Interpersonal Relationships and Business Negotiations Case Study

Paper Type:  Essay
Pages:  5
Wordcount:  1206 Words
Date:  2022-07-08

Introduction

Individualism-collectivism is a popular dimension that has been applied to compare people's values at the cultural level in different countries. Hofstede was the brainchild of this dimension. It emphasizes grouping people's cultures to be either individualism (cultures emphasizing individual autonomy) and collectivism (cultures emphasizing group dependency). However, its use has been used and employed over the years by various theorists in their models such as; Schwartz (1994) and Triantis (1995). Schwartz particularly criticized Hofstede's classification identifying that some cultural values can be both individualistic and collective. The Hofstede and Schwartz models are the more popular models as they have been identified to be the best models when evaluating macro-social and macroeconomic variables because they look at values differently as explained above. Edward T Hall (1959) was another cultural theorist who also described and developed concepts that described individual's behaviors and reactions in different cultures while exploring their social and cultural cohesion (Nakata, 2009). This paper is aimed at understanding individualism-collectivism using the three dimensions (Hall, Hofstede, and Schwartz) for an immigrant moving from Australia to the United States of America.

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Case study - Interpersonal relationships & Business negotiations

An immigrant is migrating from Australia to the USA because of various reasons. The move will herald a cultural shift that will be noticed as soon as the immigrant lands in America. As such, it is necessary to identify certain cultural characteristics based on the Hofstede model and the Schwartz model that will show the variance between the two cultural levels.

High/Low Context

The High/Low Context is a characteristic founded by Edward Hall who identified intercultural communication to be sharing information across different cultures. High and low cultural context looked at values placed by different cultures on direct and indirect communication. High context cultures have a heavy reliance on nonverbal cues that have a great deal of background information to be easily understood. Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central Europe are known to have these cultures. Low context cultures do not rely on nonverbal cues as the message is spelled out and defined during communication (Nakata, 2009). Indeed, Western Europe, the United States, and Australia have these characteristics.

Monochronic/PolychronicThis is another of Edward Hall's concepts. The concept focuses on how people deal with time in different cultures. Polychronic cultures are reminiscent of people engaging in multiple activities at the same time and get restless when they lack stimuli. These cultures are characterized by fixed appointment on short notice, people asking for the time between appointments, avoid rushing meetings, and deadlines are self-imposed. Latin American, African, and Asian countries fall under this bracket. Monochronic cultures, on the other hand, have specific precision related to time agendas. They also deal with one thing at a time (Nakata, 2009). USA and Australia are part of this bracket as well as other European nations.

Masculine/Feminine

This is a Hofstede model characteristic. The dimension identifies the preference for accomplishment that different cultures place based on different genders. Masculinity focuses on traits that emphasize the acquisition of wealth, ambition, heroism, and severity. On the other side, femininity looks at relationships, attention to the weak, modesty, equality, sexuality, environmental awareness and quality of life. The Hofstede country ranking ranked the USA with 62 scores as compared to Australia which stood at 61 (Hofstede, 2011). These results mean that both countries have high masculinity which is evident in both countries' behavioral patterns.

Long/short term orientation

Another Hofstede cultural dimension. Long-term orientation fosters virtues oriented towards future rewards with focus on thrift and perseverance. Short term orientation, on the other hand, fosters virtues related to present and past particularly with respect for fulfilling social ambitions, tradition, and 'face' preservation (Hofstede, 2011). Hofstede ranking system ranks the USA to have a long-term orientation of 21 whereas Australia had a long-term orientation score of 26. As such, both countries value short-term concepts as compared to long term.

Uncertainty avoidance

It looks at the way a society deals with the idea that the future is unknown. The ambiguity of learning to live with an uncertain future leaves different cultures with anxiety presented in many ways. The extent to which members are threatened by ambiguous situations which have led to the creation of beliefs and institutions to avoid such ambiguity is measured and reflected in the score. Uncertainty avoidance is a Hofstede dimension tool (Hofstede, 2011). The US scored a value of 46 whereas Australia scored 51. The US scored below average which meant that they had a fair degree of accepting new products, new ideas and were willing to try something different. Australia, on the other hand, scored above average which was not so far from America. Their uncertainty about change was pretty much balanced but the +1 score above average means that they are fairly unwelcome to the new change.

Individualist/Collectivist

The individualistic cultures emphasize on an individual or personal achievement without emphasis on goals pertaining groups. Collectivistic cultures, on the other hand, identify and emphasize group successes. They have families and workgroups working together for a common goal that stands well above their desires or needs. Australia and the USA are more individualistic cultures as they tend to focus more on individual successes especially in business (Nakata, 2009).

Power Distance

Power is the degree that a person can exert to influence another's behavior or attitude. Power distance is a Hofstede principle that looks at attitudes of culture that are programmed towards the inequalities that exist amongst us. It is the extent to which lesser members of an institution in a country accept the unequal distribution of power. The idea is that the leaders are not only to blame for the distance as the followers are also okay with the arrangement (Hofstede, 2011). USA and Australia scored 40 and 36 respectively which shows that they have low scores. This means that both countries have good relations between managers and employees and there is frequent communication taking place in the organizations of these nations.

Conflicts predicted

The score as shown in this paper represents a fairly even image of the countries. Indeed, no major conflict can be attributed to the scores presented as they had scores that were fairly similar to each other. As such, there is no need for putting in measures to avoid any conflicts. However, in the case where conflict arises, it is imperative that an individual learns the culture of the nation where he/she is going to travel to and make sure that he identifies how to relate with these issues in a way that they conform to the new nation's culture.

If the person wanted to start a business in Spain, what recommendations would you make?

It is important for one to use all these models to identify all the areas that could have differences. Indeed, Spain has different cultures from the language down to religion and beliefs. It is, therefore, important for an individual to try and learn as much Spanish culture as he/she can before engaging in business in Spain. Furthermore, it would be wise to identify what he/she can do to inform him/her of the best business to start in Spain.

References

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1).

Nakata, C. (2009). Going Beyond Hofstede: Why We Need to and How. Beyond Hofstede, 3-15.

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Interpersonal Relationships and Business Negotiations Case Study. (2022, Jul 08). Retrieved from https://proessays.net/essays/interpersonal-relationships-and-business-negotiations-case-study

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