Final examination essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Final examination - Essay Example stede’s dimensions for comparative cross-cultural studies, and they have led to many useful explanations of cross-cultural differences in consumer behavior. The main reason that may have rendered Hofstede’s useful is that these dimensions are independent. Only two dimensions are interdependent, and these are collectivism and power distance. Together with national wealth, Hofstede’s dimensions can be used to explain more than half of the differences in consumer behavior. Tompenaars’ dimensions do not show results that are as consistent as the Hofstede dimensions. The word cultura is a Latin word closely related to cultus which means cult or worship. Therefore, culture may be considered as the result of human action. According to Hofstede (2001), national culture is the broadest level of culture that a person can be a member of. People are shaped by their national culture from their early childhood through beliefs, values and assumptions inherent in it. The theory of cultural dimensions is central to the study of consumer behavior across the world especially in analyzing the effect of culture on consumer behavior. The Theory of Cultural Dimensions was introduced in 1980 by Geert Hofstede. This theory was based on his study of cultural solutions to organizational problems involving 117,000 employees at IBM in 40 countries. According to Hofstede (2001), the individualism dimension describes the relations between the individual and the collectivity that exists in a given society. His dimension represents a society that has loose ties between ind ividuals. Individualistic countries stress the importance of human independence, and individual liberty and self-reliance. Individualists promote the unrestricted exercise o individual goals and desires. Mooij (2010) terms power distance as the degree to which less influential members of the public admit that power is unevenly distributed. In the world, there are both high-power and low-power distance cultures.