Exam (elaborations)
Exam (elaborations) International Human Resource Management - Grade 71/1st (20BSC105)
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- Loughborough University (LU)
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National CulturesQ(i) Define national culture. (set of objective values, stories we tell ourselves,
weapon of power)
Culture refers to a particular group of people whereas nation refers to a group of
people that are bound together because of their language, history. The difference
between the two is the scale, when referring to culture we include it as part of an
entire region of the world such as the culture of a football club or a business. On the
other hand, nation is more fixed on the differences of countries, thus, less flexible
than culture. Culture is not territorially banded but when referring to national culture
we recognise those that are from a territory and have some common origin in that
territory. National culture refers to a set of behaviours, norms, customs, and beliefs
in a host nation’s population. There are three different views to national culture, in
which, might influence the way individuals manage people in the world. In this essay
I will be explaining the 3 different views of national culture, how these different
approaches inform IHRM and critically evaluating the usefulness of these theories.
These differences emanate from the differences in how individuals understand the
study of what knowledge is (epistemology).
Positivist is the idea that culture is a variable in the world, they assume that it could
be mapped objectively such that when we are trying to understand something about
the world, we have to assume that the knowledge of the world is independent and
the process itself. Eg if we are going to try an understand the different values that
people in the world might have, we must assume that we can access some
independent knowledge of those values, so if someone else was to take the same
approach as us would get the same results. Regardless of who is undertaking the
study the results will stay the same under the assumption of a positivist view which
defines national culture.
However, Interpretive view is when culture has shared meanings, such as stories
that we tell ourselves about who we are, and about the world. This means that
knowledge is subjective and constructive. Under the assumption of interpretive
national culture in other words is knowledge created from different views and is
changing as different people have different views to the term. The different stories
that we tell ourselves about what national culture is and we share that between
ourselves which influence how we behave and think which has an impact on the way
we manage people around the world.
On the other hand, critical view is the idea that culture is a set of stories, but it is also
a weapon, domination, and power as we could push certain stories about who we
are to dominate others or to resist that domination and free ourselves. It is very
similar to interpretive with the touch of concerns around political stories, as power
relations play out, e.g. a place where employers dominate their employees based on
their hierarchy.
, Q(ii) Explore how these approaches can inform IHRM.
A positivist approach to national culture believes that culture is objective and
functional where specific cultures posses common values, these values stem
together in common threats that human beings experience over time. The reason
why positivists thinks that knowledge about culture is accessible…..
Hofstede (2012) describes culture as ‘the collective planning of mind is the process
that distinguishes members of a group or class from other people’. Hofstede (2001)
is a supporter of positivist views on national culture as his research on the 6
dimensions of culture is envisioned from a positivist approach which demonstrates
how culture is mapped across the world. His work was built around the different
cultural values around the world and the consequences of them in international
business. The five main cultural variables I am going to be discussing are power
distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity,
and long-term/short-term orientation.
Power distance is how comfortable people are with inequalities such as how different
cultures would greet their lecturers. Power distance is high in France in comparison
to the UK. This suggests that in France the distance in hierarchy power is higher
than in the UK. In relation to IHRM, it is important that human resource management
is careful in the recruitment stage of international workers, this is because their
cultural differences can impact their progress in the new working culture.
Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which we are comfortable with maybe making
decisions in the absence of missing information. Taking a certain amount of risk.
Greece has a high uncertainty avoidance therefore if a company from China with a
low uncertainty avoidance was to do business there would be the complication in
accepting and declining projects based on their risk portfolio which can cause
tension between the two. This is because the two cultures have two different beliefs
and standards in taking risk and therefore the Greek managers of the organisation
would get frustrated if the Chinese managers are refusing to accept the project
because of its high-risk profile.
Individualism is when you are working in benefit to yourself and collectivism cultures
people will be working in good of the team rather than for themselves. In the UK we
scored higher on the individualism scale than collectivism in the 6D. As shown in
figure 1, China has a collectivism culture which suggests that they focus on group
goals and do what is best for the collective group rather than themselves whereas in
the US people are much more driven towards individual goals and the rights for
themselves. In China employees enjoy getting to know each other and create a
second family in their workplace which is a collective cultural trait in comparison to
the US as they tend to be more to themselves and care for their own benefits in the
workplace such as a job promotion or bonuses.
Masculinity/femininity
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