difference between China and US is large.
However, both companies are found to be collectivism. Some of them indicated that they are
willing to stay behind for urgent tasks as they understand their works are directly equal to the
companies’ goodwill. Therefore, interviewees from two sides are fine with the appropriate
overwork given that it is on a short-term basis.

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Masculinity
Problem of gender inequality can be found in CNKI, which implies a masculine culture.
Males will be more favourable in both hiring and promotion as they are more feasible and
flexible to engage in business trips while women may have a higher possibility to have
maternity leave. On the contrary, employees from EY mentioned that companies will be sued
once discrimation is happened and they even have no need to put their gender, races and
profile pictures into the resume. This can be seen as one of the ultimate conditions in
organization culture.

Uncertainty Avoidance
Innovation is a thing that requires many failures before their success, in other saying, it can
also represent risk. Shane (1995) claimed that uncertainty-accepting societies are more
innovative than the avoiding one. Therefore, interviewees from both companies were asked
questions about innovation. The results showed that innovation has been playing a vital role
in companies, which implied both of them showed a low uncertainty avoidance, similar to the
results conducted in Hofstede insight webpage (Figure 1).

Besides, almost half of the interviewees chose the choice of stable jobs instead of an unstable
one with promotion potential. However, only one of them, who prefers “a stable job”, is
willing to work in the current company for life. Charles and Kelly (2010) have written that
people’s choices can be easily affected by the transformation of social system. This interview
results can be a good illustration showing that uncertainty avoidance culture in one country
acts as a fixed variable but there are/ will be other variables varying the degree of uncertainty
avoidance, for instance, hierarchical structure, promotion, salary etc.

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6. Conclusion
To conclude, China’s and America’s organizational cultures are similar in terms of their
power distance, acceptance to uncertainty, and collectivism culture. In terms of power
distance, they both demonstrated a tall structural hierarchy that centralized the power at the
top. For example, decisions are likely to be made by the superiors and communications are
also often initiated by the superiors. Regarding the acceptance to uncertainty, these two
companies displayed low uncertainty avoidance as both of them value innovation. At the
same time, though it seems to be inconsistent with the organizational culture, it is
understandable that employees from both companies show some degree of uncertainty
avoidance regarding the stability of their job. Finally, they both revealed a degree of
collectivistic culture as their employees are likely to sacrifice their own interest and act
according to the interest of the organization.

They differ in terms of the degree of workplace gender equality. The Chinese company
displays a gender-based discrimination tendency in hiring practices and promotion
opportunities, which is likely to reflect some degree of patriarchal values of the company. On
the other hand, gender seems to be ignored in US companies’ interviews, which provides a
relatively fair competition between genders and further ensures the allocation of opportunities
and resources, not by gender but capability.

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7. Limitations & Suggestions for Future Research
7.1 Limitations

The first limitation of our project is the number of interviewees. There are eight interviewees
participated in this project. This sample size is relatively small due to the scale of the project.
Considering the fact that interviewees might hold biased views due to their personal
background(e.g. Education, cultural background), the result will be far more representative
and reliable if more interviewees are engaged.

The second limitation of the project is related to the nationality of our interviewees. It is
regretful that the nationality of the interviewee was not included in the interview questions.
Nationality is believed to be one of the variables that may affect the interviewee’s response
and values.

7.2 Suggestions for Future Studies

In this project, it is quite surprising that the interviewed America organization (EY) seems to
embrace collectivistic culture to a certain degree. According to Hofstede (2010), America is
ranked as the region that displayed the greatest degree of individualism. Indeed, it is always a
symbolic ideology of western countries. Whether this is an exceptional case is believed to be
questionable and debatable. Therefore, this would be an interesting and meaningful topic and
direction, that is worth discussing in future studies.

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8. References
Charles, E., & Kelly, R. T. (2010). China Compared with the US: Cultural Differences and
the Impacts on Advertising Appeals. International Journal of China Marketing, 1(1), 45.

Cook, G. (2012). The Influence of National Culture on American Business People

Managerial Implications for Central Europe. Central European Business Review, 1(2), 1–6.

Denison, D. R., & Mishra, A. H. (1995). Toward a theory of organizational culture and
effective-ness. Organization Science, 6, 204–23.

Gregory, B. T., Harris, S. G., Armenakis, A. A., & Shook, C. L. (2009). Organizational
Culture and Effectiveness: A Study of Values, Attitudes, and Organizational Outcomes.
Journal of Business Research, 62, 673–679.

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online

Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1).

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of
the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival. McGraw-Hill Education.

Khairullah, D. H. Z., & Khairullah, Z. Y. (2013). Cultural Values and Decision-Making in

China. International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology, 3(2), 1–12.

Paulet, E., & Rowley, C. (2017). The China Business Model. Chandos Publishing.
Pearce II, J. A., and, R. B. Robinson, Jr. (2000). Cultivating Guanxi as a Foreign Investor
Strategy. Business Horizon, 43 (1), 31.

Schein E.H. (1985). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Josey-Bass
Publishers.

Siehl C, Martin J. (1990). Organizational Culture: A Key to Financial Performance? In:

Schneider B, editor. Organizational Climate and Culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; p.
241–81.

Wang, W. (2018). Analysis and Discussion on Overtime Phenomenon from the Perspective
of Cross-culture. Annual International Conference on Education Science and Education
Management, 45–50.

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