Blog Project Assignment 2 : analysis of Hofstede’s variable

The four countries I have chosen in Hofstede Insight are Egypt, Mexico, and Korea, and finally the United Kingdom.

The reason why I chose these 4 countries based on my analysis is as follows.

1. I wanted to get the results of as many continental countries as possible. Of course, there are different cultures and different things between countries on the same continent, but I thought that the difference between different continents would be much greater, so I thought it would be easy to get different results.
2. After substituting countries, we chose countries that showed some differences in statistics. In order to find meaning in the analysis, we had to make a noticeable difference in the statistics.
3. I wanted to choose a country that many people knew, meeting the reasons for number 1 and 2. I thought that if there was an image that I would often think of when I spoke of the country, it would be more helpful to understand my analysis.

The above figure shows a graph of the four countries that I selected based on their respective areas. From now on, I will analyze the scores of countries in each area. I'm going to do an analysis of all six areas in the picture.

The first is Power Distance.
Power Distance is a score on how much members in the country embrace power inequality.
Mexico had the highest score of 81 in this regard, which means that people generally accept power inequality. In other words, it can be interpreted that inequality in power is very natural and widespread in the country. These parts are similar to those found in Mexico with 70 points.
Korea doesn't have a low score of 60 points. In fact, as a citizen of the Republic of Korea, I think the people of the Republic of Korea are somewhat receptive to power inequality.
Compared to these three countries, England got a very low score of 35. Britain thinks it is very unfair that power is unequal, and this idea is a very widespread social perception. It's a very progressive United Kingdom in this regard, but I think it's interesting that it's still a kingdom.

The second is Individualism.

This is an assessment of how individualized the members of the country are. 

Overall, Britain also received a very overwhelming score of 89 points. Britain is very individualistic compared to the other three countries. They focus more on the individual than on the community, and they learn to live their own lives. 

On the other hand, Egypt and Mexico scored relatively low, with 25 points and 30 points, respectively. These countries are more communistic than individualized.

Korea got the lowest score of 18. As I know, Korea is also very communistic. Especially, Korean students learn how to live together with two or more communities than alone from an early age. In Korea, the meaning of community is clearly much more important than in other countries. Nevertheless, recently, there has been some individualism in Korea. However, as Korean society is still collectivist, many people are critical of this recent trend.

The third area is Masculinity. 

If you interpret this area literally by gender, you will have difficulty understanding this analysis. The Masculinity described here is that the higher the score, the more competitive, the more successful the society is, and the lower the score, the more qualitative the quality of life.

In this part, I was able to classify the four countries into two sections. First of all, England and Mexico scored relatively high. These two countries show that society is relatively competitive and success-oriented. On the other hand, Egypt and Korea are far from success-oriented societies. I was quite interested in the result of Korea. I thought the Republic of Korea was a competitive and success-oriented country, but the statistics showed that it was the lowest score among the four countries.

The fourth area is Uncertificate Avoidance. This area means how uncomfortable the uncertainty is for members of the country in areas such as the future. 

From here, you can see that the people of Egypt, Mexico, and the Republic of Korea are feeling great anxiety.  All three countries scored more than 80 points. These countries tend to avoid uncertainty, and there can be a lot of conflicts, so more regulation is needed at the national level. 

On the other hand, England scored very low with 35 points. The British people have shown very low levels of disapproval and anxiety about uncertainty. I felt that there might be a connection with Individualism more than I thought about this area. Very individualistic British people will worry only about themselves, and this will help to reduce the anxiety about uncertainty as much as possible. The same is true of the other three countries.  The other way around, of course.

The fifth area is Long Term Orientation, which is an evaluation of how practical countries are.  The most interesting thing about this area is that all four of the countries I chose are taking on different aspects.

First of all, Korea showed a very interesting score of 100. It is very difficult to see the people of Korea fully leaning on their lives because they believe in such a practical and omnipotent god. I didn't know that my country, the Republic of Korea, would be overwhelming in this regard.

Britain stood out pretty well in other parts except this, but in this part it averaged 51 points. However, Mexico scored very low with 24 points, and Egypt scored close to zero with 7 points.

I was more shocked by Egypt's 7 points than Korea's 100. 

Egyptians are said to be very hard and prescriptive in their thoughts. No matter how much I think about it, I think there must be a religious influence. They seem to find it difficult to develop creative and practical methods at national, institutional, and normative levels.

The last area is Indulgence. 

This area evaluates how much people can control their emotions or desires. 

Mexico scored a very high 97 in this area. The Mexican people had very free and optimistic feelings about enjoying their lives. So they had no qualms about spending their leisure time and investing their time and money in it. In this regard, I was very impressed because it was very different from Mexico, which I knew as a background knowledge.

England also got a relatively high score of 69, which was similar to my expectation. I think the British people's optimism about life, while being an individualist, is enough to get these marks.

People in Korea scored very low at 29 points, but Egypt scored much lower at 4 points. These scores from Egypt made me think that Egypt is a very closed country. That's why I couldn't help but think about links to the areas above it. I have come to think that Egypt, which is not free from religion, is hard to hide its pessimism. 

After analyzing these various areas, I was curious about the correlation between each area. If I have a chance next time, I hope I can analyze that as well.