Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
Dutch researcher Geert Hofstede identified four dimensions, and later a fifth dimension, of culture that help explain how and why people from various cultures behave as they do.

(1) power distance,
(2) uncertainty avoidance
(3) individualism
(4) masculinity
(5) time orientation - the long Vs. short-term orientations of cultures.

The East Asian countries were found to have longer-term orientations while the U.S. and U.K. were found to have relatively short-term orientations.

Power distance is “the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally.” Countries in which people blindly obey the orders of their superiors have high power distance. In many societies, lower-level employees tend to follow orders as a matter of procedure. In societies with high power distance, however, strict obedience is found even at the upper levels; examples include Mexico, South Korea, and India. For example, a senior Indian executive with a PhD from a prestigious U.S. university related the following story:
The effect of this dimension - organizations in low-power-distance countries generally will be decentralized and have flatter organization structures. These organizations also will have a smaller proportion of supervisory personnel, and the lower strata of the workforce often will consist of highly qualified people. By contrast, organizations in high-power-distance countries will tend to be centralized and have tall organization structures. Organizations in high-powerdistance countries will have a large proportion of supervisory personnel, and the people at the lower levels of the structure often will have low job qualifications. This latter structure encourages and promotes inequality between people at different levels.

Uncertainty avoidance is “the extent to which