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HOFSTEDE INTERVIEW

COMS246 Paper One: Hofstede Interview

Yuna Yokota
Kansas University

HOFSTEDE INTERVIEW
Hofstede Interview
As I am an exchange student from Japan in the US I had some experience about having
difficulty in understanding and being used to the culture which I am not used to. When I am
taking the class in Japan we usually listen to the lecture and take notes. In contrast, here in the
US many students raise their hands and ask question and if it is more they argue with their
teacher. In Japan arguing with our teacher is the last thing to happen in the class. This shows
the value of the culture. Value is what a group of people define as good or bad or what it
regards as important. Geert Hofstede (1928- ) who is a social psychologist has categorized
the cultural value patterns, by doing a survey to over 100,000 IBM employee in 40 countries.
Since then we could define the cultures with 6 taxonomies. I can examine where Japan will
be categorized. But how about the other country which I do not know about a lot. Are they
similar or differ with Japan? By interviewing and categorizing the interview to Hofstedes
dimensions I could get new information about that country and even my own country that I
did not know.
One of the Hofstedes dimension is masculinity femininity dimension. This is an extent to
which people value, achievement and nurturance. They consider about the gender role too.
Masculinity culture tend to seek value in achievement, ambition, materials, and wealth. Also
they have distinct gender roles. In contrast, femininity culture tend to seek value in service to
others and sympathy for unfortunate. And they have fluid gender roles. In other words we

HOFSTEDE INTERVIEW
could say that what motivates people, wanting to be best (masculinity) or liking what you do
(femininity). For example we have Japan for high masculinity culture and Russia for high
femininity culture. U.S. is around the middle of the two.
As I wanted to know about different culture that I do not know a lot about I interviewed a
girl who is from Singapore, who is a roommate of my friend. Her name is Ng Shi Qi and she
is an exchange student here. I met with her at Kansas Union on September 30th during the
lunchtime to interview her. We took contact with line an application. When we start the
interview I realized that she was really friendly and interview went smoothly. Even the
interview went smoothly, it was like chatting so we took more time than I expected. It took
about 1 hour. But by interviewing like chatting I think I could be able to add more
information and answers for each questions. Also she asked me about how Japan is like. Thus,
I could compare the two culture and do the interview at the same time.
I interviewed her about education in Singapore. First I asked about Singapore. Singapore is
a country which is in Asia. It is a tiny island with only one small city. It is hot through the
year, around 27 to 30 Celsius degree, so they usually wear T-shirts, sandals, and shorts.
Because it is an island there are lot of seafood. And because it is a multicultural country they
have many types of food all over Asia. They have 4 main race. Chinese, Malay, Indians
(Tamil), and Caucasians (French, Spanish, etc. from European country). Each race has
different culture. And I move to the basic part of the education, they enter Kindergarten when

HOFSTEDE INTERVIEW
they were 3 and spend 4 year there. Next they go to primary school for 6year, high school
(secondary school) for 4years. And they divide in to junior college and polytechnic. If they
chose junior college they have 3 years and they just study, but if they chose polytechnic they
have 2 years and they learn specific technics. And finally university is 4years. Also boys has
to go to army for 2 years from 18. They have to learn English and one more language (mother
tongue) at high school.
In the interview I had realized that there are things related to the dimension. Seeing
Singapore from masculinity femininity dimension which I mentioned before. According to
the graph which is provided on The Hofstede Center we could say it is in the middle
between masculinity and femininity a little more on the femininity side. We could show the
evidence from the interview. She said that they do not have much difference between male
and female to get a chance to get into the school. Also they have equal opportunity to study.
Which is showing the fluid gender role, femininity cultures characteristic. In contrast, they
tend to go to university to get better job and getter job has good payment. And also male has
to go to the army for 2 years from 18. This is a characteristic of masculinity, which seek the
value in achievement and wealth also the distinct gender role. But because they do not have
obvious gender roles other than the military service and inequality between male and female.
Singapore seems to be middle of it. Considering with the dimension Singapore is a middle
masculinity culture. So she seems to have been experienced the middle masculinity culture.

HOFSTEDE INTERVIEW
And also because the femininity characteristic is stronger than the masculinity characteristic,
it tend to be more femininity than the middle.

I learned that the culture of Singapore and Japan differ in many dimension. The most
different dimension is uncertainty avoidance. When Singapore has low uncertainty avoidance
Japan has high uncertainty avoidance. I think that the reason why Singapore has low
uncertainty avoidance is because it is a multi-cultural country. Because they have many
culture by their own so they tend to welcome the new things. In contrast, Japan tend to seek a
value to an old things so we tend to avoid new things. And diffing the culture help us to
understand each culture and this bring us to have a smooth communication between the two
different cultures. But we have to remember that dimension is not a personal thing, it is a
group thing so we cannot assume that the person who we talk to is having the same
dimension as the countries dimension that Hofstedes dimension shows.