Cross -Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cross -Culture - Essay Example Managers therefore have to understand the cultural differences in order to operate effectively in the tough business environment. Managers are required to motivate their employees and they can only do that if they know the differences between cultures of employees. Awareness of cultural differences is a must in order to manage employees from different background. For example Japanese and Indian working together will have different needs like in Japan lunch is the main meal of the day while in India dinner is the main meal. Now a manager has to decide upon the lunch timings so that both the needs of Japanese and Indian employees can be satisfied. This is why cross cultural training is important both for employees and for managers. Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory gives six dimensions of values across which people differ with each other. One of those dimensions is the Power Distance Index or PDI. Power distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. PDI represents inequality in an organization or in a country. Culture that has low PDI is more democratic and people are considered equal. Culture that has high PDI is autocratic and people accept inequality. Brazil has a 69 on PDI which is very high. The world average on PDI is 55 which mean that Brazil has higher PDI as compared to the average. This means that Brazil is a relatively autocratic society with greater inequalities. Brazil’s PDI is very similar to Latin American countries. In Brazil people accept that organizational hierarchies exist and also accept lower pays relative to supervisors. A tradition of giving in to the authority exists in the country. Another dimension of Hofstede’s theory is individuality versus collectivism. It is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. In