Individualism Versus Collectivism

Individualism versus Collectivism:
This element of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions describes if the primary function of a person in a society is more being an individual or part of the group of a society. In individualistic societies people follow their own interest very strictly and are relatively loose on societal morals. Competition in these societies is normal, the ideology exists that people who compete the best are rewarded financially. Examples for strong individual societies are: Canada, Australia and the United States. On the other hand there are collectivist societies, here individuals are less important than collective gain. The group is very important in these societies for example China and Panama. A useful example to explain this

Furthermore, Hofstede’s scale does not account for the blending and evolving of cultures mentioned earlier in this essay. These, among other problems of quantitative data etc. have led to the creation of a fifth dimension - the long-term versus short-term orientation. This refers to „the degree to which people and organizations defer gratification to achieve long-term success“ (Tiernan 2012). If you take a look on table one you can see that the US is just a bit higher long-term orientated than the average of the Arabic world, but both have a relatively low score compared to a country such a China. This means that cultures such as the US and the Arab cultures are less focused on years and decades and more on weeks or

As Tiernan (2012) states these differences „would have implications for the conduct of business and employment of staff, but also on the wider issue of the cultural compatibility of the core MTV product and sensitivities to Arab culture.“ as mentioned through the need for differential management of people and business conduct.
MTV found a solution to deal with this differences. They build the launch team from people of some Arabic countries and some US employees. They appreciated the focus on collectivism and lack of individualistic values. The power structures of MTV management were initiated with the high power distance values of the Arab world. So-called masculine values were promoted and generally stuck too in line with the Arab world’s uncertainty avoidance. Finally, short-term orientation was generally