family-owned carbon steel company from Germany has extended its business to Hong Kong. The owners

bought a small traditional Chinese firm and decided to copy the successful structure they had developed at

home. This structure was headed by three general managers who equally shared the responsibilities for the

business activities of the firm. The consequences were as follows:

1. Now the Chinese employees were assigned tasks by people they have never seen before and whom they did

not understand. Many misunderstandings occurred, some were quite costly.

2. The employees back in Europe were only concerned with whether the assigned tasks were completed and did

not consider any other obligations to the Chinese employees, such as taking care of the relationships with the

Chinese government, banks, etc.

3. Eventually, the local employees became frustrated

and were ready to leave the company. The result was

that the management model was changed again and

a single managing director of the subsidiary was

accountable for all business activities in Hong Kong.

Task

a. Which cultural dimension of Hofstede best

describes the situation in the case? (2 marks)

b. Explain the identified cultural dimension in the

case? (4 marks)

c. How does the identified dimension explained in (a)

differ from power distance and individualism vs.

collectivism?

(6 marks)

d. State the position of Hofstede's study on Schein's

concept of culture. (2 marks)

e. Discuss any 2 ongoing critiques of Hofstede's

study.