Skip to main content

The World and You

Today, more and more people find themselves living in a foreign country. Be it a temporary state or a more permanent situation (as for myself); regardless, the world is becoming more global and multi-cultural. Or is it? And what exactly is culture? These are some of the questions that is being answered in Geert Hofstede’s cultural research, which now spans five decades. The book is a goldmine for people who are puzzled by culture clashes, and want to increase their understanding of cultural behavior. And who isn’t puzzled by cultural enigmas these days? No matter where you live, you just have to turn on the TV or head down to your local market or restaurant, and you will be exposed to foreign culture.

Cultures and Organizations: Software for the Mind, Third Edition
It turns out that the environment where we grew up ingrains eternal values in us. These values can be analyzed and measured, with averages calculated per country to quantify regional differences. This is exactly what Geert Hofstede has been doing since the sixties.

This book has personally helped me to straighten out two types of question marks; questions relating to why I sometimes feel out-of-place in my new country, and questions relating to how international conflicts play out.

The research identifies six dimensions, where countries are ranked:

  • Power distance
  • Individualism
  • Masculinity
  • Uncertainty avoidance
  • Long-term versus short-term orientation
  • Subjective well-being (happiness)

For me personally, moving from Sweden to Israel, I can empirically verify Hofstede’s data that the greatest differences between the countries are in “uncertainty avoidance” and “masculinity”. Israelis are fighting the inherent uncertainty of life, while Swedes generally accept uncertainty. A trivial example of this, is that during my wife’s pregnancy we have had numerous medical examination and ultrasounds, more than I can count; while the Swedish pregnancy exams are counted on the fingers of one hand. The fact that Sweden is labeled as a more “feminine” country than Israel has implications, on many levels including personal, family, gender, sex, education, consumption, workplace, politics and religion.

I highly recommend anyone to read this book. And especially if you find yourself living abroad, you owe it to yourself to understand why your new life is so strange. There is logic behind it.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOWTO: Fix a Broken Laptop Lid for $1

A few months ago my laptop lid's hinges gave up and my lid kept falling over. I will show you how I fixed the problem in five minutes by using materials for $1. But first some background info. At first, I assumed there would be a quick and simple fix to this common laptop problem. My laptop is an Evo N800v. HP has bought Compaq since I purchased the computer so that's where I'm supposed to turn for help. I was kind of startled to hear that HP support wanted $500 for fixing the broken hinges - presumably they intended to replace the entire lid. Obviously, shelling out $500 for fixing a 6 year old laptop is not the way to go, so I started to look for alternative solutions. First, I disassembled the laptop numerous times, trying to make the hinges more sturdy (that's spelled S-U-P-E-R-G-L-U-E). Anyway, that didn't help. Option number two was to do something similar to what user xrobevansx did on instructables.com . Basically he bought a lid support in a hardware store...
19 comments
Read more

HOWTO: GTD with Google Docs & PocketMod

Take control of your unwieldy to do-list by combining Google Docs and PocketMod. With the system described here you will always be ready to take notes, and never run the risk of losing an idea! Update (July 30, 2009): Now using a Google Docs template. I use a subset of GTD (" Getting Things Done ") by having a digital copy of my next actions, sorted by context (@Home, @Office, @Shopping, @Computer, etc.). This lets me easily look up what I need to do, depending on where I am. However, a digital copy is not very useful by itself, since it is not accessible when I am offline. Putting it in my PDA is not ideal either, since the overhead of adding a new note is too big (turning on the device, opening the right application, having it recognize my handwriting). That's why I print out my to-do list on paper once a week and carry it in my pocket. It's the ideal way of accessing and editing tasks. Before I print out a new list I spend a minute or two copying the edits from my...
5 comments
Read more

Reading on Paper vs. on Screen

One of the basic premises behind FeedJournal is that it's better to read text on paper than on a screen. While it might not sound like a bold assumption, it still is an assumption and as such worth to examine deeper. Today, office workers and many other professionals are required to focus their eyes on a computer screen during most of their work day. Many of them continue to use the computer at home. FeedJournal was created with many goals in mind; one of them is to release you from the screen while enabling you to read the content you love. You shouldn't have to spend more time reading off a screen, just because you want to access fresh and relevant content. Recent research has found that reading a longer text on paper is 25% faster than reading the same text on a computer screen. At the same time, reading comprehension and article overview are improved. Although screen resolutions have increased and font rendering technologies such as ClearType make it much easier to rea...
11 comments
Read more