[Blog Project Assignment 2] Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory / Ra Yushin

 

 Through Hofstede's theory of cultural dimension, Korea, the United States, and China were compared. In terms of power distance, China, Korea, and the United States appeared in order. This shows that the members of China recognize the difference in power and that Chinese society is a society with a clear hierarchical order. Among the three countries, the United States was found to be oriented to the horizontality of power. In terms of individualism, the United States is the highest, and Korea and China show similar numbers. There is a difference of 70, which is the largest in the country-specific figures. In terms of masculinty, China and the US show similar numbers, while Korea shows the smallest. Through this, it can be seen that the US and Chinese society give higher value to success, wealth, and power acquisition than Korean society. In the area of ​​uncertainty avoidance, Korea was the highest at 86, followed by the US and China. This figure shows the tendency of Korean society to avoid radical change more than Chinese and American societies. In terms of Long Term Orientation, Korea showed the highest figure, followed by China. The United States has the lowest number, with more differences than Korea and China. Through this, it can be seen that Korea and China value future-oriented thinking more than the United States. In terms of indulgence, the US has the highest index, while China and Korea have similarly low figures. Through this, it can be confirmed that the US is more free to pursue individual desires than Chinese and Korean society.

  Of the six aspects, it is the Confucian values ​​that have particularly affected the power distance of each country. Confucian values ​​value courtesy. In particular, it values ​​order in social relations and order in family relations. Representatively, it refers to courtesy between parents and children, order between kings and subordinates, rules to be observed between husband and wife, order between adults and children, and trust between friends. In other words, it emphasizes the order of vertical relations within the organization. This is an idea that could affect the power distance that Hofstede said. This is because Confucian thought can rationalize power unequally distributed within a social organization or family.

  China has the highest power distance among the three countries as it is most influenced by Confucian ideology. China, the starting point of Confucian thought, was the most developed among the three countries. In the case of Korea, the ideology of running a country before modernization was a Confucian ideology, so it was higher than that of the United States. On the other hand, compared to Korea and China, the US has a lower power distance index because it pursues a horizontal relationship within the organization. You can also find these features in language. In Korean and Chinese, there are words that call people older and younger than themselves among brothers and sisters, whereas in the United States, these words do not exist. There may be other cultural and political factors affecting the power distance, but Confucian values ​​are one of the factors that influenced the power distance of Korea and China.