Cultural Constraints In Management Theories By Geert Hofstede Case Study

In the article, Cultural constraints in management theories, Geert Hofstede examines business management around the globe from a cultural perspective. He explains how he believes there are no universal practices when it comes to management and offers examples from the US, Germany, France, Japan, Holland, China and Russia. He demonstrates how business management theories and practices are very much subject to cultural norms and values and by understanding these differences, it can give managers an advantage in global business practices. I found this article to be very insightful and I enjoyed reading about different management practices around the globe. The author states that the people who develop business strategies are only human and

They also see their managers as task masters and expert problem solvers rather than as motivators and they value production roles more than leadership roles (Hofstede, 1993, p. 83). In Japan, they value employee loyalty. They expect their workers to join a company and remain there for the duration of their working life. They have a groupthink outlook and spend a lot of time working in groups. They value what is good for the company and the team rather than looking for individual recognition and tend to be more peer led than manager led, which means that US management cultures are not a good fit for countries like Japan (Hofstede, 1993, p. 83-84). In France, employees who are educated are more highly respected and their workers are divided into two categories. There are the properly educated workers (cadres) and the not properly education workers (non-cadres). There is no crossing between the two and the cadres are given privileges that the non-cadres are not regardless of their actual job title or task (Hofstede, 1993, p. 84-85). In Holland, they manage by consensus (Hofstede, 1993, p. 85). China has many smaller, family run businesses and because of this, many times the manager and the owner are the same. They tend to be more specialized and less global, and most of the decisions are made by the most dominant member of the family that owns the business. They are very thrifty when it comes to cost and spending and apply Confucian values on money. Their management system is very lacking of modern business management practices (Hofstede, 1993, p. 86). In short, all these comparisons can be summed up by saying that all companies everywhere have a concept of management, but what it means and how it’s practiced is different around the world (Hofstede, 1993, p. 88-89). So, if