谨以此篇小report 献给和我一起上international management 的同学 谢谢你们
谢谢我们的老师 Philip Rose
1. Introduction
This report is going to analysis the movie Gung Ho relative to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Then give suggestions on what things can American’ learn from the Japanese way of business management, and what can the Japanese learn from the American style of Business management.
2. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
2.1 High and Low power distance business culture
According to Hofstede’s (1986) power distance dimension which focused on how a society deals with the fact that people are unequal in physical and intellectual capability, high power distance cultures were found in countries that put more emphasis on the development of personal ability than the power and wealth, while the low power distance cultures pay more attention to the restraint forces of power. For example in the beginning of the movie, in
Workers in American can have more flexibility in their workplaces, they can dance, listen to music when they are working (showed in the movie), and rank differences ignore in certain situations, for example the manager Hunt was the manager in the factory but outside the work, Hunt and his workers are friends. Those indicate that American is a low power distance culture.
2.2 Individual and collective business culture
Hofstede (1986), states that in individualistic societies, the ties between the individuals were loose and individual achievement and freedom were highly valued. In societies where collectivism was emphasized, people integrated into strong groups and everyone was supposed to look after the interest of his or her collective.
There are many scenes in the movie show the individual and collective business culture differences between
2.3 Masculine and Feminine business culture
Hofstede (1986) suggests that in masculine cultures, social gender roles are significant different, tough values like achievement, assertiveness and competition, determined cultural ideals. In feminine cultures, sex roles were less sharply distinguished. We can see in the movie the role Japanese men and women played in life are totally different, men work outside and women take care of the house and children at home. In American little differentiation was made between men and women. We can found out in the scene that when the men are going to have a meeting after dinner in Kenji’s home, the wife of Japanese men left right away, but Hunt’s girl friend stay still and had no willing to leave. It shows that
2.4 Low and High uncertainty avoidance business culture
Hofstede (1986) says that uncertainty avoidance dimension measured the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by unknown or uncertain situation. The movie shows that
3. Recommendation
In my opinion, proper collectivism is good for American because it can make workers more loyal to the company which will improve the efficiency. And Japanese should give more free to their workers, instructions, orders should give as less as possible, create a low uncertain avoidance environment can inspire ideas and innovation. However, when we learn something from different countries or cultures, it is important that we should integrate the theory with our local practice or fact.
4. References
Movie:《Gung Ho》
Book: Hofstede (1986),”The Cultural relativity of Organizational Practices and Theories”
