Cultural dimensions and Dilemmas

1. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.1
Topic 2: Cultural dimensions and Dilemmas
The value-orientation concept
Kluckholn & Strodtbeck define value
orientations as
• being complex principles
Three assumptions:
• Universal nature of value orientations
• Many ways of solving problems
• Preferences in choosing solutions

2. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.2
Five orientations
Five problems common to all human
groupings
• Human nature orientation (goodness or badness
of human nature)
• Man-nature orientation (harmony-with-
nature/mastery-over-nature)
• Time orientation (past/present/future)
• Activity orientation (being, being-in-becoming
and doing)
• Relational orientation (Man’s relation to other men)

3. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.3
Trompenaars’dimensions
• Trompenaars goes beyond the framework of
anthropology/ sociology
• He shows how the following dimensions affect
the process of managing cultures:
- relations with other people
- relations with time
- relations with nature
Trompenaars standpoint:
- Each culture has its own specific solutions for
universal problems

4. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.4
Seven dimensions
• Relations to the others
– Universalism vs Particularism (Society Vs.
personal)
– Individualism vs collectivism (Self Vs. Group)
– Neutral vs affective relationships (Emotion-
related)
– Specific vs diffuse relationships (Specific Vs
Integrated)
– Achievement versus ascription (doing vs. being)
• Relation to time: Sequential/Synchronic
• Relation to the environment: Inner vs outer
directed.

5. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.5
Relations to the others
• Universalism/Particularism: societal versus
personal obligation
• Individualism/Collectivism (Communitarianism):
personal versus group goals
• Neutral/Affective relationships: emotional
orientation
• Specific/Diffuse relationships: contract versus
contact
• Achievement/Ascription: legitimating power
and status

6. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.6
Management dilemmas & dimensions
In practice dilemmas are typically between:
1. Universalism-Particularism
• Legal contracts and loose interpretations
• Low cost strategies or premium strategy
• Extending rules or discovering exceptions
2. Individualism- Collectivism
(Communitarianism)
• Profit or market share strategy
• Originating ideas or refining useful products

7. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.7
Management’s dilemmas & dimensions
(Continued)
3. Neutral or Affectivity
• Long pauses or frequent interruptions
• Being professional or engaged
4. Specific-Diffuse
• Data and codification or concepts and models
• Being results-oriented or process- oriented
5. Achieved or ascribed status
• Pay for performance or vindication for worth
• Head-hunting or developing in-house

8. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.8
Management’s dilemmas & dimensions
(Continued)
6. Sequential or synchronic time
• Highly rational, standardized production or Just-
in-time production
• Keeping to schedule or being easily distracted
7. Inner or outer directed
• Strategically oriented or fusion oriented
• Dauntless entrepreneur or public benefactor

9. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.9
Trompenaars versus Hofstede dimensions
• The nature of Trompenaars’ dimensions and
Hofstede dimensions is very different in
approach:
• Trompenaars:
- cultures are more like circles with ‘preferred arcs
joined together’
- seen as a ‘model-to-learn-with’
• Hofstede:
- linear forms where cultures are positioned high
or low or in the middle.
- seeking ‘the perfect model’

10. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.10
Reconciling cultural dilemmas
• The dilemmas in each of the seven
dimensions require some kind of resolution.
• Trompenaars’ methodology aims to reconcile
what appear to be opposing values within the
dimensions.
• Cultures are seen as ‘dancing’ from one
preferred end of a dimension to another.

11. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.11
How does reconciliation work?
• The process of reconciliation leads to a dynamic
equilibrium between seemingly opposed values,
which make up a dilemma.
• There are different alternatives:
1. processing: a dilemma is made into two
processes.
2. contextualising: what is text and what is context.
3. sequencing: every process of reconciliation is a
sequence.
4. synergizing: adding the word through between the
two opposite alternative orientations.

12. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.12
Conclusion Topic 2
• The Trompenaars’ dimensions reflect the value-
orientation concept proposed by Kluckholn and
Strodtbeck.
• The cross-cultural manager has to face universal
dilemmas, but the way they are resolved is
culturally determined.
• Rather than the dimensions themselves, it is the
concept of reconciliation which distinguishes the
work of Trompenaars (and Hampden-Turner)
from that of Hofstede.

13. Browaeys and Price, Understanding Cross-cultural Management, 1st Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2009Slide 5.13
Class Exercise
• In groups, discuss real cases/encounters
where cultures clash and how the
reconciliation process takes place.