Analisis del estimador

Culture could be thought of as the sum total of the ideas, customs, traditions and social behaviour of a group of people in a society. Whilst some societies may have various subcultures within them, others could be dominated by a main-stream culture (Miroshnik, 2002). The interaction between culture and religion in a society varies depending on factors such as its homogeneity. For example, some societies identify themselves by their religion; resulting in a strong interaction between religion and cultural customs and traditions (Barth, 1998; Wilkins and Ouchi, 1983). Undoubtedly culture impacts on the way businesses think and operate; with consequences for CSR implementation and practices. Hofstede conducted a cross-cultural study of organisations and presented five main cultural dimensions associated with work- related values using IBM employees as an example (Hofstede, 2005). The cultural dimensions were power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term vs. short-term orientation. Hofstede argued that culture is a ‘collective programming of the mind’; identifying those who belong and those who do not. Cultural markers are nationality, gender, generation, ethnicity, occupation and organisation providing recognition of those who belong and those who do not for all societies. Importantly, he suggested that cultures have rituals, which are socially important since they signify accepted cultural behaviours, and concluded that cultural differences were not arbitrary, and were probable since each culture has diverse norms, values, ways of thinking and cultural choices based on

various dynamics. The work of Hofstede has been suggested to condense complex cultural issues and be readily applied to a variety of parallel cultural dimensions (Froholdt and Knusden, 2007).

It is important to note that Hofstede’s work on culture is regarded as controversial and has been criticised from a range of perspectives. Critics have pointed out that Hofstede has excluded several variables, for example high vs. low context (Hall, 1976), and universalism vs. particularism (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997). Furthermore, Hofstede’s deterministic approach has been criticised for inhibiting the recognition of other identities, and that people relate more to age and gender (Baskerville, 2003; Gooderham & Nordhaug, 2001; Harrisson & McKinnon, 1999; McSweeney, 2002). According to Johns (2007), some of the more pertinent issues that have been raised in relation to Hofstede’s work include relevancy (Schwartz, 1999), cultural homogeneity (Nasif et al., 1991; Redpath, 1997), national divisions (McSweeney, 2002), political influences (Sondergaard, 1994), one company approach (Olie, 1995; Sondergaard, 1994), and statistical approach (Dorfman and Howell, 1988). While Hofstede has responded to many of these criticisms in his own work (Hofstede, 1998), opinion remains divided. In addition, other scholars have argued that the problem is in the oversimplification of Hofstede’s theory, where for example, bipolarisation and stereotyping might present a very limited, black and white view of the world (Sondergaard, 1994; Harvey, 1997; Bhimani, 1999; Williamson, 2002; Froholdt & Knusden, 2007). Still, despite its limitations, Hofstede’s research is widely used among scholars and practitioners (Furrer, 2000; Sondergaard, 1994). The present study therefore draws on Hofstede’s approach to understand culture in Saudi Arabia, but not without caution and accepting that is limited.

Understanding the role of culture is important for my study, since, without a proper consideration of its relevance in Saudi Arabia, there is the danger of impeding CSR implementation by failing to understand the influence of both national and corporate cultures. It is, therefore, vital that CSR should take into consideration the cultural expectations of diverse stakeholders within specific national cultures (Fernandes, 2013). The cultural context of a business has been found to impact on the way in which CSR is understood and implemented, and can be a reason for a particular type of implementation (Jamali and Mirshak, 2007). As Hofstede (2005) argued what is considered rational by one culture is not necessarily so for another. He is supported by Fernandes (2013) who argues that cultural values can change over time and what one culture holds as valuable may not be the case for other cultures. However it is important to recognise that culture cannot be assumed to be static and unchangeable and that stereotyping and a simplistic bipolar approach may mean a loss of insight and understanding (Harvey, 1997; Osland and Bird 2000; McSweeney, 2002; Froholdt and Knusden, 2007).

Studies have suggested that the culture in Saudi Arabia is “fairly homogeneous”, and has business and legal implications because of the overlap and interaction between culture and faith in a way that infiltrates all decisions and impacts on society and businesses (Idris, 2007). In this context, Cassell and Black (2012) applied Hofstede’s model to Saudi Arabia and found that culture undeniably influences business and legal environments. For example, with regards to the power distance aspect of Hofstede’s model, the study found that authority is respected, inequality can be acceptable, individuals in power are often privileged and the decision making process is often centralised. While for the individualism vs. collectivism aspect, the study found

that Saudi Arabia has a strong focus on tradition with work mostly being collaborative not competitive and that “Time is in God’s hands and delays are the result of fate” (Cassell and Black, 2012). These findings along with other cultural aspects of Saudi society must be considered when thinking about CSR initiatives as they have potential implications on the implementation of CSR programmes. For example, the centralised nature of the decision making process in business operations is an important factor, which influences the types of CSR work of a particular business. Aspects of this discussion will be elaborated upon in the next section.