Internationalization Strategy Analysis using Hofstede’s Six Dimensions of Culture
Expansion to the global market has always been a challenge for any company. Once the organization decides to move abroad, it has to face numerous challenges such as new legal ground, economic dissimilarity, taxation inconsistencies, cash flow repatriation difficulties, and unfamiliar public administration style. However, one may easily find many useful academic and industrial sources which evaluate common issues of globalization challenges, and all expenses, risks, and potential benefits can be calculated and assessed. In contrast, global human resource management (HRM) is far less definite. While one cannot deny that any person is driven by same psychological and physiological mechanisms, societies across the globe has different values, opinions, and lifestyle, which inevitably influence the employment and corporate culture of local branches of the company. The case of DaneFurniture Ltd illustrates the risks and uncertainty of globalization as the company was traditionally limited to Denmark and its culture, and was forced to expand its operations and facilities under the pressure of the worldwide crisis. Thus, one should focus on cultural aspects of the main target countries, and assess benefits and risks which expansion presents in the context of HRM. This report adopts Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory to understand the peculiarities of human resources of DaneFurniture’s target locations, assesses internationalization strategy and its outcomes, and recommends specific cultural and institutional approaches towards major markets to eliminate the risks and uncertainty of globalization process.
Question One: Cultural Dimensions by Hofstede Applied to Denmark, Germany, China, and the U.S. 640 words
Cultural dimensions analysis developed and introduced by G. Hofstede is a universal tool for understanding people from different societies, hence the tool that facilitates global cooperation if applied properly. According to B. Adeoye (2014), the multidimensional theory of Geert Hofstede resides in the assumption that the culture has an effect on values of each who is the part of the particular society. Eventually, the values are likely to determine cognitive framework, self-estimation, and other factors that determine the behavior. G. Hofstede has determined how values of the country refer to particular behavioral aspects “using a structure derived from structure analysis,” which resulted in the system of cultural dimensions (Adeoye, 2014, p. 6). This approach, however, has been expanded.
The national culture is the only social construct for which Hofstede’s theory may be legitimately applied. While B. Adeoye (2014) does not explain the limitations of Hofstede’s dimensions, G. Hofstede (2011) have once commented on why national culture is the primary sample for dimensional theories. He admits that there are many types of cultures incorporated into humanity as a global society that originates from ethnicities, corporate communities, professional occupation, and other groups of people. However, Hofstede claims that only “societal, national and gender cultures, which children acquire from their earliest youth” influence on person’s preferences on interactions and psychological stances (2011, p. 3). Since they were introduces in 1980, Hofstede’s dimensions have been refined and developed, and the current Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model (HCDM) includes Power Distance, Uncertainty …
