Clasificación de las dislalias

This research will mainly be about the Arab culture looking to determine the main variables different research discussed in relation to international business from a trust perspective. Because the relationship between national culture and organisational culture may have an impact on performance in an international context, foreign managers need to shape the organisational culture of the multinational company, in such a way to be valid with the national culture where the company operates (Miroshnik, 2002; Witt, 2008). Organisational culture is more about practices and this section is about defining variables related to values that affect people’s perceptions and beliefs which influence their work environment. Therefore, more focus will be about the cultural relationship from various models as seen by different scholars in the next review:

Hofstede, Trompenaars, Hall and others have been motived by the model developed by Kluckholn and Strodtbeck in 1961 with six cultural orientations questioning human’s relation to nature, relationship between people, nature of human activity, conception of space, and time orientation (Hills, 2002). For instance, Hofstede’s framework developed in 1980 about work values based on a survey targeting a big American multinational corporation (IBM) where Hofstede extracted his first four dimensions covering 40 different countries. These dimensions are: individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity. Hofstede’s framework has received critics about the nature of the surveys conducted by IBM designed to assess their employees’ satisfaction not having a theoretical base (Javidan et al., 2006). Among the technical critics Hofstede’s dimensions

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received was about some items that were related to several dimensions in addition to the dimensions that were randomly separated (Javidan et al., 2006). However Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have been validated in other works (Hofstede, 2011). Hofstede’s dimension “Uncertainty avoidance” has been criticised more than the other dimensions given the fact that the definition of right and wrong used in this dimension are coming from the West and these characteristics are not strongly emphasized in other non-Western cultures (Newman and Nollen, 1996; Hofstede, 2011). In addition to being criticised for the sample of his data coming from a multinational corporation, more critics to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions were highlighted in Sower and Sower’s (2004) paper where the ethical aspect is missing in the national culture dimensions supporting their point that judging values with respect to cultural differences is a moral element not to be neglected.

Trompeenars’s dimensions is another cultural study about value orientations where 28 countries took part of the survey about his seven value dimensions derived from Kluckholn and Strodtbeck’s work, whereas initial cross-cultural data collected by Hofstede was in more than 50 countries worldwide represented probably the largest matched-sample cross-national database available anywhere at that time (Hofstede, 2011; Hills, 2002). Trompeenars’s first five dimensions, named universalism/particularism, individualism/collectivism, neutral/affective, specific/diffuse and achievement/ascription, consider relationships between people; his other two dimensions were more oriented towards time and environment, same as in Kluckholn and Strodtbeck’s dimensions (French et al., 2001). Another two dimensions have been extracted from Trompenaars’ data analysis named loyal involvement/utilitarian and conservatism/egalitarian which are seen to be a refinement of Hofstede’s dimensions of individualism/collectivism and power distance.

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Another group of scholars House et al. (2004) focused on the global leadership and organisational behaviour effectiveness (GLOBE) research which is about identifying relationship between leadership, national culture and organisational culture whereas in regard to the measurement of cultures, Hofstede developed cultural dimensions as ways of describing, measuring, comparing cultures and examining the inter-relationships among national culture, organisational culture and organisational relationships using measures of culture and leadership (Elsaid and Elsaid, 2012). The GLOBE’s study involved 62 different societies, which resulted in extending the four dimensions of Hofstede, into nine dimensions, where the two dimensions of institutional collectivism and in-group collectivism are Hofstede’s collectivism/individualism, then comes power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and the other two dimensions of gender egalitarianism and assertiveness are a reconceptualised dimension of Hofstede masculinity/femininity (Venaik and Brewer, 2010; Brewer and Venaik, 2011).

GLOBE measured societal culture using nine cultural attributes and for each dimension, two elements have been compared between “as is” and “should be” in a way to distinguish between what is the current situation and the desire to change reflected in “should be” (Venaik and Brewer, 2010). Beside few differences between Hofstede and the GLOBE’s dimensions, rejected by Javidan et al. (2006), the GLOBE has replicated Hofstede’s dimensions with new names such as the idea of the desired and the desirable mentioned in Hofstede’s book (1984) was used in the GLOBE’s project using the “as is” and “should be” as well as the societal collectivism and in-group collectivism which is similar to collectivism and individualism. To extract the similarities between the two scholars, the GLOBE’s dimensions are defined in Table 2.3:1.

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Table 2.3:1 The GLOBE Variables’ Description

Cultural Attributes

Variable Name Definition

Uncertainty Avoidance The extent to which a society, organisation, or group relies on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events.

Power Distance The degree to which members of a collective expect power to be distributed equally.

Societal Collectivism The degree to which societal institutional and organisational practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.

In-group Collectivism The degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organisations or families.

Gender Egalitarianism The degree to which the collective minimizes gender inequality.

Assertiveness The degree to which individuals are assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their relationships with others.

Future Orientation

The extent to which individuals engage in future-oriented behaviours such as delaying gratification, planning, and investing in the future.

Humane Orientation

The degree to which a collective encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others.

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Performance Orientation

The degree to which a collective encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence.

Source: Adapted from Elsaid and Elsaid (2012)

In this spirit, Xiumei and Jinying (2011)’s paper compared Hofstede’s and the GLOBE’s dimensions measuring the cultural distance between China and the USA and among their findings, it was noted that main differences between Hofstede and the GLOBE scores was at the uncertainty avoidance level with totally opposite scores and this is another aspect of confusion. The authors consider the GLOBE to be more accurate providing a clearer understanding of the national culture whereas Hofstede is linking culture to beliefs and values such as in his dimensions individualism/collectivism and femininity/masculinity which are not individual characteristics but refer to how values are distributed among groups (Hofstede, 2011). Both Hofstede and the GLOBE are measuring countries’ abilities through their culture and comparing the GLOBE’s dimensions with Hofstede’s, similarities were noticed in some of their dimensions such as their definition of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, collectivism/individualism and masculinity/femininity (Zeng et al, 2013). The GLOBE considered the “as is” and “should be” for each dimension to measure the gap between the two whereas Hofstede has chosen the low and high/small and large scales to determine to which culture each respondent belong to. The GLOBE’s measurements for both practices and values using the “as is” and “should be” is an interesting approach to determine interviewees’ perceived values as it questions the attitudes of people in other countries (Brewer and Venaik, 2011). The other critic about the GLOBE’s study is that it failed to integrate individuals’ responses into a societal level of analysis. However and oppositely to Javidan et al. (2006), Brewer and Venaik (2011) agreed that the GLOBE study could be considered as a complement

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to Hofstede’s work. Table 2.3:2 shows where Hofstede’s dimensions apply in organisations (Hofstede, 2011).

Table 2.3:2 Application of Hofstede’s Dimensions in Organisations

Dimension How it is foreseen in organisations

Small power distance

Hierarchy means inequality of roles, established for convenience. Subordinates expect to be consulted.

Large power distance

Hierarchy means existent inequality. Subordinated expect to be told what to do. Weak uncertainty

avoidance

Individuals have no problem changing jobs. Individuals dislike rule whether written or verbal. Strong uncertainty

avoidance

Individuals would stay in the same job even if they don’t like. There is an emotional need for rules even if they do not obey to it. Individualism Transgression of norms leads to guilt feelings.

Languages in which the word “I” is indispensable. Task prevails over relationship.

Collectivism Transgression of norms leads to shame feelings. Language in which the word “I” is avoided. Relationship prevails over task.

Femininity Balance between family and work. Sympathy for the weak.

Masculinity Work prevails over family. Admiration for the strong.

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