Geert Hofstede is a Dutch social psychologist and anthropologist who has studied interactions between cultures. He has received numerous awards around the world for his intercultural research. One of his most notable achievements is the establishment of cultural dimension theory, which provides a systematic framework for assessing the differences between nations and cultures.
The theory is based on the idea that values can be assigned to six different cultural dimensions. These are power distance index equality versus inequality, collectivism versus individualism, uncertainty avoidance versus uncertainty tolerance, masculinity versus femininity, temporal orientation and enjoyment versus restriction. Hofstede collected most of his data on world cultural values through surveys conducted by IBM, a US technology and consulting firm. The structure of its dimension can be seen as a diagram at the end of this post.
Hofstede points out that the cultural dimensions are only a framework for better assessing a particular culture and thus providing better guidance for decision-making. There are other factors that must be taken into account, such as personality, family history and personal wealth. The proposed dimensions cannot predict individual behavior and do not take into account individual personalities.
To this theory I will share and compare my experiences which I gained during my stay and reflect with the help of the Hofstede dimensions.
I would like to delve into the theory of long term orientation first, because here in Finland I have had a close look at the approach with this dimension.
With this dimension, it describes how each society must maintain a certain connection to its own past and at the same time deal with the challenges of the present and the future, with societies setting different priorities for these two existential goals. For instance, normative societies that perform poorly in this dimension prefer to maintain time-honoured traditions and norms, while viewing social changes with suspicion. By contrast, those with a highly valued culture take a more pragmatic approach: they promote thrift and effort in modern education as a means of preparing for the future. During my stay I certainly noticed and also gained practical experience how close the study here in Finland can be to practice. The Finnish education system sets high priorities to work practically close with companies and to internalize and strengthen the project work competences and team competences.
In this way you have a lot more experience to gain during your studies and you also have the opportunity to make contacts which can be very useful after your studies or for summer jobs. During my double degree on I had a lot of courses in which I had projects with Finnish companies.
For example, in my course capacity planning and control I got to understand the capacity control of a Finnish company and by making and maintaining contact and cooperation I gained valuable experience. In addition, there are other projects like the Hatchery project, or Sales competition which were all very instructive courses. Comparing this to the German educational system on how they prepare their students for the future is more theoretically based. We have one semester which equals to maximum of 6 months of a mandatory internship. This is the only time we are so close to work with a company and gain practical experience.
It would be better if we also had the opportunity to work so practically and often with companies, because this also goes down well in the CV and shows good knowledge.
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