Bussiness
With the inevitable trend of globalization, it appears that there are no borders between countries at all; however, concerning each country has its distinctive beliefs, traditions, values and norms of individuals, global management encounters numerous issues in a new place. Therefore, international management requires a manager with not only core business competencies, but also a high understanding of crossing culture. This means cross-cultural studies are essential for an expatriate manager to achieve in a world of cultural changes.
What is culture? The answers to this question vary from person to person. A widely cited definition is offered by Hofstede (1993, p.89), who states that culture is “collective programming of the mind which distinguishes one group or category of people from another”. Another description of culture given by Harris and Moran (cited in Adekola and Sergi, 2007), who describe culture as layers. From the outer layers, it is straightforward to find language, food, dress and something observable; the second layers indicate the values and norms of individuals; at the core of these layers are people’s central thoughts, like beliefs. Obviously, it is still really difficult to distinguish the interaction between the business and culture.
Hofstede (1993) and Fatehi (2008) both apply “dimension” to analyze the cultural differences. The most acknowledged method is Hofstede (1993)’s five dimensions. He states that culture is a construct. And he introduces the concept of dimension to study cultural diversity. The first dimension is Power Distance, which means that to what extent the employees can communicate freely with boss. The second is Individualism, which can be defined as the degree of people’s intention to do work alone, not as a group. The next is Masculinity/ Femininity; it compares the value of men and women, such as performance, confidence, and success. The fourth is Uncertainty Avoidance, to describe the feeling...
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