Hofstede's cultural dimension australia vs vietnam (management Essay

Hofstede's cultural dimension australia vs vietnam (management subject) - Essay Example Hofstede says that culture â€Å"is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the member of one group or category of people from another†(Tjosvoid and Leung, 2003, p 31) Hofstede has captured cultural values in terms of cultural dimensions which are broad attitudes of the people in a society concerned with identification of evil, good, dirty and clean, moral and immoral, irrational and rational.(Tjosvoid and Leung, 2003, p 31) The work of Hofstede stemming out of a lengthy survey of employees of the well known IBM multinational spread over some 70 countries and his later work have categorised the cultural dimensions in five values of Power Distance (PD) , Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), Individualism and Collectivism (IDV), Masculinity and Feminity (MAS) and Long Term v Short Term Orientation (LTO). (Hofstede, 2001) The five values need to be explained before examining the case of Boost juice organisation of Australia entering Vietnam.Power Distance: Classified as high and low power distance, it signifies the extent to which a person can exercise power against the others. It applies to power equation with the Government, employer and with the family members. If the distance is high, power is considered as concentrated in a powerful minority and if low, it is decentralised meaning that people in the society enjoy freedom. According to Hofstede, some cultures are characterized by high power distance and some others by low power distance. In high power distance, individuals accept power as part of society by which superiors consider their subordinates different from themselves and vice versa. Countries such as India, Africa, Brazil, Singapore, Greece, Venezuela, Mexico and the Philippines have high power equation and people there think power and authority are facts of life. Similarly, countries su ch as Austria, Finland, Denmark, Norway, the United States, New Zealand