Cultural comparison

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a

tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

Chapter 5: Discussion

5.1 Cultural comparison

Figure 8: Hofstede cultural dimensions, Comparison of Hungary and China. Source: https://geert-hofstede.com/

As One can see on Figure 6, between the two culture there are big differences in

Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance, Power distance, moderate difference in Long Term Orientation and similarities in Masculinity and Indulgence.

Power Distance: Hungary scores low on this dimension (score of 46) which means that the following characterises the Hungarian style: Being independent, hierarchy for convenience only, equal rights, superiors accessible, coaching leader, management facilitates and empowers. Power is decentralized and managers count on the experience of their team members. Employees expect to be consulted. Control is disliked and attitude towards

‧

managers are informal and on first name basis. Communication is direct and participative.

(Geert-hofstede)

Hungarians respect the human, not the title. Chinese culture more hierarchical and Chinese Managers have hard time accept, that they don’t get the respect automatically. On the contrary, if they don’t show themselves worthy of the title, Hungarians will only include them in the processes when it’s really necessary or ordered, as it happened when one of the higher level managers couldn’t speak proper English. He always talked in Chinese and made someone else translate to him. This resulted despise toward him in the Hungarian colleagues even though he had high rank in the organization.

China sits in the higher rankings of PDI – i.e. a society that believes that inequalities amongst people are acceptable. The subordinate-superior relationship tends to be polarized and there is no defence against power abuse by superiors. Individuals are influenced by formal authority and sanctions and are in general optimistic about people’s capacity for leadership and initiative. People should not have aspirations beyond their rank. (Geert- Hofstede) I think the expatriate system also shows the Chinese way of obeying the orders from above, without questioning it.

The difference in this dimension could cause problems and even cultural shock. I think this was one of the main reason both side felt disrespected.

Individualism: Hungary, with a score of 80 is an Individualist society. This means there is a high preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. In Individualist societies offence causes guilt and a loss of self-esteem, the employer/employee relationship is a contract based

‧

on mutual advantage, hiring and promotion decisions are supposed to be based on merit only, management is the management of individuals. (Geert- Hofstede) At a score of 20 China is a highly collectivist culture where people act in the interests of the group and not necessarily of themselves. In-group considerations affect hiring and promotions with closer in-groups (such as family) are getting preferential treatment. Employee commitment to the

organization (but not necessarily to the people in the organization) is low. Whereas

relationships with colleagues are cooperative for in-groups they are cold or even hostile to out-groups. Personal relationships prevail over task and company. (Geert- Hofstede) At Huawei Technologies Hungary Chinese colleagues showed the traits of the highly collectivist culture, except that they were highly devoted to the organisation too. It’s the results of the Huawei’s unique corporate culture and core values.

The cultural differences among this dimension was the most prevalent at the meetings: as mentioned in the results, Hungarians like short, focused meetings, where only those are present who are involved with the usually specific topic. They delegate the task and solve it independently, rarely ask for help. While Chinese meeting were long, because they discussed many topics among people who were not always involved, to gain their insight and opinion.

Masculinity: both Hungary and China is a Masculine society. In Masculine countries people

“live in order to work”, managers are expected to be decisive and assertive, the emphasis is on equity, competition and performance and conflicts are resolved by fighting them out. The need to ensure success can be exemplified by the fact that many Chinese will sacrifice family and leisure priorities to work. Service people (such as hairdressers) will provide services until very late at night. Leisure time is not so important. The migrated farmer

‧

workers will leave their families behind in faraway places in order to obtain better work and pay in the cities. Another example is that Chinese students care very much about their exam scores and ranking as this is the main criteria to achieve success or not. (Geerte Hofstede) In Huawei’s prospect, this is one of the aspect which helped the company to be rather

successful. Since both culture treasure and value hard work, both sides put extra effort to get the results despite the cultural differences and communication problems.

Uncertainty Avoidance: Hungary scores 82 on this dimension and thus has a preference for avoiding uncertainty. Countries exhibiting high Uncertainty Avoidance maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour and are intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas. In these cultures, there is an emotional need for rules (even if the rules never seem to work) time is money, people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard, precision and punctuality are the norm, innovation may be resisted, security is an important element in individual

motivation (Geerte Hofstede). This aspect root in Hungarian history. Being in the middle of Europe, Hungary was the field of many battles and wars. In the recent centuries,

unfortunately, always on the losing side. This resulted the mindset that if we don’t know what will happen, then it will be bad. That’s why so many Hungarian employees are so frustrated by the Chinese leadership culture and this lead high fluctuation. China has a low score on Uncertainty Avoidance. Truth may be relative though in the immediate social

circles there is concern for Truth with a capital T and rules (but not necessarily laws) abound.

None the less, adherence to laws and rules may be flexible to suit the actual situation and pragmatism is a fact of life. The Chinese are comfortable with ambiguity; the Chinese language is full of ambiguous meanings that can be difficult for Western people to follow.

‧

Chinese are adaptable and entrepreneurial. At the time of writing the majority (70% -80%) of Chinese businesses tend to be small to medium sized and family owned. (Geerte Hofstede) Long Term Orientation: Hungary is shown to be a pragmatic country with a high score of 58 on this dimension. In societies with a pragmatic orientation, people believe that truth

depends very much on situation, context and time. They show an ability to adapt traditions easily to changed conditions, a strong propensity to save and invest, thriftiness, and

perseverance in achieving results. China has even higher score, which means he is even pragmatic. (Geert Hofstede)

This is also one of the reasons how the Huawei could be so successful in Hungary. Huawei is a very pragmatic company and sets very high goals and Hungarians are stubborn enough to achieve those goals.

Indulgence: Hungary and China both have a low score on this dimension. Societies with a low score in this dimension have a tendency to cynicism and pessimism. Also, in contrast to Indulgent societies, Restrained societies do not put much emphasis on leisure time and control the gratification of their desires. People with this orientation have the perception that their actions are Restrained by social norms and feel that indulging themselves is somewhat wrong. (Geert Hofstede)

That was one of the reason both nationalities have no problem with overtime work.

Dongli Zhang and Sarah Jinhui Wu in their article (2014) found that the values of the power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance indexes had changed since the Hofstede’s study. I found that even though on local level the power distance truly decreased at Chinese colleagues, it was still much more relevant in their behaviour than at Non-Chinese

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a

tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

counterparts. That was also part of the Huawei’s corporate culture that they are much more interested in the co-workers opinion and accept input than a more hierarchical company.

Even if the collectivism in the Chinese culture decreased it’s still relatively high compare to the very individualistic Hungarian culture according to my observations.

Even if the last few decades the Chinese cultural dimesions changed due to the opening up and economic reform, development of social security systems, as well as inflow of foreign capital and ideology, there are still big differences from the Hungarian culture. But since both culture are very success and result oriented, the cooperation is usualyy successful despite the communicational problems and cultural differences.