I’m going to be discussing Hofstede’s concept of Power Distance and how this theory is portrayed in China. According to Hofstede Insights (n. d.) China has a score of 80 on the Power Distance scale. This scale is the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. China’s score represents the concept that their society believes that inequalities amongst people are acceptable. According to Hofstede Insights (n. d.) the subordinate-superior relationship tends to be polarized and there is no defense against power abuse by superiors. This means that workers should not have aspirations beyond their rank. I find this interesting because I believe this is the opposite in the United States. In the United States, Power Distance is 40 (Hofstede Insights, n. d.). We mostly believe that everyone is equal along with there being many laws and regulations in place to make sure employers and organizations are not abusing their employees.
I believe that factories in China are a good representation of China’s score on the Power Distance scale. What I mean by this is that abuse in factories is not uncommon in China and many of the workers either have to deal with the abuse or will be without a job. According to Barboza (2008) some Chinese companies routinely shortchange their employees on wages, withhold health benefits and expose their workers to dangerous machinery and harmful chemicals, like lead, cadmium, and mercury. Workers are usually very poor whereas the companies that are paying for the goods they are producing are very wealthy such as Wal-Mart, Disney, and Dell (Barboza, 2008). China’s view on power distance is also demonstrated in factories by their management’s lack of honesty. According to Barboza (2008) these factories practice unfair labor procedures such as child labor, forcing employees to work 16-hour days on fast-moving assembly lines, and paying workers less than minimum wage. A study by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences revealed that factory workers lose or break about 40,000 fingers on the job every year (Barboza, 2008).
This is an image of a garment factory in Bangladesh after the building had collapsed (due to hazardous working conditions) and injured many workers in 2013.
I believe that something that leaders in America need to remember when interacting with organizations from China is that Chinese leaders do not mind having inequality between the powerful and less powerful within their culture (Pennsylvania State University, 2018). If an organization from the United States is going to partner with an organization from China they need to make sure that employees at both companies are being treated fairly. Since the United States’ Power Distance score is 40, this means that Americans do not necessarily share this same view as the Chinese do. Companies that partner with Chinese organizations could really risk gaining a bad reputation if their partner company is abusing their workers. For example, in 2013 a factory building in Bangladesh collapsed and killed more than 1,000 workers. This was the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry (Yardley, 2013). Companies that were having their clothes made in this factory such as H&M, Wal-Mart, and Gap, pledged to improve the safety of workers in their factories (Abrams, 2016). Publicity about how organizations are not treating their workers fairly could result in a loss of profit for the American company due to customers perceiving them to be unethical.
Finally, I have a personal example of Power Distance that I have witnessed over the years. Part of my family is Chinese and so I have been able to experience the culture and values throughout my life. My mother’s brother married a Chinese woman and so whenever I would visit my uncle I would be able to interact with his wife’s family as well. Her family immigrated from China to the United States and so their culture is very much traditional Chinese but over the years they have incorporated more American values. From what I have seen is that they have a big power distance when it comes to the adults and their kids. Pretty much the adults have the only say when it comes to decision making. While in the majority of cultures parents make decisions for their kids, in Chinese culture there isn’t much consideration of what the kids want. What this shows is the same concept of how there is an inequality between those who are powerful and less powerful. My aunt’s brother and his wife (both from China) tell their kids what to do without caring about what their kids’ opinions/wants are, while in America it seems like parents take into consideration what their kids want and let them make more decisions on their own. Of course this isn’t the same as leaders in factory workers abusing their workers, but it shows that leaders or people with more authority in China and in the Chinese culture make decisions without regard to less powerful peoples’ opinions or regard.
Hofstede’s concept of Power Distance is very important to remember when doing business with people in China. Their views reflect the idea that there are some people who are powerful and some people who aren’t. Leaders shouldn’t be offended when Chinese leaders want a bureaucracy instead of an ambiguous social structure when doing business (Pennsylvania State University, 2018). In Chinese culture it is more acceptable to have someone in charge rather than multiple people equally in charge.
References
Abrams, Rachel. (2016). Retailers Like H&M and Walmart Fall Short of Pledges to Overseas Workers. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/business/international/top-retailers-fall-short-of-commitments-to-overseas-workers.html
Barboza, David. (2008). In Chinese Factories, Lost Fingers and Low Pay. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/business/worldbusiness/05sweatshop.html
China. (n. d.). Hofstede Insights. Retrieved from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country/china/
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2018). OLEAD 410 Lesson 10: Asia: Focus on China and India. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1942644/modules/items/24935431
United States. (n. d). Hofstede Insights. Retrieved from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/the-usa/
Yardley, Jim. (2013). Report on Deadly Factory Collapse in Bangladesh Finds Widespread Blame. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/report-on-bangladesh-building-collapse-finds-widespread-blame.html?module=inline
Firsthand accounts and observations pertaining to power distance, provide a better understanding of the Chinese culture and real world examples that help support China’s high value (80) on Hofstede’ s 6 dimensions of culture (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2015). With all of your personal familial interactions, have you had the chance to observe activities that would show an aversion to privacy and a propensity for collectivism with open freedom of information? The reason that I ask is that while reviewing China’s additional results on Hofstede’ s 6 dimensions of culture, I was surprised to notice how extremely low they scored on the level of Individualism (20) (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2015). However, based on all current topics in the news, maybe this makes sense?
Moran, Abramson, and Moran (2014) noted that although there have been major improvements in policies, “foreign investors and managers are still concerned about inadequate protection of intellectual property and human rights, rapid price inflation, and corruption” (p. 416). In fact, this has been the topic of concern in the past several years, especially with dealings with the US. Specifically, President Trump has recently decided to “impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of imports from China as punishment for the alleged theft of American intellectual property” (Clark & Hagan, 2018, para. 1). However, intellectual property (IP) along with privacy in any form, as interpreted by western culture, is an unfamiliar concept historically in China. For instance, personal privacy such as yearly income, cost of housing, and many other topics considered protected from the general public in the US would be openly shared in China (Moran, et. al, 2014, p. 428; Tam, 2018).
This lack of understanding and adherence to privacy can be identified by the Chinese culture:
1. Privacy translates to a “bad word”: “Chinese are bent on dismissing privacy as a bad thing, and their zeal might have something to do with its negative connotation. In Chinese, “si yen” means seclusion and implies secrecy” (Tam, 2018, para. 7).
2. Privacy is forbidden for children and rejected amongst families: It is common for most Chinese people to live with large extended families. In these families, all information is openly shared and the children, as the lowest level in the family unit, are given absolutely no privacy as this allows the parents and other elders to have control in raising the children. “Ultimately, they believe the concept of privacy conflicts with traditional Chinese family values” (Tam, 2018, para. 9).
3. Collectivism ranks higher than individualism: On the level of Individualism, China scored a 20, in comparison to the US that had a 91, and the world with a score of 45.17. (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2015; PSU 2018, p. 3). Countries with very low levels of individualism as noted by Hofstede (2011) among other characteristics can be identified as “People are born into extended families or clans which protect them in exchange for loyalty” and use “Languages in which the word “I” is avoided” (p. 11).
Based on the above information, it is no wonder that the United States is number 1 in the world in support of á “commitment to fostering and protecting innovation through legal rights” while China ranks right in the middle at 25 based on in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International IP Index (Clark & Hagan, 2018). Thus, when doing business in China, foreigners, especially those from the US, need to be aware that the disregard for the protection of IP may be less about corruption and more about culture.
References:
Clark, G., & Hagan, S. (2018, March 22). What’s intellectual property and does China steal it? Bloomberg.co. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-22/what-s-intellectual-property-and-does-china-steal-it-quicktake
Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online readings in psychology and culture, 2(1), 8. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=orpc
Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2015). 6 dimensions of culture [Data file]. Retrieved from https://geerthofstede.com/research-and-vsm/dimension-data-matrix/
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences (9th ed.). Oxford,UK: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-71735-9
Pennsylvania State University (2018). OLEAD 410 Lesson 10: Asia: Focus on China and India. Retrieved October 23, 2018 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1942644/modules/items/24935429
Tam, L. (2018, April 2). Why privacy is an alien concept in Chinese culture. South China Morning Post. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=orpc