Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Cultural Studies - Basics and Definitions, grade: 1,3, Dresden Technical University, language: English, abstract: Be it in the business world, as a traveller, trying to master a foreign language, or to teach it, nowadays we meet people of foreign cultures more frequently than this was the case just 50 or even 100 years ago. Even though linguistic difficulties are often surmountable through English as lingua franca, meeting people from cultures we are unfamiliar with bears the potential for many misunderstandings. These in turn quite often lead to lack of understanding, conflict, even political disaster, like in 2005 with the Danish caricature scandal involving the newspaper Jyllands Posten, when a fundamentalist Muslim cleric from Egypt living in Denmark felt offended and ridiculed in his religious beliefs by caricatures featuring Mohammed. The Islamic world thereby rallied to the case, and did not only react with outrage and boycott, but with violent attacks, in the course of which 140 people lost their lives and several hundred were injured. Milder reactions, like rejection and hidden resentment are, however, the more common outcomes due to intercultural misunderstandings. How otherwise would there be stereotypes mostly carrying negative connotations, like the obedient Chinese, the superficial American, or the super-punctual German lacking humor? The Dutch anthropologist and cultural scientist Geert Hofstede suggests that the reason for such misunderstandings is a culturally divergent, often concealed moral concept with a direct impact on human actions and thinking. Hofstede has devoted himself to this issue and has developed a model based on a long-time study, elucidating peculiarities of and differences between national cultures in comparison. Thereby Hofstede classified national cultures according to five pillars, also called dimensions, which dependent on the nation vary markedly and in his study are set in relation to each other. The subject and the goal of this assignment is to present the main features of Hofstede’s Model of the Five Dimensions of National Cultures. Following, the practical applicability of this model is briefly discussed.

'The publication of this second edition of Culture's Consequences marks an important moment in the field of cross-cultural studies . Hofstede's framework for understanding national differences has been one of the most influential and widely used frameworks in cross-cultural business studies, in the past ten years' - Australian Journal of Management

The first comprehensive and statistically significant analysis of the predictive powers of each cross-cultural model, based on nation-level variables from a range of large-scale database sources such as the World Values Survey, the Pew Research Center, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the UN Statistics Division, UNDP, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, TIMSS, OECD PISA. Tables with scores for all culture-level dimensions in all major cross-cultural analyses (involving 20 countries or more) that have been published so far in academic journals or books. The book will be an invaluable resource to masters and PhD students taking advanced courses in cross-cultural research and analysis in Management, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and related programs. It will also be a must-have reference for academics studying cross-cultural dimensions and differences across the social and behavioral sciences.

Culture, Leadership, and Organizations reports the results of a ten-year research program, the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program. GLOBE is a long-term program designed to conceptualize, operationalize, test, and validate a cross-level integrated theory of the relationship between culture and societal, organizational, and leadership effectiveness. A team of 160 scholars worked together since 1994 to study societal culture, organizational culture, and attributes of effective leadership in 62 cultures. Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies reports the findings of the first two phases of GLOBE. The book is primarily based on the results of the survey of over 17,000 middle managers in three industries: banking, food processing, and telecommunications, as well as archival measures of country economic prosperity and the physical and psychological well-being of the cultures studied. GLOBE has several distinguishing features. First, it is truly a cross-cultural research program. The constructs were defined, conceptualized, and operationalized by the multicultural team of researchers. Second, the industries were selected through a polling of the country investigators, and the instruments were designed with the full participation of the researchers representing the different cultures. Finally, the data in each country were collected by investigators who were either natives of the cultures studied or had extensive knowledge and experience in that culture. A unique feature of this book is that while it is an edited book and many experts have written the different chapters, unlike other edited books, it is a fully integrated, seamless, and cohesive book covering the many aspects of the theory underpinning the GLOBE.

A masterpiece in intercultural training! Exploring Culture brings Geert Hofstede's five dimensions of national culture to life. Gert Jan Hofstede and his co-authors Paul Pedersen and Geert Hofstede introduce synthetic cultures, the ten "pure" cultural types derived from the extremes of the five dimensions. The result is a playful book of practice that is firmly rooted in theory. Part light, part serious, but always thought-provoking, this unique book approaches training through the three-part process of building awareness, knowledge, and skills. It leads the reader through the first two components with more than 75 activities, dialogues, stories, and incidents. The Synthetic Culture Laboratory and two full simulations fulfill the skill-building component. Exploring Culture is suitable for students, trainers, coaches and educators. It can be used for individual study or as a text, and it serves as an excellent partner to Geert Hofstede's popular Cultures and Organizations.

An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life. Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. She provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business, and combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice.

This book provides insight in the different classic frameworks of addressing cultural diversity around the globe. Key authors reflect on each others classic work and frontline academics in comparative social science show how cultural dimensions matter for explaining contemporary issues in a wide range of nations.