Cultural Impact

Cultural expectations impact everything — from the UX deliverables to team dynamics to working style to management style to how to conduct customer interviews — with the globalization of business, it’s important to understand how the cultures of your colleagues and managers affect their expectations and their way of interacting with you. In my graduate studies at Bentley University, I read a great book called Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, by Hofstede and Hofstede (2nd Edition — there’s now a 3rd, so I’ll put out an update once I read it!) — this article builds on and highlights what I’ve learned from the book as well as from working with international, multicultural, and remote teams.

I’ve always loved the idea of localizing content for a particular culture’s expectations, and analyzing where and why a site does or does not meet cultural expectations. Since then, I’ve had the exciting opportunity to work for an international company, Axway, and although you can learn how to interact with different cultures on-the-fly, it’s very helpful if you have a base to start from, as this impacts not only the working style of your colleagues (or customers!), but also their expectations from you.

As a UX designer and strategist, I've found that teams in higher uncertainty avoidance countries, such as France, Bulgaria and Romania, wanted more detail in their deliverables - storyboards, pixel-perfect mockups, interactive prototypes, every detail reviewed and iterated on with a group consensus - before they started coding, while teams in the US were comfortable going from low-fi rougher mockups and would just ask questions on the fly during the development cycle or make their own educated decisions. This aligns with European Union cultures being generally more risk-averse than the US. Whether you are working with colleagues or customers, it's important to know and meet their cultural expectations, to understand the differences in the way leaders and followers think, feel, and act in order to find a solution that works. As Hofstede found, in more egalitarian societies, where problems cannot be resolved by someone's show of power, it is important to be flexible in order to make progress.

Cultural Dimensions

There are six cultural dimensions: power distance (small to large), uncertainty avoidance, collectivism vs individualism, masculinity vs femininity, long-term vs short-term orientation, and indulgence vs restraint. For the purposes of this analysis, only the first four will be used.

Power Distance

Hofstede defines power distance as "the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally". In these countries, children are expected to be obedient towards their parents, students towards their teachers, and employees towards their bosses. There is a strong need for dependence on an authority figure. Children are looked after and not expected to experiment for themselves. Grown children are then expected to care for their aging parents. Learning is a teacher-centric activity, with the teacher defining the path. Students are not expected to contradict teachers, to debate - teachers are the absolute authority. In a low power-distance country, it is the opposite - students are expected to determine their own educational path and to engage in lively debates with their teachers.

Uncertainty Avoidance

Some cultures are comfortable with less defined, more ambiguous situations, while others find it anxiety-provoking. People in stronger uncertainty avoidance countries tend to change companies less frequently. They look for structure in their organizations, institutions, and relationships to to interpret and predict events. Uncertainty-avoiding cultures like France often have different forms of addressing peers or younger people versus superiors or older people, as seen with tu versus vous. A strong level of aquiescence, as afore-mentioned, means that people in these cultures tend to give positive answers to questions to avoid conflict and negativity. This can make it difficult to gather feedback from customers in these cultures, and extra care must be taken to form a strong relationship of trust and closing the loop on feedback they have provided. Sharing feedback from other customers and how that improved the product could help to build that trust. France, Romania, and Bulgaria are high uncertainty-avoiding cultures, while the US and Ireland are more comfortable with uncertain situations.

Uncertainty-avoiding cultures also avoid uncertainty in their foods, valuing purity and basic products, such as mineral water, fresh fruits, and pure sugar. Uncertainty-accepting cultures, like the US, on the other hand, use more ready-made products like cereal and frozen foods. High individualism and low uncertainty avoidance seem to be correlated, and these cultures tend to have less time - they see time as money and life as hurried. They have less time to prepare more healthful meals and are more accepting of the risk that goes along with packaged foods and fast food. One recent example of this is the topic of GMOs, which many people in the US are still fine with consuming, while many other uncertainty-avoiding countries have banned GMOs completely.

This preference of avoiding uncertainty has the potential to slow product development and to stifle innovation, as employees often feel more constrained by existing rules and hierarchies.

Collectivism vs Individualism

Collectivism is the power or interest of the group over the power or interest of the individual. In a collective society, ties between people are strong and loyalty to one's in-group is expected. One's extended family is the first in-group. In an individual society, ties between individuals are loose, everyone is expected to look after themselves. Everyone is expected to look after themselves and their immediate family.

Employees from high collectivism countries expect to have training opportunities to improve skills and learn new ones, good physical working conditions, and to be able to fully use their skills and abilities on the job. Employees see themselves as dependent on the organization. Employees from high individualism countries expect their job to leave sufficient time for personal or family life, to have considerable freedom to adopt their own approach to the job, and to have challenging work to do from which they get a personal sense of accomplishment. They see themselves as independent from the company they work for. Individualist countries tend to be richer, while collectivist countries tend to be poorer.

The concept of collectivism vs individualism also impacts working relationships, as some cultures expect a team to succeed together and for no individuals to be called out in recognition for superior performance, whereas other cultures recognize individual contributions. In collectivist cultures, the personal relationship prevails over the task and should be established first, while in the individualist society the task if supposed to prevail over any personal relationships, according to Hofstede.

People from high individualism cultures try to be self-supporting and independent in their entire life, not just in their relationship with their work. They are more likely to live in detached houses, to have a private garden, to possess home and life insurance, and even to engage in do-it-yourself activities like painting and repairs. They also tend to change companies more often and to relocate for jobs. As an American who's lived in all regions of the US (except the Pacific Northwest), I've left a wake of patios, decks, and fences as I've moved across the country! :-D

Masculinity vs Femininity

This dimension is probably the hardest to understand and you can use different labels, such as Assertiveness vs Modesty if that makes it easier or more amenable to you. A masculine culture is one in which gender roles are clearly defined - men are supposed to be assertive and competitive and concerned about advancing their career and want to be challenged by their work, while women are expected to be caring and tender and nurturing. The US and Canada are both masculine cultures. More feminine cultures, on the other hand, has less clearly defined gender roles, and genders are seen as more equal. People in these countries value a good working relationship with their manager and good team dynamics, cooperation, compromise, and negotiation. Avoiding conflict is very important to these people. They also value employment security and tend to stay at the same company much longer. Examples of more feminine cultures are France, Bulgaria, and Romania. At the far end of the feminine spectrum are Denmark and the Netherlands. In these countries, because basic needs like universal healthcare, childcare, secondary education, and retirement are covered by the welfare society, they have more time to focus on what is really important. In other words, they can work to live instead of living to work! ;-D To steal the Danish term, they have more time to focus on hygga, being together with friends and family.

This even has an impact on religion, with masculine Christian countries attaching more importance to their god and their religious beliefs, whereas more feminine cultures tended to be more secular.

Why do cultural expectations matter to working relationships?

Companies in high power distance cultures centralize power in only a few people, and subordinates expect to be told what to do and that the boss will make the decision and lay the path (such as a product roadmap), while companies in low power distance organizations are more decentralized, with employees generally having more flexibility and expect to be consulted in decisions and paths.

This impacts team working relationships in that some cultures expect all employees to participate in decisions and to take on extra responsibilities when needed without being asked, whereas others expect the boss to make decisions and employees to follow them.

As shown in the charts at the end of this article, most Asian countries have high power distance, as do eastern European countries, Latin countries, Arab countries, and African countries. A high power distance means the country sees the manager as the decision marker more than the collective employees being involved in decisions, there is a high dependence of employees on their boss, and they will rarely approach or contradict their boss. A low power distance means the country believes a manager should consult employees when making decisions. The boss may make the ultimate decision, but the employees' feedback is taken into consideration. Employees are not afraid to approach or contradict their boss. One's main sources of power come from one's family and friends, charisma, and the ability to use force.

German-speaking countries, Israel, United States, Britain and much of its former empire (New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, Canada), and the Netherlands (not the Dutch-speaking Flanders) scored low in power distance. In these countries, children are treated as equals as soon as possible, with the goal being to let children take control of their own affairs as soon as they can. Children learn to say "no" very early, to contradict their parents, and to actively experiment. Grown children are not expected to ask their parents' permission or even advice on an important decision. They are expected to be independent. Grown children are not expected to care for their aging parents. Education is student-centered, and students are expected to find their own paths. Students are expected to contradict teachers, to debate - teachers are not the absolute authority. The main sources of one's power are one's formal position, one's expertise, and one's ability to give rewards.

Interestingly, a country's power distance (PDI) score can be fairly accurately predicted by geographic latitude, population size, and wealth. Countries with higher latitudes (moderate, colder climate vs more tropical climate) or more wealth tend to have a lower PDI, while countries with a larger population tend to have a higher PDI.

With global business demands and teams distributed around the globe, we are more and more dependent on decisions made internationally, which Hofstede argues has led to a global increase in power distances.

Why does this matter when interacting with customers?

Relationship with company vs relationship with individual

Customers in more collectivist societies will form a relationship with an individual rather than with the company for which the individual works. If that individual leaves or is transferred, it will threaten the customer continuing to do business with that company.

Feedback

This can also impact customer feedback - how comfortable customers from a particular culture are in providing negative feedback. In France, for example, most customers are not comfortable doing this, while in America, customers are very open about their pain points and frustrations. French customers are from a more collectivist society with a higher power distance, and acquiescence, or giving positive answers to questions, as well as maintaining formal harmony and respect towards the researchers is a tendency among cultures like this.

For a UXer interviewing or testing French customers, where the customer has to go against his/her cultural upbringing to give negative feedback, this is especially important, as there may be an entire iceberg underneath that you have to uncover. Conversely, in the US, with a lower power distance and the highest individualist society, information is more openly and honestly shared, which makes our jobs easier, as we are not our users, and only by knowing about their frustrations and pain points can we pose solutions and collaborate with customers in order to solve them.

Teamwork

In a more collectivist culture such as France, Bulgaria, or Romania, instead of saying "no" or expressing a negative attitude about something and being confrontational, they will say "you may be right" or "we will think about it" as polite ways of turning down an idea. However, this has a very different meaning to a teammate in the US, who expects that it is only a matter of time until the idea will become a reality!

Collectivist cultures need to establish a trust relationship with their colleagues before starting any work, while this is not a requirement in individualist cultures. In the former, the personal relationship prevails over the task, while in the latter, the task should prevail over the personal relationship.

In considering a work family composed of team members from many cultures, it is important to realize that collectivist teammates tend to need to confer as a group before a group opinion can be proferred, while individualist teammates feel that "decision by committee", especially in the case of user experience, tends not to create the best user experience, even though formal harmony was maintained and there was no confrontation or conflict.

Individualist teammates consider silence abnormal. When they meet, they want to communicate verbally. In a collectivist culture, being together is the important part and no one talks unless information needs to be transferred. Anthropologist and author Edward T. Hall described this as high-context vs low-context. In the former case, little has to be said or written because the information is either in the physical environment or should be known by the people involved. In the latter case, information must be recorded and if something is unknown, one should ask questions. Individualist cultures tend to use the individual pronoun, I, rather than the collectivist tendency to use the group pronoun, we.

People in high individualist countries tend to read more books, rate advertising more useful, and rely more on media and less on their social network (Facebook news-sharing and the recent 2016 election notwithstanding!).

Individualist cultures see self-actualization, or realizing to the fullest possible extent the creative potential of the individual, as the supreme motivation, while collectivist cultures value harmony and consensus in society as the ultimate goals, according to Hofstede.

Management

In a collectivist society, the employer-employee relationship is seen in moral terms, like a family relationship with mutual obligations of protection in exchange for loyalty. Poor performance of an employee is not seen as a reason for dismissal, just as one would not get rid of one's child. The employee expects to be seen by the employer as a member of the in-group, and repays this with their loyalty. The expectation is also that the whole in-group will be incentivized or recognized rather than just one individual. In individualist societies, the relationship between employer and employee is seen as a business relationship. Poor performance on the part of the employee is grounds to terminate the employee. Conversely, an employee will often accept a better offer from another company. There is no loyalty on the part of either. The expectation is that incentives are mostly tied to an individual's performance.

As mentioned, in uncertainty-avoiding cultures like France, Romania, or Bulgaria, respecting the hierarachy is expected, so people may be less quick to accept new technologies and products/services, which can also impact the ability to innovate or embrace others’ innovative ideas. Understanding this cultural reservation is important when introducing new innovations to people in these cultures and getting them on board with new ideas. That’s certainly not to say that people in these cultures are not great innovators, only that their culture is more risk-averse.

Performance

In a study by Christopher Earley, a management researcher in the US, he found that when given a set of tasks that the group needed to complete, Chinese collectivist participants performed best when they could do their tasks as a group and anonymously, whereas Americans did best when they could put their names on the tasks.

The Big Picture

I've boiled down the information from Hofstede's dimension scores for some of the countries we at Axway interact with on a frequent basis, as colleagues and customers. This information was based on a survey of IBM employees around the world. Scores go to 100.

Knowing where your colleagues and employees and customers stand on these key cultural dimensions will help you to achieve compromise, minimize conflict, improve team and manager dynamics, and ultimately, through more cohesive teams that understand each other's needs and trust each other, it can unblock bottlenecks, facilitate negotiations, find compromises, and ultimately, encourage and support innovation and speed time-to-market.