Dimension of National Cultures

Dimension of national cultures cannot be ignored especially managing outsourcing teams, international or project work. Some of the characteristics as defined by Hofstede:

1) Power distance: the degree to which people in a country accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally;

2) Individualism vs Collectivism: the degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups;

3) Masculinity vs Feminlity: the extent to which the culture favours traditional masculine work roles of achievement, power and control;

4) Uncertainty avoidance: the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them

http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html

Implications to employment relationship in our local context..

For Singapore, our society supports more uncertainty avoidance..and it gives rise to 'Corporatism'...

Corporatism - Government seeks to devise mechanisms which integrate the interests of capital labour and government in pursuit of policies typically to do with economic growth, full employment and price stability. (Hollingshead and Leaf, 1995)

With hindsight this informative resources is useful in my course of work while managing a diverse workforce...I was recently reminded the importance of forming strategic alliance..especially as a business partner, I need the support of all business units to share resources and activities, to pursue a common strategy...key success factor..another learning journey for me..cheers