Intercultural Business Communication

Intercultural Business Communication

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Through these years, culture is being measured by hundreds of instruments and many more models may be introduced in next few years (Taras et al., 2009) hence the ongoing debate between the essentialist and non-essentialist opinions versed in social science literature. This report shall firstly consider the strength and limitations of the dimensional approach to culture, arguments related to its validity and reliability, then examine the two noteworthy notions of culture regarding cultural complexities. Lastly, I shall assert my opinion guided by the debate surrounding the research methodology for intercultural business communication.

Hofstede’s Cultural-dimensional Approach- Research and Arguments in support of its validity and reliability (1250 Words).

Since the inception of Hofstede’s popular publication titled “Culture’s Consequences” (1980) where he introduced five cultural dimensions, there has been an outburst of interest and researches regarding the measurement of culture thus giving rise to several models and instruments of culture for example (Taras et al. 2009) seven dimensions by Trompenaars (1993), ten dimensions by Schwartz (1994), six tri-dimensional constructs by Maznevski and DiStefano (1995), and eighteen dimensions in the GLOBE model of culture (House et al., 2004).

Even though Hofstede’s popular cultural dimensions is widely favoured by scholars within the cross-cultural context for several reasons which includes convenience, limited availability of alternatives, popularity and simply habit (Taras et al. 2009), there is a considerably wide range of critiques to the dimensional approach to culture (McSweeney, 2002). Regardless of articulated criticisms of the Hofstedian model, his research remains widely used by scholars and practitioners due to its interesting features (Furrer 2000; Ross 1999; Søndergaard 1994). According to Søndergaard (1994) Hofstede’s study has received an overwhelming 1,036 citations, whereas studies on strategy such as by Miles and Snow has only 200 citations. Numerous scholars share his views and thus support the acceptance and popularity of the Hofstedian model (Søndergaard, 1994). It is also interesting to note that quite a lot of the studies were not intended as duplications of Hofstedian model, but they were rather fashioned to ascertain the relevance of his report. Most of these reports have long-established the accuracy of Hofstede’s dimensional approach (Søndergaard, 1994). Additionally, most of the several hundreds of instruments today consists of similar concept of the Hofstedian model. Consequent upon this, this report shall be premised on the Hofstedian model.

Overview of Hofstede’s dimensional approach

Geert Hofstede (1984, 1994, 2001) developed his cultural dimensions to measure different values, customs, and importance between cultures. He did his research whilst working at IBM between 1967 and 1973 where he used five cultural dimensions to compare about 40-60 countries (Hofstede, 2001).

According to Hofstede, G. (2009) culture is a form of social programming of the mindset that differentiates a member of a certain category of people from another. Some

of his cultural dimensions includes Power Distance, Masculinity/ Feminity, Individualism/ Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long or short-term orientation (Hofstede, 1994).

Source: Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Model (Hofstede, 1991, p.28)

Critiques of the dimensional/ Hofstedian approach:

Despite the widespread popularity of the Hofstedian model, there are pressing concerns about the validity and reliability of the data used in his survey, methodology, and lots more (Taras et al., 2009). The next part of this report shall cover the critiques of Hofstedian model.

According to Holliday (2011), the cultural dimensions are “ideologically problematic” because it does not portray a neutral picture of the world but rather divides the world along different unequalled tribes. Therefore, it is ideologically quite risky to use dimensions anymore because it is essentialist and stereotypical. Also, Ferri (2016) stated that, epistemologically, cultural dimensions are quite limited because it tends to separate the world into two tribes or even more. McSweeney (2002) termed the dimensional approach as a failure of analysis, and believes that cultural dimension approach is taken in the form of religion where people embrace its concept based on its popularity and

acceptance whereas the methodology is flawed. This pertinent question comes to mind, what did Hofstede do in his research considering Data collection?

McSweeney (2002) argued that the assumption of the cultures of the IBM employees is flawed because. This is because the survey failed to acknowledge the three distinct cultures of the IBM employees (because they could have been from different countries) and the impact on their behaviour namely (McSweeney, 2002): National culture which is singular; Occupational culture which could be somewhat monopolistic and singular; Organisational culture which is similar. McSweeney (2002) believes that it is not logical to assume any form of uniformity in a survey that claims to have the answer. Also, there are always differences in opinion (McSweeney, 2002) about questionnaires on national cultures which should have been taken into consideration but Hofstede failed to do so because he put them in a box and even admitted to it in his response (Hofstede, 2002). Additionally, McSweeney (2002) argues that if principal and comprehensive questions were asked in the survey, a different view would have resulted.

Self-report questionnaires could be regarded as one of the most popular and primary tool for quantifying cultural dimensions but the process is thoroughly observed in practice (Taras et al., 2009). However, Hofstede and most of his followers only used questionnaires without any interview or observation of the process. This goes to show that his massively looking data is mainly qualitative. Also, face to face interviews is another practical method as conducted by Inglehart research (Inglehart et al., 2004) which is quite similar to a survey, but it’s like even though I’m talking to a real person, I am helping you to tick the boxes as well. This goes to show that the choice of method is considerably narrow in this type of research. How truthful where the participants? How reliable could the data be considering the year it was generated? How much has changed within these cultures through these years? Lastly, where these issues raised in the report as some sort of limitation? (Holliday, 2010). Considering the weaknesses mentioned, it is evident that a research does not guarantee an honest answer, so much must have changed ever since the time of the report, and there is nowhere in the report stating that his report as limited to these issues, therefore it is clear that Hofstede’s conclusion is not trustworthy (Hofstede 1998, 481).

In terms of countries, 40-60 countries is quite a massive scope to measure accurately therefore it could be argued that some countries are rather depicted and judged by their

Intercultural Business Communication :MSC International Human Resource Management