German Culture According to the Hofstede Model
Bio-Med has chosen to use the Hofstede model as one of the ways to understand the German culture. The model divides German culture into six categories; power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, pragmatism and indulgence (Hofstede, 2014). The model then applies a numerical score to each category German Work Ethic Overview
“It is said that the British and American business people first envision their goal, then plan backward on how to achieve it. The German process is different: everything is planned from the beginning. From this starting point, each step is meticulously envisioned, until the best possible result is achieved. [… this] helps to explain why everything
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Germans do not highly value humane orientation, institutional or in-group collectivism (Northouse, 2012). Germans are very assertive, value performance orientation, future orientation, and uncertainty avoidance (Northouse, 2012). This attitude can appear standoffish, short or rude to an outsider. This is merely a manifestation on their focus on work efficiency, leaves little time for the ‘pleasantries” that North Americans are accustomed to.
Keys to Being Successful Manager within Germany
German place less value on the individual than North Americas’ (Northouse, 2012), and feel “emotional involvement is unacceptable in negotiations” (Conaway & Wayne, 2007).
Germans do not work on Sunday. Communicate any necessary information to local co-workers by Friday AM, latest. Germany has many national holidays, so all mangers will be provided with this list to allow for successful scheduling.
Combining Cultures
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“Germanic European countries think that effective leadership is based on participation, charisma and autonomy but not on face saving and other self-centered attributes” (Northouse, 2012, p. 402). Americans’ also value charisma, participation and less self-centered attributes (Northouse, 2012). Unfortunately, working together may highlight the differences between American and German cultures. Studies done by Andre Laurent, show that managers imbedded in multicultural companies actually tend to display their culture preferences and identities more highly than managers working without their own company (cited via Adler,
In addition, from a German perspective, German Americans have offered the best of what they can, their cultu ,,e and loyalty. While in reality their way of life is surrounded by daily
The three cultural dimensions are professional identity, community and hierarchy. The author suggests that these cultural dimensions will never be in balance and it is the challenge of leadership to manage them and find new and innovative ways to solve new problems (Army, 2010, p.
Gender roles of both males and females have been present in human culture for thousands of years. Gender roles are unofficial responsibilities that certain sex or gendered groups will execute. Traditionally, most people associate women’s role to be responsible for the home and childcare. During the course of any society, gender roles can naturally or forcibly shift to adapt to the possible stress. Germany is no exception to the changes of gender roles over time.
German conception is their life can distortion in several things to becoming more interesting, but must be perfect in producing, education- two fundamental critical to make
In the 1840s to the 1880s, German farmers were losing land and lots of it. Farmers losing land is known as a push factor that made many Germans leave Germany. Some Germans left willing which is known as a pull factor. This essay will show some of the pull and push factors that the Germans had to choose from to come to America.
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.
I want your subjects to enjoy a degree of liberty, equality, and prosperity never before known to the German people. And they will love you for this”
Chapter seven of Matthew Gladwell’s book Outliers, is written to explain how cultural legacy has an impact on our behaviors related to authority. Culture defines how subordinates interrelate to authority figures, and would create problems regardless of the other correlating set of events. Specifically fatigue, weather and technical difficulties contributed to the accidents noted, but it was because of the cultural differences these obstacles were not overcome. Geert Hofstede, a Dutch psychologist, analyzed cultural differences through the collection and storage of data gathered from employee interviews. By asking employees questions related to problem solving, how people worked together, and about their attitudes about authority he was able to create a databases of information he could use for this analysis.
For example, consumers are becoming more similar in terms of lifestyles, income, aspirations and education. In order to clarify my statement, I would like to apply Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture. Masculinity and femininity is one of the Hofstede’s dimensions. The dominant values of masculine culture are achievement and success while dominant values in feminine cultures are caring for quality of life and others. The country that possesses the most masculine culture is Japan, which scores 95 (Geert and Mariake de, 2002).
Some of the pros are that Hofstede provided a definition of culture and how culture can be measured. His research showed that cultural differences matter. Also, Hofstede's model provides managers of cross-cultural relations a tool to help them understand differences in value sets and behavior. Hofstede's model helped people in day to day life by making them understand about different culture. Another pro is Hofstede model negates that one set of principles is universally applicable by confirming that there are multiple ways of structuring organizations and institutions.
Hofstede analysis of culture considering the gender would give a different
Since World War II, Germany has not always signified one stable and unified state. Instead, it has undergone great political and social transformations at different times in its recent history. From my study of Das Leben der Anderen (directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) and Goodbye Lenin (directed by Wolfgang Becker), one can say with certainty that this is both a true and accurate statement. In this essay I will discuss the social and political transformations which Germany has experienced and comment on how the above films depict German society at different points in time since World War II.
As shown above, the main objective of the allies in the beginning was eliminating Nazism. They considered that it was hidden behind the capitalist ideologies, which allow the formation of monopolies that were ruling the economy. However, the nationalist ideals were a bigger threat since they were the ones that triggered the war - the thoughts of Germany as a higher nation that could control the world were in the basis of this ideals. In other words, looking back to that period, it seems now that it could have been more important to direct the fight towards nationalism rather than capitalism.
International business has encouraged the idea of bringing all the countries together. Though there are many challenges from language, culture, technical development and business attitude that are faced by the managers working globally. A company or an individual need to have proper strategy in their mind when managing people from cross cultural
Culture is comprise of religion values ,economy ,languages ,class ,material items ,social institutions ,customs ,manners ,education, policies and attitudes (Czinkota & Ronkainen ,1993).Kirkman and Shapiro (2001) described that cultural diversity affect the management styles .He stated that managers with different cultural backgrounds showed different behavior, attitudes, beliefs and basic values. Moveoneinc (2013) stated that culture has prodigious impact over the management style. For example, in Japanese firms almost all employees are participating in the process of decision making. But in the society of America, only top management is involved in the decision making of important and vital matters. In the same way, reward systems are designed on individual performance in western countries and America whereas individual performance has less significance in Japanese firms.