Explain cultural dimensions and its impact on

behaviour.
The following essay will aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of cultural dimensions and their
impact on human behaviour.

Geert Hofstede was in charge of the personnel department at IBM in the 1960's-1970's. This was a time
when the company became a truly giant multinational corporation - with hundreds of thousands of
employees in dozens of countries around the world. Hofstede noticed that it was not always easy for
people from different cultures to work together well - misunderstandings and miscommunication were
frequent problems. Hofstede decided to investigate cultural differences in order to help IBM employees
better understand their overseas colleagues.

Hofstede carried out his research by mailing an extensive survey about workplace values to an astonishing
117,000 IBM employees in 50 countries. Then, Hofstede carried out factor analysis on the survey results,
which involves grouping questions together into similar clusters. Based on his analysis, Hofstede came up
with five dimensions on which cultures can be different.

The five dimensions that Hofstede identified are as follows:

1. Power distance is the extent to which people accept unequal distributions of power. In a high
power distance culture, the boss makes all the important decisions, and employees accept the total
authority of their superiors. In a low power distance culture, decisions are made more
collaboratively, and all employees expect some say in how things are done.

2. Uncertainty avoidance describes tolerance for ambiguity. In a culture which has high uncertainty
avoidance, there tend to be strict rules and guidelines that establish how things must be done. In a
culture with less uncertainty avoidance, there is more acceptance for different ways of doing
things, and a more free-flowing and unpredictable environment.

3. Masculinity vs. femininity describes the importance given to achievement and striving for
success. In a masculine culture, there is more competition, focus on material rewards, and
assertiveness. In a feminine culture, there is more emphasis on cooperation, modesty and quality
of life.

4. Individualism vs. collectivism describes the importance given to group belonging and
integration. In an individualistic culture, people have looser ties to their social groups, and tend to
act independently, driven by their own personal goals. In a more collective culture, people have
stronger bonds with their social groups, and emphasise group loyalty and cooperation with others.
 5. Long-term vs. short-term orientation describes how people think about time. In a short-term
culture, people tend to focus on the past and the present, and tend to seek immediate gratification.
In a long-term culture, people tend to focus on the distant future, and are willing to delay
immediate gratification in favour of working towards long-term goals

Levine et al. (2001):

The aim of the experiment was to investigate if city characteristics/ culture are associated with the
tendency to help people.

There were over 1000 participants from 23 countries whose helping behaviours were tested in 3
non-emergency ways:
1. A stranger dropped a pen and didn't realise.
2. A stranger with a hurt leg dropped a pile of magazines and struggled to pick it up.
3. A blind person signalling that they need help in crossing the road.

Countries with a large population were considerably less helpful. Latin American cities (Brazil, Costa
Rica, Mexico, El Salvador) and Spain were all above the mean in overall helping, and on average were
more helpful than other international cities.

This research included a large series of field studies where variables were highly controlled so the
ecological validity was high. Levine tried to increase reliability by training experimenters to make the
experiences as similar as possible.

Wei et al. (2001):

Another experiment was conducted by Wei et al., in 2001, to investigate the extent to which the
dimension of individualism vs collectivism influences conflict resolution styles (CRS).

400 managers (Japanese, American, Chinese and Singaporean) of companies in Singapore were surveyed
and correlational analysis was used to find relationships between cultural dimension and CRS.