Developing Cross-Cultural Capability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Developing Cross-Cultural Capability - Essay Example Despite the development made by Hall, the ideas were still discreet. Later, Hoftstede (1980; 2000) brought about actual developments in the idea of cross-cultural management. On one hand, five distinct cultural dimensions were identified by Hofstede (1991; 1993) that sets two countries apart. On the other hand, seven similar cultural dimensions were identified by Trompenaars (1993). The five of the seven common cultural dimensions as identified by the research scholars are individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity versus femininity, power distance and long-term versus short-term orientation (Hofstede, 1980; 2000). In the due course of working as an HR head for the company, the researcher has realized that the company is planning to take its first step in the international field and has no prior experiences of business expansions across borders. In addition, majority of the managers who have worked or are still working either belong to the European Union co untries or UK. Given the aforementioned fact, for a business expanding into countries like, Nigeria, China and Brazil, the five cultural dimensions may pose severe challenges as well as present with prospective opportunities, as far as the theory of cross-cultural management is concerned. For example, it has been witnessed in many empirical researches that majority of the European companies find it very hard to understand the aspect of collectivism followed by Chinese employees (Cheng, Jiang and Riley, 2003; Chen, Tsui and Farh, 2002).