Hofstede And Trompenaars Model Of Cross Cultural Management

We could define culture as a code of attitudes, norms and values of a group of people. Culture determines our way of thinking, so how we see ourselves but also the world. Moreover, it’s impossible to say that a culture is right or wrong because it’s inherited from the story, values, norms...that made our society grow up. Besides that general culture, a corporate one also exist and is the result of a combination between the organisational and national/regional cultures. Therefore, like everybody has his own culture, it makes it more difficult for a manager of a diversified cultural team to work with his team with harmony and understanding. First of all, as a manager of that team, we should learn more about cross-cultural management to understand the behaviour of people in organisations around the world. By doing that, we will have a better description and comparison of organisational behaviour across countries and culture. It will obviously help him to communicate with his team to be be more efficient in the work. To do so, we can use the Hofstede and Trompenaars models.

In their studies, it led them to understand how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. Hofstede defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others”. Six dimensions of national culture have been kept to compare these differences between cultures : power distance index, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation versus short term normative orientation and indulgence versus