Cultural Dimensions and Cultural Differences Essay

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Cultural Dimensions

Cultural Differences/Similarities

Both France and Greece are Mediterranean countries in Europe. They are both part of the EU and have a shared Western Civilization heritage. Both have moderately high power distance and uncertainty avoidance. However, France scores much higher for individualism and Greece for masculinity. Hofstede does not outline time horizon for Greece; France scores as a short-term time horizon society.

II. Cultural Dimensions

There are five dimensions under Hofstede. Power distance "expresses the attitude of the culture towards the inequalities amongst us." A high power distance country would be more accepting of these differences. The second dimension is individualism. This reflects "the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members." A high individualism society has members who reflect their self-image as I, rather than we. The third dimension in masculinity/femininity. This dimension defines masculinity as desiring achievement and success, with femininity oriented towards caring for others and quality of life. The fourth dimension is uncertainty avoidance. This reflects "the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these." The fifth dimension is long-term orientation, which is "the extent to which a society shows a pragmatic future-orientated perspective rather than a conventional historical short-term point-of-view."

A.

France and Greece both have relatively high power distances. These cultures are generally accepting of inequalities among people. Hierarchy is valued in both cultures. Power in both countries can be centralized, and those who hold the power are inaccessible to lower-level managers. This stands in contrast to the American system, and both French and Greek managers might expect to deal with their American equivalents, as opposed to managers of a different hierarchical level.

B.

France is a highly individualistic society, albeit not as much as the U.S. Greece is a collectivist society. In France, the individual has responsibilities that lie mostly within his or her immediate group, rather than society at large. In Greece, the extended family is the main social unit, and there is much more nepotism in Greek business culture as a result.

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C.

France is a more feminine society, Greece more masculine. The French are especially concerned with quality of life, and this manifests itself in work habits. For Greeks, the status of the entire social unit (extended family) can relate to the success of one individual. Greeks are more interested than French in achievement for achievement's sake; for the French it is a means to an end.

D.

Both nations score highly on uncertainty avoidance, Greeks the highest of all nations. Such societies rely heavily on rules, laws and procedures to remove uncertainty in daily life. Greece is such a society, and Greeks can be very demonstrative when they fear that things are going to go wrong (which is any time there is uncertainty). France responds to its distrust of uncertainty through education, planning and preparation.

E.

No score is given for Greece on time horizon. For France, the country has a short-term time orientation. Managers, therefore, can be expected to be results-oriented over the short run, and the culture is oriented towards immediate gratification, especially given the emphasis on quality of life.

III. Political Economy

Political economy is the economic system that the country runs. There are three systems, command, free market and mixed. In reality, there are no pure free market economies, only degrees of free market influence. There are a few pure command economies, but most countries have a mix of the two. About the closest thing to a pure free market economy comes from somewhere like Hong Kong, which seeks to create a high degree of economic freedom. A pure command economy would be North Korea, and Cuba comes close.

France and Greece generally run free market economies with a high level of state intervention. This intervention comes in the form of state ownership of key enterprises, and state subsidies for critical industries (especially in France). The levels of state intervention in both of these economies is generally higher than in other Western democracies, but lower than….....

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