Lecture 3 Flashcards
What is culture?
The collective programming of the mind which distinguished the members of one category of people from another
What can a “category of people” in the definition of ‘culture’ refer to?
Nation, region, or ethnic group (national etc. culture)
Women versus men (gender culture)
Old versus young (generational culture)
A social class
A profession or occupation (occupational culture)
A type of business
A work organization or part of it (organizational culture)
Family
What are 2 types of research and what do they entail?
Etic: quantitative, outside-in, “objective” –> comparativist researchers attempt to describe differences across cultures in terms of general, external standards (comparing cultures)
Emic: qualitative, inside-out, “subjective” –> ethnographic researchers strive to describe a particular culture in its own terms, focused on specific, “unique” characteristics of culture
Etic research - Hofstede: what 4 ways do employees vary across cultures?
Dependence on superiors
Need for rules and predictability (associated with nervous stress)
Balance between individual goals and dependence on the company
Balance between ego values (need for money and careers) and social values (cooperation and good living environment)
Etic research - Hofstede: what 6 dimensions can a culture be scored upon
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Individualism - collectivism
Masculinity - femininity
Long-term versus short-term orientation
Indulgence versus restraint
Explain power distance (Hofstede’s 6 dimensions)
The extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally (Western world has low power distance = demand justification for inequalities of power)
Explain individualism vs collectivism (Hofstede’s 6 dimensions)
Individualism: loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and immediate family (Western world)
Collectivism: tightly-knit social framework in which individuals expect their relatives or members of a particular ingroup to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty
Explain masculinity vs femininity (Hofstede’s 6 dimensions)
Masculinity: societal preference for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material rewards for success (more competitive)
Femininity: societal preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life (more consensus-oriented)
Explain uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede’s 6 dimensions)
The degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity
Strong: rigid codes of belief and behavior, and intolerance of unorthodox behavior and ideas
Weak: more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles
Explain long-term vs short-term orientation (Hofstede’s 6 dimensions)
Attitudes toward time, work, reward, and life
Long-term: focus on persistence, long-term future rewards (as opposed to immediate gains), and long-term relationship building
Short-term: values more on the past and present than future and focuses on achieving quick results/rewards and spending (rather than saving)
Explain indulgence vs restraint (Hofstede’s 6 dimensions)
Indulgence: a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun
Restraint: a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms
What are criticisms of Hofstede’s 6 cultural dimensions?
Data collection procedure and sample has been questioned on grounds of representativeness
Empirical work has shown individualism versus collectivism and power distance versus closeness are one factor, with individualism and power distance merging in one single pole
The temporal stability of the scores on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is increasingly questioned
Is national culture the correct unit of analysis?
What 2 dimensions did Inglehart find in his World Values Survey program? (etic research)
Traditional versus rational-secular authority
Survival versus self-expression values
Beugelsdijk & Welzel summarize Inglehart and Welzel (2005) “revised theory of modernization” (think about maslow’s hierarchy of needs” - what do they find about people’s needs?
When both security and freedom are in short supply, people prioritize security
As people feel safe, they begin to prioritize freedom because freedom is essential to thrive
In 2018, Beugelsdijk & Welzel review Hofstede and Inglehart’s studies. They find new dimensions. What are they?
Collectivism versus individualism
Duty versus joy (correlates with indulgence versus restrain and long-term orientation)
Distrust versus trust (reflect uncertanity avoidance)
What of Beugelsdijk and Welzel (2018) latest dimensions are strongly correlated to wealth (GDP/capita)?
Collectivism versus individualism
Duty versus joy
Over time, countries predominantly tend to shift towards which of Beugelsdijk and Welzel’s (2018) latest dimensions?
Individualism, joy, distrust
What are benefits of cultural distance?
When organizations embrace cultural diversity they can:
- Overcome rigidities and inertia, develop unique and potentially valuable capabilities, and foster learning and innovation
- Pay greater attention to cultural sensitivities and be better prepared to navigate the cultural quagmires in the context of cross-border mergers and acquisitions
- Have heightened levels of creativity, greater adaptability, and higher quality of problem-solving
What is Amae?
An emic concept in the Japanese culture, indicating a particular form of mutual dependency:
- Has important implications for hierarchical relations
- The superior has the moral obligation to indulge the subordinate under specific circumstances
- In return the subordinate is unquestionably loyal
- Can be seen as a safety valve in the strictly hierarchical Japanese society
- A particular manifestation of collectivism: without amae there cannot be a meaningful group in Japan
- Also related to power distance and paternalism
What are institutions (institutional economics)?
Humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction, and these can be formal (e.g. rules and laws) or informal (e.g. norms of behaviors) –> “the rules of the game”
What are institutions (neo-institutionalism view)?
Regulative, normative, and cognitive social structures that provide stability and meaning to social life
What are institutions (Hofstede, Van Deusen, Mueller, and Charles)?
Crystallizations of culture, and culture is the substratum of institutional arrangements
What is Zhou and Guillen (2016) view on institutional distance?
Institutional distance drives liability of foreignness, which is “all additional costs a firm operating in a market overseas incurs that a local firm would not incur” (product adaptation costs, discrimination costs, governance costs, appropriation costs)
What is Zhou and Guillen (2016) view on the decision to invest internationally (3 dimensions)?
The decision to invest internationally and the impact of the investment reflect the joint effects of ownership (O-specific), location (L-specific), and internalization (I-specific) advantages
