Cultural Convergence Or Cultural Divergence?

With the cultural and economic interaction between China and other nations growing at arapid speed, views on the impact of globalization and subsequent cultural consequences differsubstantially. To examine whether there is lessening of cultural differences between China andGermany in the context of globalization, the study compares the work values of German andChinese employees. A replication study of Hofstede's IBM research was undertaken and cultural scores forChinese employees and German employees on five dimensions including power distance,individuality, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance, were obtained. Five hypotheses on thefive dimensions were put forward and tested by an independent samples t-test. In other words,the difference of scores for China and Germany on each dimension was compared to thedifference of scores for China and Germany found by Hofstede.The researched companies include CLAGE GmbH, a manufacturer of instant water heaterslocated in Luneburg, Germany and Dalian Branch of Ericsson Corporation, an multinationalcorporation in IT industry. Questionnaires of VSM 1994 were distributed to the Germanemployees and Chinese employees in these two companies respectively.Five hypotheses are partially supported. Analysis of the results indicates that culturaldifferences are on the decrease in respects of power distance, individuality, masculinity anduncertainty avoidance. In terms of long-term orientation, the cultural difference betweenChina and Germany remains. Causes of this diminishing trend were discussed. As Hofstedeestimates three cultural scores (PDI, IDV and UAI) for China, the other goal of this study is toobtain the new dimensional scores for China. It is fulfilled.Due to the small size of the Chinese and German samples, future studies should cover morerespondents of each researched nation.