Michael Porter theorizes that culture helps to explain why different individuals perceive things in their own way and perform actions differently from other groups. For example,the extent to which people accept authority structures (that people accept that it is OK for some to make decisions and others to follow) is marked by Geert Hofstede's Power Distance Index. The Index says that countries like India, Malaysia, China, Mexico, Japan etc has a higher PDI in relation to USA, UK and Sweden where authority does not mean as much.
Tolerance of Ambiguity or the Uncertainty Avoidance index states that some cultures desire a certain level of certainty when they come to doing business and taking decisions. The index suggests that India, Malaysia, UK and Sweden has a lower UAI in comparison to Greece, Portugal, Germany and Japan who welcome rules and regualtions.
The extent to which people's actions are determined with reference to their own benefit or benefit to the community is called Individualism/Collectivism. The index indicates that India,Greece, Japan etc exhibit collectivist behavior as opposed to Sweden, UK, Germany, France and USA who are individualist societies.
When there is a dependency on materialistic outcome, the index refers to Masculinity/Femininity. For example, Sweden, Portugal and France score low on masculinity because they are not as materialistic as UK, USA, Japan and India.
No comments:
Post a Comment