2.1 Strengths and Limitations Hofstede stated that the cultural dimensions can be used to investigate national preferences. It is able explain the difference in culture different countries using various cultural dimensions. In olden times, there was so little work on culture. Cultural differences among countries were not being concerned as much as current days. International businesses were just adapting themselves to the local environment. In recent times, due to more economies opened up to the world, so many businesses are entering the international arena and are facing difficulties. Most of these difficulties are related to management failure and could be led to cultural issues that exist in the workplace. Hoftstede’s …show more content…
One common critic is that, the work of Hofstede assumes the domestic population as a whole like a homogenous population. However, the fact is that, most nations are made up of different ethnic units with different attributes. Hence, referring to the Hofstede’s findings will eventually cause the character of individuals being neglected and not accessed. As a result, the importance of community is being ignored as focus is put on the nation as a whole. Another limitation is that, cultures are not necessarily bounded by borders. In recent research, Martin (1992) mentioned that cultures actually are fragmented across groups and national lines which oppose the findings of Hofstede that evaluate cultural differences by nations. Also, according to Jones (2007), today’s economy is changing at a rapid rate and it was claimed that, Hofstede’s findings were a little too old to be of any modern value at current era. However, Hodstede countered commenting that, cross cultural outcomes were based on centuries of indoctrination and there is support that culture will not change …show more content…
In the 21st century, with the rising effects of globalisation being felt, many would think that managing cross-cultural teams would be a walk in the park. However, these Chinese managers are finding it hard to manage their Brazilian counterparts. As a matter of fact, a survey conducted by the Michael Page International recruitment firm for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo found out that out of 500 Brazilians executives who are employed by Chinese or European companies, an astonishing 42% quit their jobs within one year of employment. It is difficult to manage cross-cultural issues even though the different cultures are studied beforehand. According to Buergi and Oertig (2006) one difficulty in managing a cross-cultural workforce is Leadership challenges. When management from China manage Brazilian employees, they are aware about the difference in culture and are trained to handle the issues. However, not everything goes according to script; in China, there are no labour protection rules and there are no trade unions to bargain for the better interest of the workers and when faced with these situations in Brazil, many Chinese managers did not know how to handle the