Chapter 2

Cultural Frameworks: Understanding Differences in Employee Attitudes and Behavior

Multiple-Choice Questions

1. Which of the following accurately describes a cultural framework?
   1. It attempts to summarize and classify a set of norms, behavior, customs, and traditions common to a given society
   2. It is of little use and provides extremely little practical value for managers
   3. Most have no limitations, so they can be used routinely
   4. It attempts to summarize and classify a set of norms and languages
2. Hofstede’s work resulted in clustering countries by cultural values across bipolar cultural dimensions as follows:
   1. Outer-directed versus inner-directed, neutral versus emotional, specific versus diffuse, universalism versus particularism
   2. Individualism–collectivism, masculinity–femininity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance
   3. Gender egalitarianism, future orientation, performance orientation, humane orientation
   4. Gender egalitarianism, future orientation, performance orientation, uncertainty avoidance
3. Which of the following are characteristics associated with people in “feminine” cultures?
   1. Greater value placed on assertive acquisition of material success
   2. Work environments are stressful, but have less careerism
   3. Relations between labor and management are conflict prone
   4. Gender equality is important as is caring for the less fortunate
4. Which of the following are characteristics associated with cultures where power distance is small?
   1. Managers are less open and trusting with subordinates
   2. Conspicuous displays of power are viewed negatively
   3. The organization’s structure has many management layers
   4. Authority is held within a small group in a centralized manner
5. In cultures where individualistic values hold sway, a common belief is that people should take responsibility for themselves. In such a culture, which of the following is most likely to be observed?
   1. A sense of autonomy
   2. Personal achievement is not valued
   3. Personal privacy is unimportant
   4. A sense of community
6. Which of the following statements does not accurately describe Hofstede’s culture maps?
   1. Countries that tend to cluster together may have specific combinations of cultural values that managers should consider carefully
   2. These maps identify countries whose scores cluster together in one of four quadrants that reflect single, unique cultural dimensions
   3. Most nations in the family quadrant (large power distance combined with weak uncertainty avoidance) are Asian
   4. The well-oiled machine quadrant (small power distance combined with strong uncertainty avoidance) is populated by Germanic countries
7. Hofstede’s fifth cultural dimension (long-term versus short-term orientation) was added after his original framework was developed. Which of the following statements accurately describes this fifth dimension?
   1. It evolved out of his work on Asian societies
   2. It distinguishes cultures with a forward-looking view (long term) from cultures concerned with past and present (short term)
   3. The connection between these two dimensions and his original dimensions is simple and straightforward
   4. Both a and b
8. Which of the following is not considered to be a weakness or drawback of Hofstede’s framework?
   1. The framework is missing a variety of countries so some areas of the world are underrepresented
   2. The framework ignores differences that exist between countries within a specific cluster or quadrant
   3. The framework has an extensive history and has been updated
   4. It does not account for differences that may exist within nations
9. Which of the following is not cited as a reason for differences between Hofstede’s and Trompenaars’s culture frameworks?
   1. Methodological differences
   2. How each defined terms on survey items
   3. The importance of the framework
   4. When the data were collected
10. Which of the following is a way in which companies and international managers can move beyond the “sophisticated stereotyping” that a superficial understanding of cultures might produce?
    1. Approach other cultures with the idea of testing such stereotypes and find cultural mentors to help
    2. Select people with compassion for international positions
    3. Stress home-country training and assess inconsistent information
    4. Select people with extremely high IQs
11. Which of the following criticisms have been directed at the GLOBE study?
    1. The GLOBE results offer a more nuanced and sophisticated perspective
    2. The GLOBE findings can be directly compared with Hofstede’s
    3. It is not completely clear what GLOBE was actually measuring
    4. All of the above
12. Culture plays a role in all of the following aspects of business except which one?
    1. Influences corporate strategies and HR practices
    2. Managerial promotions in the home country
    3. Impacts entrepreneurship rates
    4. Helps companies decide which foreign markets to enter
13. Which of the following is an important implication regarding how culture influences perceptions of people and events?
    1. Culture operates like an automatic filtering process
    2. Culture filters are used to slowly and carefully form perceptions of coworkers and business partners
    3. Culture filters allow people to step back and understand the filters of others
    4. Culture understanding is of no use to most managers
14. Which of the following does not accurately describe Robert Levine’s work on the connection between culture and time?
    1. He found that Americans carefully monitor time and define “late” in more strict ways than other countries
    2. If national differences can be found in how formal institutions like banks measure time (clock accuracy), other perceptual differences about time are likely
    3. His interest was piqued when he taught in Germany after teaching in the United States and found students’ response to the time class started and ended to be quite different
    4. He found that Mexicans carefully monitor time and define “late” in more strict ways than other countries
15. Researchers who distinguish between monochronic and polychronic orientations toward time have found that:
    1. In cultures with a monochronic orientation, schedules tend to be fluid
    2. The monochronic perspective characterizes the United States and some European nations
    3. Cultures with a polychronic orientation have a less fluid perspective on time
    4. The monochronic perspective characterizes the United States, Mexico, and some South American nations
16. Which of the following is characteristic of monochronic time?
    1. Task oriented
    2. Externally focused
    3. Plans change often
    4. Focuses on people
17. Which of the following is characteristic of polychronic time?
    1. Process oriented
    2. Internally focused
    3. Prefers longer-term relations
    4. Difficult to understand
18. Which of the following statements accurately describes the work attitude known as organizational commitment?
    1. Little is known about how it plays out across cultures
    2. It is less well studied than job satisfaction
    3. It is identical to the work attitude known as “work commitment”
    4. It is about loyalty to the firm and willingness to help the company
19. Which of the following is an indicator of how culture shapes workers’ views of leaders?
    1. In the United States leadership is seen in terms of motivating others to achieve company goals and successfully influencing people
    2. In Germany engineers tend to be held in lower regard than executive leaders
    3. Leaders having answers for subordinates’ questions are far less important in Japan and Indonesia than in the United States or Sweden
    4. All managers are held in the high regard in the United States because they are considered to be leaders
20. Which of the following best describes how effective international mangers can develop an accurate understanding of various cultures?
    1. Engage with other cultures and seek help from cultural mentors
    2. Engage with other cultures and carefully analyze information that appears inconsistent with stereotypes
    3. Develop mental maps and seek help from cultural mentors
    4. Engage with other cultures, carefully analyze information that appears inconsistent with stereotypes, develop mental maps, and seek help from cultural mentors

True or False Questions

1. Information about people and events is used selectively when forming perceptions, focusing on attributes most consistent with an individual’s cultural tendencies.
2. The cultural importance of power distance almost never shapes the perceptions of managers.
3. If used judiciously, cultural frameworks can prove helpful.
4. The three best known cultural frameworks are those developed by Hofstede, Trompenaars, and the GLOBE team.
5. Culture shapes how we perceive the world and those around us in a variety of ways.
6. Culture is the most important factor that influences work commitment.
7. In the United States leadership is commonly seen in terms of successfully motivating people, while some cultures, such as Germany, see management’s purpose as distributing work.
8. Because culture can have roots in historical events, geography, shared traditions, economic developments, language, and religion, among other things, it is constant and unchanging.
9. Differences among managers regarding their learning about culture can be attributed to both differences in skills and level of exposure to the local culture.
10. In some countries like Thailand, respect for elders and emotional reserve are cultural values that are maintained even by the younger generations.
11. The most comprehensive and far-reaching efforts to identify cultural dimensions and use them to classify countries is seen in the work of Trompenaars.
12. Hofstede’s most recent modification to his framework was the introduction of a fifth cultural dimension, long-term versus short-term orientation.
13. According to Hofstede’s framework, in cultures where uncertainty avoidance is large, people are more likely to feel threatened by risk and ambiguity.
14. Cultural frameworks can be seductive in that they can encourage management tendencies to rely on time-saving analytical shortcuts.
15. International managers sometimes feel a desperate need for tools that can help sort out culture, but only so long as those tools do not oversimplify matters.

Short-Answer Questions

1. Do you consider your own orientation toward time to be more monochronic or polychronic? On what specific factors do you base your determination?
2. What challenges might a manager who has a monochronic orientation toward time expect to face in an international business context—specifically in a polychronic culture?
3. How does culture impact key work attitudes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and how individuals view leadership?
4. List Hofstede’s four original cultural dimension pairs.
5. How might an international manager use the cultural maps Hofstede devised based on the scores for each of his cultural dimensions?
6. Trompenaars identified several bipolar dimensions that form the basis of his cultural framework. List the four pairs.
7. Which of the nine GLOBE cultural dimensions are considered to align with or be comparable to Hofstede’s dimensions?
8. What are the primary criticisms of the GLOBE model or cultural framework? How does the GLOBE team rebut these criticisms?
9. We know that culture impacts people’s perception about people, events, and time. What are important implications for managers and employees for any two of these three?
10. Researchers are careful to distinguish between work commitment and organizational commitment. What is the difference and why would this be important?

Essay Questions

1. Describe the basic cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede and GLOBE and identify their similarities, differences, and limitations. Provide three examples of how international managers might use the information from these cultural dimensions to be more effective.
2. “Sophisticated stereotyping” can produce or lead to a superficial understanding of cultures. Provide specific suggestions for how companies and international managers can go beyond such limitations these stereotypes foster to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the different cultures in which they operate.