Intercultural Business Communication Assignment
Hofstede article ‘Hofstede’s model of national cultural differences and their consequences: A triumph of faith – a failure of analysis’:
In particular, McSweeney questions the plausibility of national cultures being systematically causal, i.e. that the identification of the differences causes or leads directly to the behaviour of the nation or people from that nation.
McSweeney is also concerned that Hofstede 's work has led others to believe that influential national cultures exist and that this work is based on evidence of a poor quality. McSweeney contends, therefore, that Hofstede 's project is 'a misguided attempt to measure the unmeasurable. ' The complaint is that, as Albert Einstein once observed: 'Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. '
In essence, McSweeney is challenging 'the plausibility of a determinate relationship ' between national culture and uniform national actions and/or institutions.
Do nations have cultures?
Critique point: Hofstede should have broadened his research and thereby not only using the IBM subsidiaries but also other large corporations, in order to gather more precise information.
Keywords: “mental programming”, “software of the mind”, a “common component” of a wider culture which contains both global and sub-national constituents. A small number of respondents. Narrowness of the population surveyed.
National uniformity
Yugoslavia example
High vs low context countries
In my opinion, you can’t base culture and behavioral attributes on findings from just one company, over 100,000 people and forty different countries compared to the billions of people in the world. The fact that one person acts a certain way under certain circumstances does not mean that others from the same country act the same way. I agree with Brendan McSweeney.
Although Geert Hofstede’s model of Cultural Dimension can be of great use when it comes to general analyzing of a country’s culture,
In particular, McSweeney questions the plausibility of national cultures being systematically causal, i.e. that the identification of the differences causes or leads directly to the behaviour of the nation or people from that nation.
McSweeney is also concerned that Hofstede 's work has led others to believe that influential national cultures exist and that this work is based on evidence of a poor quality. McSweeney contends, therefore, that Hofstede 's project is 'a misguided attempt to measure the unmeasurable. ' The complaint is that, as Albert Einstein once observed: 'Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. '
In essence, McSweeney is challenging 'the plausibility of a determinate relationship ' between national culture and uniform national actions and/or institutions.
Do nations have cultures?
Critique point: Hofstede should have broadened his research and thereby not only using the IBM subsidiaries but also other large corporations, in order to gather more precise information.
Keywords: “mental programming”, “software of the mind”, a “common component” of a wider culture which contains both global and sub-national constituents. A small number of respondents. Narrowness of the population surveyed.
National uniformity
Yugoslavia example
High vs low context countries
In my opinion, you can’t base culture and behavioral attributes on findings from just one company, over 100,000 people and forty different countries compared to the billions of people in the world. The fact that one person acts a certain way under certain circumstances does not mean that others from the same country act the same way. I agree with Brendan McSweeney.
Although Geert Hofstede’s model of Cultural Dimension can be of great use when it comes to general analyzing of a country’s culture,