Hofstede's Four Cultural Differences

America inspired the French, by their political, economical and intellectual causes. Each country had no vote in their

There are many cultural differences, however, in my opinion those that have the most importance attached while doing business, are the way they determine authority, the fact that negotiations are something they believe should be a hard fought battle, trust being something very important because reputation sells your products not how good a product you produce, and personal relationships are of major importance. When deciding who to put someone in charge you need to know

This paper will focus on the many elements and dimensions of France and the affect it has on the business that takes place locally and internationally. There will be constant comparisons and contrasts between France and the United States of America taking place throughout this entire research article. I will focus on how the elements and dimensions of the culture separately are adapted by the locals and integrated into everyday life and business. I will also give insight on how to conduct business in France for other countries, mainly the United States, by talking about the countries imports and exports and

In today’s society, the United States has a culture full of arts, architecture, and cuisine. Since the United States is a huge melting pot, much of our arts, architecture, and cuisine, and architecture have influence from many different nations, especially in Europe. It’s hard to imagine the United States without first knowing about the influence of the French art, architecture, and cuisine.

The American culture focuses more on the individual.  Typical Americans always want to be independent.  Traditionally, they never appreciate anything that they have, are selfish, and ignorant to other cultures.  On the other

French concepts are all over America. Everyone who lives here experiences French elements in their daily life. The root of these French influences come from when the French immigrated here hundreds of years ago. The city with the most French influence is New Orleans. New Orleans adopted many traditions and customs from the French. This is due to it once being France’s territory. Even today, New Orleans still has many French qualities,

In what ways are American and French secularism different? American secularism is very open minded about expression of religion in terms of dress, beard, hair, etc. French takes opposite approach by excluding any kind of religious symbolism in public places supported by gov’t. In America it’s all about individualism.

Food is a very important in France. They don’t eat fast food as much as Americans. After meals they tend to talk and linger while Americans do that mostly before they finish eating. It is said that in France they eat like kings, lords, and then servants for dinner. While in America our bigger meals are often at dinner. Dessert is really common while in America for example, I rarely eat dessert more than once a week. French drink wine often, but not to get intoxicated. They normally drink it with their meals and the purchasing of alcohol age is 18. This is different from America where consumption and purchasing power is age 21. My perspective is France sounds like it has better

There are many cultural differences between the United States and France. Some of these are simply social and others are cultural. Hofstede’s Value Dimensions can be used to highlight the differences between the cultures. Individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, power distance, and long-term vs short-term orientation are all characteristics that differ between France and the United States.

Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture are power distance, individualism v collectivism, masculinity v femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term v short-term time orientation. In the film the five dimensions are present, in the dimension of power distance it clear with the powerful positions that all the characters have within their professional lives. The way they live and own lavish houses leads to believe that they don’t believe they are equals to everyone else because of their status. Most of the couples demand respect and expect not to be question in their motives, which is a higher power context. Next is individualism versus collectivism, in

     France, which is the largest nation in Western Europe, is a presidential republic. France is a very important nation in Europe and it continues to be involved in contemporary policy issues. Helping the world as one of the great trading nations, France is a very important trading partner with the United States. Not only is France important to the United States, they are also important to countries all over the world. Their abundance of both mineral and agricultural resources make them a very important supplier of products all over the world. I chose to report on France because it is an interesting county and I wanted to learn more about it.

In this paper I am going to concentrate on comparing and contrasting how America and France’s economic and political policies choices combined with their cultural and historic backgrounds helped their current place on the word stage. It is undoubted that the United States and France are two of the strongest and most competitive countries in the world. Although they have almost the same economic system and same concept, they still have very different current situations which are closely bound up with their historic backgrounds and political choices. Through this paper I am going to discuss this topic through several sections.

The United States and China boast the two largest economies in the world but, despite this fact, these two countries have very little in common. At first glance, this may seem very obvious to most people but, what exactly is it that makes these two countries so different? How is it that such different perspectives and approaches can both lead to great success? Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture are an attempt to answer these questions and more. Dr. Geert Hofstede, studied employees of the computer firm IBM in over fifty different countries. When he examined his findings he found “clear patterns of similarity and difference along the four dimensions” (Manktelow, Jackson Edwards, Eyre, Cook and Khan, n.d.). The fact that he focused his research on solely IBM employees allowed him to eliminate company culture as a differentiating factor and “attribute those patterns to national and social differences” (n.d.). He used his findings to originally identify four dimensions, later expanded to six, that could “distinguish one culture from another” (n.d.). The six dimensions all on a scale from 0 to 100 are:

The third dimension is MAS, where masculinity cultures such as Japan, Austria, Venezuela value achievement and success; whereas femininity cultures such as Sweden and Norway stress caring for others, interpersonal relationships and quality of life. Regarding the MAS index, Crotts and Erdmann (2000) found visitors from less masculine cultures to be less critical and forgiving when evaluating travel services compared with visitors from more masculine cultures, who are more assertive and judgmental and evaluate airline service quality less positively and are less loyal to airlines.

The French are all about preserving their culture and being individualized. They often take great pride in the French products and the French style, and believe in keeping the French culture “pure” so they also limit the amount of foreign goods that are being imported. But during the World Wars the French began to allow foreigners to immigrate into France to take jobs due to an increase in job shortages. The immigration from the World Wars added to the diversity of the French culture. Ever since the 1850’s there has been a steady flow of immigration into France, and now nine percent of the French population is made up of immigrants (Gofen 62). The break down of the cultures in France is eighty-five percent of the French population is Roman