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Cultural and Institutional Theories

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While institutional theories have

focused on institutional environment
(e.g., labor laws, regulations), cultural
theories have investigated the role
played by culture.

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HOFSTEDE

explores the differences in thinking and

social action at the country level between
members of 50 nations and three regions
Power Distance
uncertainty Avoidance
Individualism versus Collectivism
Masculinity versus Femininity
Long term Vs Short term Orientation

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Power Distance
Relationship between supervisors and
subordinates the extent to which the less
powerful members of organizations expect and
accept that power is distributed unequally.
Low Power Distance would be found in
organizations with a flatter hierarchical pyramid.
Subordinates and superiors are in a more
collaborative relationship and hierarchy tends to
be perceived as a distinction of task rather than
of persons.

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Uncertainty Avoidance
A high Uncertainty Avoidance is expressed for
example, by a companys need for regulations,
which endeavour to minimize uncertainties in the
behavior of its employees work stress is often high.
Conversely in a low Uncertainty Avoidance work
environment, work stress is lower as employees
seen to be less affected by uncertainty such as
security of employment.

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Individualism Versus Collectivism

In some countries preferred work goal stress
employees independence from organization
(like freedom in the job, work gives personal
sense of accomplishment)
while in other countries, preferred work goals
stress dependence on the organization
Collectivism can be seen in the preference for
collective organization of work and
responsibility.

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Masculinity Versus Femininity

for assertiveness (high earning, recognition
when doing a good job, challenging work to
do)
females tended to express preferences for
inter personal aspect of work (working with
people who corporate well with one another,
having a good working relationship with your
manager

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Long-term Versus Short-term

Orientation
In a Long-term Orientation environment, building
up a strong position in a market might be seen
as preferable to quick, short term and temporary
results.
In a Short-term Orientation environmental
pressure on orgs and employees to perform well
quickly

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Contributions by Hofstede
Hofstede influenced the way culture is perceived in
management: composed of recognizable dimensions,
centered on values and relatively stable over time.
Cultural dimensions rest on value systems that are said
to be affected human thinking. Culture is consequently
presented as consisting of values, organized into
systems (dimensions
Hofstede presents possible sources for each of the
dimensions and expresses his belief that there must be
mechanisms in societies that permit the maintenance of
stability in culture patterns across many generations
Cultural differences can be encountered at different
levels: values, norms and behavior.

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Critiques.
concerns have been raised regarding
Hofstedes methodology (the use of a survey
questionnaire, the original IBM sample and
mismatch that can be perceived between
some dimensions and their measurement)
is the choice of nation to study culture (not
respecting multicultural nations).
obsolescence of the data (collected between
1967 and 1973).

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Trompenaars and Hampden-turner

(1997)
considered that each culture has to deal with several
universal problems and proposes three problems:
social interactions, passage of time and relationship to
the environment, that unveil seven dimensions of culture
Measurements of the cultural dimensions are based on
the responses of managers from multi national and
international corporations (circa 30,000 from 55
countries). For each dimension, Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner gave examples and expected
consequences for management and organization.

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Fundamental dimensions of culture from Trompennars

and Hampden-Turner

Fundamental Problems

Resulting dimensions of culture

Social interactions

Neutral versus Affective

Individualism versus Comminitarianism
Universalism versus Particularism
Achievement versus Ascription
Specificity versus Diffuseness

Passage of time

Time orientation (past-present-future,

sequential and synchronic)

Relationship to the environment

Inner versus Outer Directedness

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Neutral versus Affective Do we display our

emotions?
Individualism versus Communitarianism Do we
function as a group or as individuals?
Universalism versus Particularism What is more
important-rules or relationships?
Achievement versus Ascription. Do we have to
prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us?
Specificity versus Diffuseness How far do we get
involved?

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Inner Directed Vs Outer Directed-Do we

control our environment or work with it?
Sequential versus Synchronic time Do we
do things one at a time or several things at
once?
composed of two themes: ability to perform
in certain time frame and the time
orientation.

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Monochrony is a perception that time is linear, sequential and

definite whereas polychrony is a perception that time is
multiple, synchronic and diffuse.
The theme presents the differences that appear between
countries as indicated by respondents varying
prioritization of the past, present and future.
One of the theme resembles Hofstedes Long-term versus
Short-term Orientation. Short-term Orientation resemble
Trompenaars present orientation and Long-term
Orientation Trompenaars future oriented environment.

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Inner versus Outer Directedness

the belief either that individuals can control and
influence their environment or that they have limited
ability to do so
Inner Directedness displays beliefs in planning
(thinking), belief that personal efforts matter and that
luck will influence the outcome. Outer Directedness
presents beliefs that personal relationships
(networks) as well as political conditions matter for
success, belief that political conditions do too, and
finally that luck will be decisive

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Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner collected responses from some

of the former USSR republics or Eastern European countries that
Hofstedes database did not include.
Trompenaars study confirms it is possible to compare culture
on the basis of dimensions
Trompenaars considers that cultures are made of shared
meanings, which influence management practices.
Trompenaars and Hofstede hold different conceptions of what
the essence of culture is.
Hofstede says values meaning is absolute
Trompenaars culture is about making sense, not just a shared way
of living or working together. People make sense of their word with
meanings, i.e. how they interpret what is around them.
Consequently, human interpretations are the core of culture. The
different interpretations of norms and values distinguish cultures.
The following mini case gives an illustration of cultural difference in
meanings.

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Annika faces divergent cultural

meanings
In a Swedish organization, Annika, one of the manager of international
trainee programme, is organizing the meeting aimed at clarifying
decision-making procedures for the recruitment of new trainee for
Sweden. In the meeting room, participants are from three different
hierarchical levels and many nationalities. Every one is entitled to give
her/his opinion and every one does. Very quickly, it seems that three
groups form. Most of the Swedish participants dont wish to formalize
things. Many North American participants are neither against nor in favor
but discuss the necessity to write down rules. The southern Europeans
present in the present in the room tend to be the favor of rules. They
claim the necessity to clarify the recruitment process that many of them
see as unclear. The end of the meeting approaches and no consensus
has been reached. The meeting ends with a lot of frustration; the
southern European accusing the Swedes of keeping things secret and
political, the Swedes upset at the way southern Europeans want to
impose strict rules and control on every one.

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In this case, the Swedes expressed their wish to keep things

flexible by avoiding the formalization that follows the establishment
rules. The North American insisted on the need to call for rules,
for the same reasons: Once you have rules, you are supposed
to follow them. The southern Europeans defended the idea of
establishing rules in order to have a clear statement on what
people are ideally supposed to do: if we dont have clear
statement to start with, every thing is to vague. Consequently
participant shared meanings regarding the term rules were very
different, ranging from: rules are something you have to follow (to
the letter), to a rule is a stat statement that you are supposed to
interpret according to the situation.

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Lane, Distefand and Maznevskis

Adaptation
of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck
Like Hofstede, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck gave
priority to the study of values. They differ
however on the extend to which they use
cultural dimensions that contain more
variations.
Lane, DiStefano and Maznevski.docx

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Value orientations and their

range of variation
In doing mode, people tend to think that individuals
ought to work actively and continually to achieved.
In contrast, a being oriented society praises
spontaneity. In the thinking variation, people ought
to be reflective, to think through carefully and
thoroughly before acting
The Space orientation varies between public,
private and mixed space. This orientation evolves
around the sense of ownership of space which
people are surrounded

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Lane, DiStefano and Maznevskis study differs from other studies of

cultural values in at least two ways. The value orientation proposed by
Lane, DiStefano and Maznevskis (2000) are not bipolar, but offer
three options
Considering only the dominant values or the dominant behavior in a
society leads to a cultural paradox, situations that exhibit an
apparently contradictory nature , this phenomenon acknowledge the
fact that, given the complexity of human response to any given
situation, it is difficult to make useful generalizations since so many
expectations and qualifications to the stereotypes, on both a cultural
and individual level, come to mind .
Consequently, a great deal of peoples behavior in each country cannot
be explained by dominant values or most broadly shared perceptions
because of multiplicity of variables influencing each specific situation.
The instrument developed by Maznevski and DiStefano however can
show a rank of preference.

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How did Annika come to a solution?

During the meeting, everyone was using the word rule and making
sense of it. Annikas management style favors consensus, so she
decided to continue the conversation separately with each group, come
to a solution and propose that solution in a second meeting. Only during
the individuals talks did she realize that everyone was interpreting the
word rule differently. These differences reminded her of a cultural
dimension (Universalism versus Particularism). She manage to make all
participants clarify how they see rules; from a strict constraint to
something to be interpreted. She was thus able to go beyond the first
discussion (and the resulting frustration) that was only the need to have
rules or not. During her second talk to the participants, she actually
discussed with rules meant for them, asking questions such as: How do
you usually react to a rule? Please give an example outside work. Then,
she came back to discussion on recruitment rules. It appeared that
everyone wanted to keep recruitment procedures flexible. She came to a
solution by establishing guiding principles for recruiting new trainees.
They were well accepted a week later in the management meeting.

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Gesteland Cross Cultural Differences

Iron rules:
Customer is supreme except in japanese
culture where he is next to god.
Do in rome as romans do.
Relative vs individual
Time orientation
FORMAL vs INFORMAL