in his book culture's consequences the dutch cultural psychologist guilt hofstede brought the term organizational culture into common use in his original work with ibm hofstede identified four cultural dimensions that represent different ways that different national cultures work in later work with colleagues he extended this to six cultural dimensions in the 1970s hofstede studied workers from 50 countries all within the large ibm organization he felt that working within one organization that had a strong culture he would be able to isolate national characteristics from organizational culture in his original work he identified four dimensions around which national culture is formed later working with collaborators he identified another one and then another to make six cultural dimensions which we're going to look at the first of these is power distance indexed the extent to which people are likely to accept external hierarchical power and control over their lives that's a high index or the extent to which they're likely to question its legitimacy the second dimension is individualism versus collectivism the extent to which individuals prioritize their own needs the individualistic end of the spectrum or the needs of the society or the organization within which they work the collectivist end the third dimension was masculinity versus femininity this is about the extent to which national cultures tend to prioritize a striving and a competition towards material success and goals like that versus their desire for more welfare and social oriented goals i think now we might prefer to use a term like assertive versus passive goal orientation to me the connotations of masculine and feminine set up a form of determinism around gender stereotypes which is unhelpful in the modern world next is uncertainty avoidance index this is about the extent to which a society will tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity a low index or prefers stability control and certainty a high index then we have a long-term versus a short-term time orientation this is the extent to which a society tends to look forward and embrace change or to focus in a narrow way on a near time perspective and to have a greater focus on ritual and habit and tradition and finally we have indulgence versus restraint and this dimension is about the extent to which individuals value their freedoms and are prepared and desire to do what they choose versus the extent to which individuals might if you like subordinate their desires and preferences in favor of conforming to a set of societal norms the global picture of cultural styles and where each country each region sits on each of these dimensions is rich and complex it's far too simplistic to characterize a nation as having a single position on one or even all of these indices because each region within the nation will have its own variety but there do tend to be prevailing national styles in many countries and there's another layer of complexity that hofstede didn't consider which is for example the case of a french woman who has lived in japan for many years working for the same u.s headquartered company are her cultural norms french or japanese or american i suspect the answer is yes they are clearly these national cultural preferences exist within the organizations where we work and to the extent that there are different national cultural types within any one organization this can provide us with challenges and opportunities the challenges of cultural clashes and the difficulty we have in understanding one another's cultural norms and therefore the behaviors they generate but also the huge opportunity to work with people who are different to us who think in different ways and therefore increase the diversity of our thinking giving us access to more effective problem solving and more robust decision making these national cultural differences also create a challenge for us in creating a strong and consistent organizational culture a strong organizational culture that is rooted in the national culture of the headquarters organization can create clashes with subsidiary organizations that are located in very different national cultures traditionally this is why a lot of large multinational corporations have preferred to use expatriate leaders and directors and senior managers to lead and direct their subsidiary organizations and this can work well where these expatriate leaders are very culturally aware and sensitive to the needs of the countries within which they sit of course if those leaders are less culturally aware they can create massive local difficulties to avoid the cultural clashes within the subsidiaries the answer is obvious homegrown talent who share the cultural norms of the workers that work with them however all this does is it pushes the cultural clash upwards from within the subsidiary organization to between the leaders of the subsidiary organizations and the headquarters organization there is no right answer poor cultural leadership within a local organization can have hugely adverse possibly even disastrous effects but cultural clashes at the top of an organization can lead to miscommunications and organizational dysfunctionality the only solution is for leaders and managers to become more culturally aware and if that reflects your experience please do take a look at our series of videos on cross cultural teams please do give a thumbs up if you like this video there's loads more great management courses content to come so please do subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss any of it i look forward to seeing you in the next video and in the meantime keep learning