I went to a talk recently by a consultant from BSG, where he talked about the Hofstede dimensions. It’s basically a measure of the collective personality of a country by giving the level of importance of five things: power distance (to what degree unequal power is accepted and/or expected), individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. I found the comparison between the Hofstede dimensions of different countries pretty fascinating.
This site gives more detailed information, including graphs for many countries (all the graphs below are from that site).
Here’s the chart for China:
Compare that to the United States:
You can sort of see how these scores apply: individuality is valued highly in the US, but very low in China, where the emphasis is on conforming. China also has a high power distance index (higher than the average in Asian countries, in fact). If you’ve ever visited China, you can see how this is reflected in real life: there are people living in extreme poverty, and then there are the rich in the cities that drive cars and have large houses. On the other hand, the difference is much less pronounced in the US, where more people fall in the middle.
Another example is Japan:
Masculinity and uncertainty avoidance are extremely high, compared to the average in Asia and the worldwide average. If you look at the rest of the charts, no other listed country has such a high masculinity index (most aren’t even close). That’s sort of in line with what I know of Japanese culture, although it’s kind of surprising that it’s so extreme. (Masculinity, in this context, is defined as the gap between men’s values and women’s values, in assertiveness and competitiveness.)
On the other hand, I would have expected China to have a higher masculinity than it actually does, since males are valued more than females, but China’s masculinity index (66) is actually fairly close to the United States’ masculinity index (62).
(Note: Keep in mind that these are all measures on the culture as a whole, not on any individual.)
One more thing to think about: immigrants not only have to deal with learning a new language, but in many cases, they also have to adjust to a huge cultural change. My parents often used the phrase “culture shock” when I was little, but I didn’t realize how much harder it was for them at the time. Seeing the huge difference between China’s graph and the United States’ graph really drives that point home.
So what do you find interesting in these numbers?
I can definitely see the uncertainty avoidance index for Japan. The distance they’re willing to go to avoid confrontation (uncertainty if you look at it in the right light) is phenomenal—at least from what I hear. It’s a bit surprising that China’s LTO numbers are noticeably higher than Japan’s.