Learn about cultural dimensions in international project management with brief description of Hofstede cultural dimensions
What is Culture?
The word "culture" originates with Cicero who describes the cultivation of the soul or "cultura animi" using an agricultural metaphor. The philosopher Edward Casey in 1996 describes "The very word culture meant 'place tilled' in Middle English, and the same word goes back to Latin colere, 'to inhabit, care for, till, worship' and cultus, 'A cult, especially a religious one.' To be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensively to cultivate it-to be responsible for it, to respond to it, to attend to it caringly."
Culture is sometimes represented as an iceberg that symbolizes the visible and invisible part of experiences and values that shape people's behavior. The visible component of the culture, or practices,
is the part that is immediately perceived when people interact. It comes across in symbols such as words, gestures, pictures, heroes (which is a display of model behavior), and rituals which are activities that bind a group together. These practices are easy to observe when you travel to another culture
or receive guests or team members.
In the business world, symbols include writing conventions, how co-workers address each other, presentation of diagrams, physical gestures of respect, and even eye contact. Understanding models of appropriate behavior, or heroes, is critical to showing respect. Moreover, insight into what makes team members popular or likely to advance in their career is key to facilitating rapport and understanding how our actions can sometimes be perceived as negatively affecting someone's standing in the organization.
The invisible component of culture, or values, is made of dominant preferences over aspects of social and professional life such as leadership style, working through lunch, the ability of team members to question a superior in front of others.
Cultural values can be difficult to understand and navigate. Even when you are able to spend a reasonable amount of time learning about those values, you may still struggle with adjusting appropriately to them. Being able to tie together the visible practices, conventions, and behaviors, with the invisible values that drive someone's style and preferences is essential knowledge for an international project manager.
Cultural Dimensions Overview
Knowledge typically helps with mitigating risk. Thanks to the research of Hofstede, Trompenaars, Meyer, and others, it is now easier to evaluate various cultures against a number of standard dimensions and prepare yourself and your team.
Keep in mind that these dimensions are general trends and not specific individual profiles. Not everyone in the cultures we will study will fall exactly on the spot presented. Many things such as age, gender, or regional variations affect where people fit on the scale. And in fact, those dimensions are not meant to be applied to specific people, but to general cultures.
The dimensions can help you adapt your style to better manage the project and make full use of your entire team's strengths. Yet don't overdo it. You may find that team members working on an international project often adapt their own style to that of the majority of the team, or to their perception of the project manager's preferences, making your need to adapt minimal.
Before we explore cultural dimensions, a word about stereotyping. A stereotype is a standardized mental picture that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment. To stereotype is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same. It is an exaggerated or limited view of a group behavior, typically under the lens of an observer who takes only a few examples as a reference. In brief, it is inappropriate and wrong in the sense that it is associated with lack of judgement that comes across as disrespect. Don't do it, in this class or in the workplace. Combined experiences make people unique and nuanced: ethnic origin, region where you live, language, gender, education, industry where you work, etc.
The cultural dimensions that we are about to explore are not an attempt to box specific cultures into a stereotype. They are the result of rigorous research and are not just casual observations or generalizations. They also do not prescribe a specific response, are not guidelines for tourists, and are not personality assessments. The cultural dimensions as presented by Hofstede, Trompenaars, Meyer, and others are an efficient tool for business people to build their cultural intelligence. They serve as indicators only and should never be taken as universal truths. People are influenced by their culture but also by local sub-cultures and regional traits, which would render universal truths and profiles inaccurate if they weren't already inappropriate.
When exposed to other cultures (through business, migration, or hosting people from other cultures), most people evolve an adapted style that makes it easier for them to respond to new challenges. Other people harden their own cultural rigidity. Some do both. You will encounter all types, behaviors, and reactions in your project management exchanges and it may be hard to thoroughly and accurately determine every aspect. As you build your cultural intelligence and experiences, you will develop a more intuitive approach to handling these situations without having to resort to a formal and detailed analysis. Cultural intelligence is your ability to interpret someone's unfamiliar gestures the way that person's culture would, in a natural fashion (without resorting to analytical tools, or, if you will, while "thinking on your feet").
Hofstede Cultural Dimensions:
The following is a summary of the five dimensions defined by Hofstede:
Power Distance:
This dimension measures how people handle inequality within the group. Team members from countries with lower power distance seek a distribution of power and feel comfortable disagreeing with senior team members. Team members from countries with high power distance find it hard to disagree in front of senior team members, and look for senior approval before executing tasks. A project manager can still engage team members from a high power distance culture, without forcing them to agree or disagree, by asking them to contribute their opinion and experience.
Individualism to Collectivism:
This dimension represents the relative value of the individual compared to the collectivity. More individualistic cultures prefer to have individual choices when planning and executing tasks, value personal achievements, and are encouraged when project success ties personally to them. More collectivistic cultures are more likely to tie project success to morale and group achievements, value group consensus in decision-making, and are less likely to move forward until all are on board.
Masculinity to Femininity:
Using Hofstede's terminology, in the more masculine countries, the degree of gender differentiation is high, men are associated with control and assertiveness, while women are associated with modesty, caring, and focus on the quality of life. In the more feminine countries, gender differentiation tend to be lower. Project managers from more feminine countries may need to be more assertive to work with teams from more masculine countries. Project managers from more masculine countries may need to show humility and competency to work with teams from more feminine countries. Note, while this terminology can seem outdated, the values associated with it are worth considering.
Uncertainty Avoidance:
This dimension relates to the ability of certain cultures to deal with change, risk, ambiguity, tight rules, and standards. Countries with strong uncertainty avoidance tend to work better with strict rules, detailed planning, and predictability. Countries on the other end of the spectrum with a low uncertainty avoidance are comfortable with ambiguity and loose directions.
Long Term Orientation:
People from long term oriented cultures value persistence, thrift, and deference to status. People from short term oriented culture value personal steadiness and stability, respect of tradition, and protecting their reputation.
