...The Influence of the Culture dimension ‘Power Distance’ on product choice: A Cross Cultural Exploration of Effects of Country of Origin on the Choice of Branded Products by Adriana Cordeiro Socha A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Marketing and Consumer Studies Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Adriana Cordeiro Socha, September, 2012 ABSTRACT THE INFLUENCE OF THE CULTURE DIMENSION ‘POWER DISTANCE’ ON PRODUCT CHOICE: A CROSS CULTURAL EXPLORATION OF EFFECTS OF CULTURAL TRAITS ON THE CHOICE OF BRANDED FOREIGN PRODUCTS Adriana Cordeiro Socha University of Guelph, 2012 Advisor Dr. Brent McKenzie Committee Dr. Vinay Kanetkar Dr. Sara Mann This thesis investigates how cultural traits, such as the cultural dimension of Power Distance, influence preference for foreign made branded products. Cultural background influences several aspects of human behaviour, including the behaviours of consumers. In marketing, individual cultural differences affect consumers’ choice as well as their response to advertising message and brand associations. One example, impact on consumer choice, is related to the country of origin (COO) of the product. The effect of COO has been extensively explored in the literature. However, cultural frameworks like those of Hofstede (2001) have seldom been considered as a factor explaining the variability of consumers’ preference (or avoidance) for products originating in different...
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...Cultural Environments POWER DISTANCE (PDI) This element of Hofstede's Cultural Typology indicates the way that power is distributed and all members of society are not equal. Australia is a low power distance country. Cultures with low power distance follow an equal distribution of power. The relationship between bosses and employees in Australian organizations is interdependent in comparison to dependent in a high power distance society. Like Australia, the United States is considered a low power distance country. The United States ranks just slightly higher than Australia on this scale. This means that the informal way of doing business, that the US is known for, is even less formal in Australia. This means that communication and accessibility is expected at all levels of an organization (Australia). INDIVIDUALISM According to Keegan and Green, individualistic cultures are societies in which citizens are mainly concerned with the interests of themselves and their families (2015). Australia is defined as an individualistic society where individuals are focused on personal achievement and are expected to look after themselves and their immediate family. In contrast, countries that follow a collectivist culture, individuals belong to groups that focus on family and group goals over personal achievement. Again, the United States ranked about the same as Australia in the category of Individualism. This is displayed by promotions and job hiring being based on one's capabilities...
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...Scientific criticism to Geert Hofstede’s research Cross-cultural issues in European Human Resource Management Contents Abstract 2 Introduction 2 Hofstede’s findings 2 Hofstede’s Framework of Cultures 3 Power Distance (PD) 3 Individualism - Collectivism (IC) 3 Masculinity - Femininity (MF) 4 Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) 4 Long/short term orientation (LTO) 5 Some aspects of Hofstede’s model having provoked scientific criticism 5 Methodological issues 6 Cultural Homogeneity 7 National Divisions 7 Number and bipolarity of dimensions 7 Out-dated concept 8 Political Influences 9 Conclusion 9 References 10 Abstract The high level of multiculturalism in the field of business indicates to raise awareness about cultural understanding. Researches in that line major refer to Greert Hofstede, who analyzes dynamics of cross-cultural groups and organizations. Undoubtedly, his model is as widely cited as criticized, because it is well-known pioneering research of national culture differences and their consequences. In this short paper, I am going to examine Hofstede’s findings and the reason why his work faces criticism. Introduction Culture in business has been of utmost interest for the last two decades, and with increasing national diversity in nowadays business environment, culture itself is regarded as an important dimension. The beginning of a pilot study in that sphere refers to the Dutch social psychologist Greert Hofstede and his...
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...What difficulties might the international manager experience in trying to apply Hofstede's model? Culture is the learned way in which a society understands, decides and communicates.”(Hollensen, 2007). Hofstede, a Dutch academic wished to find an explanation for cultural differences across the world, in relation to society and business. He began by researching why various concepts of motivation did not work in the same manner in all countries. Hofstede based his studies on an extensive IBM database, receiving 116,000 questionnaires from IBM employees from over 70 countries, and in 20 languages. The gathering and evaluation of this study took 6 years, at the end of which, Hofstede concluded that the way people in different countries perceive and interpret their world varies along 4 dimensions. Hofstede’s model is known as the 4+1 model due to the addition of another dimension some years later. Theoretically this model appears to be effective in business context, however, after in-depth analysis, it can be seen that difficulties may arise for the international manager when trying to apply it. The first dimension, Power Distance, refers to the degree of inequality between people in both physical and educational conditions in a culture. In ‘High Power distance’ societies, the power is concentrated amongst the few highest people, of who make all the decisions. Therefore, the others in society have no choice but to obey, and carry out the decisions made. Differences in...
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...Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions US vs. India by Edward A. Molnar January 19, 2013 Abstract This article acknowledges the six dimensions of Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions, and defines five of them for a comparison between the United States and India. This article shows for the most part, the definitions of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are correct, but the article did identify some ambiguities while making the comparisons. Finally, future areas of possible research were identified that would assist in the removal of the ambiguities. Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions US vs. India Geert Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions was a result of an analysis of a world-wide survey of employee values by IBM in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This theory describes the effects of a society’s culture on the values of that culture’s members and how those values relate to behavior. This is accomplished by using a structure resulting from factor analysis (Hofstede, 2011). This theory has been used as an example for several fields, particularly in cross-cultural psychology (Hofstede, 2011). Geert Hofstede’s original cultural dimensions theory had four dimensions from which cultural values could be analyzed. These four dimensions were: (a) individualism versus collectivism (IDV); (b) uncertainty avoidance (UAI); (c) power distance (PDI); (d) masculinity versus femininity (MAS). While Hofstede was performing research in Hong Kong he added the fifth dimension, long-term...
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...Geert Hofstede's Dimensions of Culture and Edward T. Hall's Time Orientations Hofstede's "dimensions of culture" were derived mainly from his extensive organizational anthropology research in the late 1970s and early 1980s – the scores are general comparisons of values in the countries and regions he studied and can vary greatly within each country. Although Hofstede's work is somewhat dated and has rightly been criticized on a number of grounds the dimensions are useful in understanding that members of various societies are likely to behave in different ways in a given situation. Power Distance Index (PDI) is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”. (Hofstede, 1994, p. 28) A High Power Distance ranking indicates that inequalities of power and wealth exist within the society and that the less powerful members of the society accept this situation. A Low Power Distance ranking indicates the society de-emphasizes the differences between citizen's power and wealth. In these societies equality and opportunity for everyone is stressed. Individualism (IDV) Hofstede defines this dimension as follows: “individualism pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family." A High Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and individual rights are paramount...
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...Geert Hofstede's Dimensions of Culture and Edward T. Hall's Time Orientations Hofstede's "dimensions of culture" were derived mainly from his extensive organizational anthropology research in the late 1970s and early 1980s – the scores are general comparisons of values in the countries and regions he studied and can vary greatly within each country. Although Hofstede's work is somewhat dated and has rightly been criticized on a number of grounds the dimensions are useful in understanding that members of various societies are likely to behave in different ways in a given situation. Power Distance Index (PDI) is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”. (Hofstede, 1994, p. 28) A High Power Distance ranking indicates that inequalities of power and wealth exist within the society and that the less powerful members of the society accept this situation. A Low Power Distance ranking indicates the society de-emphasizes the differences between citizen's power and wealth. In these societies equality and opportunity for everyone is stressed. Individualism (IDV) Hofstede defines this dimension as follows: “individualism pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family." A High Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and individual...
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...INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT Subject : INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT INTAKE I |Student’s name |: Trương Vũ Hoàng | | |ID |: VN1001788 | | |Date of completion |: 07/01/2016 | | Topic 1- Analyze the role of cultural factors that can create comparative advantage for a company. Give some relevant examples. CONTENT Culture is a complex category and diversity. To understand the nature of culture, we should consider the cultural elements. Based on the concept of culture,It can be divided into two basic sectors culture which is material culture and spiritual culture. Material culture: the entire value creation is reflected in the material wealth created by man. These are commodity products, working tools and materials consumption, the economic infrastructure such as transport, communications, energy; social infrastructure such as health care, housing, education system and financial infrastructure like banking, insurance and financial services in the society. Material culture is expressed through the material life of the nation. Therefore, material culture will greatly influence to educational level and...
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...semester 2016, 11.06.2016 Table of Contents – Cultural Dimensions according to Hofstede 1. The psychologist Hofstede a) Geert Hofstede b) Gert-Jan Hofstede 2. The cultural dimensions a) Social Orientation - Individualism-Collectivism-Index (IDV) b) Power Orientation – Power-Distance-Index (PDI) c) Uncertainty Orientation – Uncertainty-Avoidance-Index (UAI) d) Goal Orientation – Masculinity-Femininity-Index (MAS) e) Time Orientation – Long-Time vs. Short-Time-Orientation-Index (LTO) 3. Examples – Germany, United States, Venezuela 4. Problems and Discrepancies 5. Conclusion 6. Bibliography 1 Cultural dimensions according to Geert Hofstede Classifying and comparing cultures is strongly connected with the name Geert Hofstede. The Dutch social psychologist, as he calls himself, was born in 1928 in Haarlem(Netherlands) as Gerard Hendrik Hofstede. He went to schools until 1945, that was when he completed the Diploma Gymnasium Beta. From 17 on until he was 25 years old, he studied Mechanical Engineering and ended it in 1953 with a Master’s Degree. After two years of military service he started working in managerial jobs until 1965. He completed his Ph.D. in Social Sciences in part time studies. Already during that time, from 1965 until 1971 he founded and managed the Personnel Research Department of IBM. In this time, he developed the theory of the Cultural Dimensions that are presented in this paper. He worked with 117.000 empleyees...
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...Hofstede's Dimensions of Culture Geert H. Hofstede was born on October 2, 1928 in Haarlem, the Netherlands. He received his M.Sc. from the Delft Institute of Technology in 1953, his Ph.D. (cum laude) from Groningen University in 1967. Hofstede is most well known for his work on four dimensions of cultural variability, commonly referred to as "Hofstede's Dimensions." These include: Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, Masculinity-Femininity, Individualism-Collectivism, and Long-Term/Short Term Orientation. These dimensions were arrived in his 1980 publication, "Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values." The study took existing survey data (sample size of 116,000) collected from a multinational corporation (IBM). The result was a score in each of the dimensions for 40 different countries. During 1978-83, the Dutch cultural anthropologist Geert Hofstede conducted detailed interviews with hundreds of IBM employees in 53 countries. Through standard statistical analysis of fairly large data sets, he was able to determine patterns of similarities and differences among the replies. From this data analysis, he formulated his theory that world cultures vary along consistent, fundamental dimensions. Since his subjects were constrained to one multinational corporation's world-wide employees, and thus to one company culture, he ascribed their differences to the effects of their national cultures. (One weakness is that he maintained that each country...
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...Table of Contents Abstracts…………………………………………………………………………….…………….3 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….4 Consumer Purchase of Organic Products……………………………………………….………..5 Methodology:………………………………………………………………………….………….7 * Procedure ………………………………………………………………………..……7 * Samples Description…………………………………………………………………..8 Results:………………………………………………………………………………….…………8 * Identification of Groups……………………………………………………………….9 * Preliminary Results…………………………………………………………………..10 * Invariance Testing……………………………………………………………………12 * Structural Modeling…………………………………………...……………………..14 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………….…….16 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………18 References……………………………………………………………………………………..…20 Abstracts In this paper, I analyze the market for organic products in eight European countries, based on differences in their respective value systems. With a significant sample of 8014 consumers, I first identify international segments in the European organic products market using the Values Theory. Then I apply the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine how European consumers use attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control to form their purchase intention for organic products. Results show that subjective norms are the main underlying factor driving consumer behavior concerning these products. This effect is higher for the group of countries whose citizens score higher on Schwartz's value scale. In this segment of countries...
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...Globalization Note Series Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche National Cultural Differences and Multinational Business The eminent Dutch psychologist, management researcher, and culture expert Geert Hofstede, early in his career, interviewed unsuccessfully for an engineering job with an American company. Later, he wrote of typical cross-cultural misunderstandings that crop up when American managers interview Dutch recruits and vice versa: “American applicants, to Dutch eyes, oversell themselves. Their CVs are worded in superlatives…during the interview they try to behave assertively, promising things they are very unlikely to realize…Dutch applicants in American eyes undersell themselves. They write modest and usually short CVs, counting on the interviewer to find out by asking how good they really are…they are very careful not to be seen as braggarts and not to make promises they are not absolutely sure they can fulfill. American interviewers know how to interpret American CVs and interviews and they tend to discount the information provided. Dutch interviewers, accustomed to Dutch applicants, tend to upgrade the information. To an uninitiated American interviewer an uninitiated Dutch applicant comes across as a sucker. To an uninitiated Dutch interviewer an uninitiated American applicant comes across as a braggart.”1 Cultural differences, while difficult to observe and measure, are obviously very important. Failure to appreciate and account for them can lead to embarrassing...
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...Comparison Factbook France vs. Italy Wine Industry Group 16.4 Bram van Veen Caspar Leusink Muhammad Hafidz Randy Hardja Lecturer: Mr.Drs.HenkRitsema Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Methods and Frameworks 5 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions 5 Porter’s diamond 7 Porter’s Five Forces Model of Competition 8 Introducing the Wine Industry 9 Overview of Wine Industry 9 French Wine Industry 10 Italian Wine Industry 11 Country comparison 12 Comparison of relevant macro-economic indicators 12 General economic indicators 12 Financial Health 13 Demographic Factors 13 Historical developments 14 Historical Background 14 Global Wine Industry Developments 15 Socio-cultural conditions 17 Cultural Diversity 17 Hofstede 18 Political and Governmental Systems 19 Legal Systems 21 Financial Systems 21 Labour Market 22 Industry Conditions 24 Supply Market Conditions 24 Demand market conditions 24 Threat of New Entrants and Substitute Products 25 Major players and level of competition 27 Level of Competition 28 Recommendations 28 Italy 29 France: 31 Recommendations: 33 References 34 Executive Summary The goal of this factbook is to provide potential investors with information on relevant dimensions regarding the wine industry in Italy and France. The factbook is comparing both of the countries using methodological framework and secondary data. The data we used are obtained through various sources. In the end, Italy is presented as most appealing...
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...Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html 1. Power Distance (PDI) This dimension expresses the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. The fundamental issue here is how a society handles inequalities among people. People in societies exhibiting a large degree of power distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification. In societies with low power distance, people strive to equalise the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of power. < an example of Power Distance by Geert Hofstede 2. Individualism versus collectivism (IDV) The high side of this dimension, called Individualism, can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. Its opposite, Collectivism, represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular in-group to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. A society's position on this dimension is reflected in whether people’s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “we.” < 3. Masculinity versus femininity (MAS) The masculinity side of this dimension represents a preference in society for achievement...
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...Globalization Note Series Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche National Cultural Differences and Multinational Business The eminent Dutch psychologist, management researcher, and culture expert Geert Hofstede, early in his career, interviewed unsuccessfully for an engineering job with an American company. Later, he wrote of typical cross-cultural misunderstandings that crop up when American managers interview Dutch recruits and vice versa: “American applicants, to Dutch eyes, oversell themselves. Their CVs are worded in superlatives…during the interview they try to behave assertively, promising things they are very unlikely to realize…Dutch applicants in American eyes undersell themselves. They write modest and usually short CVs, counting on the interviewer to find out by asking how good they really are…they are very careful not to be seen as braggarts and not to make promises they are not absolutely sure they can fulfill. American interviewers know how to interpret American CVs and interviews and they tend to discount the information provided. Dutch interviewers, accustomed to Dutch applicants, tend to upgrade the information. To an uninitiated American interviewer an uninitiated Dutch applicant comes across as a sucker. To an uninitiated Dutch interviewer an uninitiated American applicant comes across as a braggart.”1 Cultural differences, while difficult to observe and measure, are obviously very important. Failure to appreciate and account for them can lead to embarrassing...
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