0810 Culture and Cognition

AGE, GENDER AND COUNTRY EFFECTS ON CULTURAL DIMENSIONS IN CANADA AND CHINA Harold J. Ogden, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada Shen Cheng, Business School, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China

Abstract

Questionnaires were completed by 554 respondents in cities in east-central China and in eastern Canada to compare the levels of Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions in the two countries and to examine the effects of gender and age on these levels. Country differences were found found with four  of the five dimensions. Differences in the levels of power-distance, masculinity, and individualism were observed across classes of gender and age. Introduction

Hofstede’s (1980) dimensions of culture have become the most widely used model for  explaining various effects across cultures (Yoo and Donthu, 1998). Stedham and Yamamura (2004) describe culture as stable and enduring but also somewhat changeable due to external forces. Hofstede’s five dimensions include the following. a. Power Distance. The power distance dimension has to do with inequality in a society. In a high power distance environment there would be greater tolerance for, and expectation of, inequality in prestige, wealth and power. b. Uncertainty Avoidance. Hofstede focuses on uncertainty at the organizational level looking at the use of rules and strategies to reduce exposure to an unsure future. c. Individualism and Collectivism. This dimension has to do with the relationship the individual has with the group and more more generally with society. society. Hofstede points out that the the nature of this relationship determines not only how people think about themselves and their  immediate group but the “structure and functioning of many institutions aside from the family” (p210)

dimension. One deals d. Masculinity and Femininity. There seem to be two elements to this dimension. with the values held and the other other with role expectations. Hofstede (1980) notes that in in a work  setting, males value “advancement, earnings, training, up -to-dateness” while females value “friendly atmosphere, position security, physical conditions and manager cooperation” (p281). The second aspect of this dimension has to do with what people in a culture expect of o f sex roles. In a very masculine culture, sex roles would be differentiated while in a feminine culture sex roles would be more similar. e. Long Term Orientation (LTO). This is a recent addition to the Hofstede model, added as a new dimension to the model in the second edition (2001). It is based on the philosophy philosophy of 

Confucius and has to do with “persistence, thrift, personal stability and respect for tradition” (p351). It describes a longer term, higher level view of life. China was not included in the Hofstede’s original study (1980) as the sample for that study was from the offices of IBM and, in the 1970’s, there was none in mainland China. Its scores were not reported in the second edition Hofstede (2001) either. There have, however, been some efforts to study the Chinese using Hofstede’s dimensions. Pheng and Yuquan (2002) studied the Chinese in the Wuhan area of China, comparing construction employees there to those in Singapore. Taking a workplace focus similar to that of Hofstede, they found that, compared to Singaporeans, Chinese had lower levels of power distance and individualism, and higher levels of uncertainty avoidance and masculinity, but their scores are different from those of Hofstede and therefore are of limited use in predicting how the Chinese scores will compare to those of  other countries. Culture has been observed to vary within Chinese areas. Huo and Randall (1991), for example, used the framework to examine the differences among Chinese in Taiwan, Beijing, Hong Kong and Wuhan and found sub cultural differences. Just as there are differences seen in the dimensions between countries, it could be ex pected that there would be differences expected between groups of individuals within countries. Differences  between attitudes and behaviors of males and females are extensively studied and well documented in Western culture. Similarly, individuals have been observed to change in their  attitudes and behavior as they age. Variations in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions across age and gender have been studied by some researchers. Stedham and Yamamura (2004), for example, examined the cultural differences between Americans and Japanese with a focus on sex and age differences. They found no differences due to age and differences between males and females on the power distance dimension in Japan (m>f), individualism (m>f) in both countries. In the current paper, differences in the levels of the four dimensions of Hofstede’s model are examined between Canada and central China. As well, differences in the levels of the five dimensions across age groups and sex category as well as interaction among these three variables are studied. Hypotheses Main Effects Country. Taiwan would appear to be similar to mainland China in many respects. It was settled  by Chinese several centuries ago and was the target of an influx of several million more Chinese around 1950. It seems likely that the culture of Taiwan would be similar to that of mainland China. As none of Hofstede’s scores were available for China, perhaps those of Taiwan would  be useful for the purpose of hypothesis formulation. A large difference on the individualism score is apparent where Taiwan was one of the lowest of all the countries studied while Canada tended to be toward the top of the individualism scale.

On the other three dimensions, the differences between the countries are somewhat smaller but Taiwan outscores Canada on uncertainty avoidance and power distance while Canada’s score on masculinity was slightly higher than Taiwan’s. Thus, main effects for country will be expected. H1: Canadian scores will be higher than Chinese scores on the dimensions (c.) Individualism, and (d.) Masculinity and lower on the dimensions (b.) Uncertainty Avoidance and (a.) Power  Distance and (e.) Long Term Orientation (LTO).

Age effects were noted directly by Hofstede on the masculinity dimension. In his study, masculinity was seen to decrease with age (2001, p291). Age effects were indirectly observed where the graphs of the Power Distance score over time, tended to show an increase in age. No age effects were apparent in the graphs for Individualism or Uncertainty Avoidance. Level of  masculinity was seen to decrease with increasing age. It might also be speculated that LTO might increase with maturity. H2: No effect will be seen for (c.) Individualism or (b.) Uncertainty Avoidance. (a.) Power  Distance will increase with age, and (d.) Masculinity will decrease with age. (e.) LTO will increase with age.

Hofstede considered the effect of gender with respect to the masculinity dimension finding that males will be more masculine than females and that this difference will be greater in more masculine countries (2001, p288). A gender effect on individualism might be expected as well. LaBarbara and Gurhan (1997), in examining subjective well-being (SWB), compared masculine and feminine psychological orientation. They found that for the psychological male, "SWB is closely related to utilitarian aspects of life," while for the psychological female, "SWB is closely related to socio-emotional aspects." This would suggest that females would be more collectivist than males. H3: A gender main effect will be observed for (d.) Masculinity and (c.) Individualism where males score higher than females. No other main effect was hypothesized. Interactions

Inglehart (1977) observed cohort effects on societies where individuals’ values were defined by the period in which they achieved maturity. Inglhart (2000) observed that changes in values in a society start with the young and move with c ohorts and that the differences in cohort effects were more pronounced in societies where social change has been greater and that such societies would include China. Thus, differences in any dimension across age groups would be expected to be more pronounced in China than in Canada, producing an interaction with the age variable in the results. H4: An age interaction with country will be seen with all five dimensions (a.– e.) where the differences across age groups on a dimension will be more pronounced in China than in Canada.

Hofstede found greater differences in masculinity between males and females in more masculine countries, thus: H5: An interaction between country and gender will be observed where the difference in masculinity scores (d.) between males and females will be greater in the more masculine country. Method

A self-administered paper questionnaire was completed by respondents in an eastern Canadian city and a city in central China. Hofstedes approach surveyed IBM employees and tended to focus on workplace values with references in its measures to workplace activities and behaviors . Efforts have been made to simplify the scale and make it more applicable to life outside of the workplace. One such effort is the CVScale by Yoo and Donthu (1998) and Yoo, Donthu and Lenartowicz (2004). It covers Hofstede’s five factors and concisely uses 26 items, taking a more general focus than just that of  the workplace. It has also been tested for reliability in the US and Asian environments and was used in this questionnaire. The questionnaire was translated and independently back-translated to check for consistency of  meaning. Some small corrections were made with the help of the translator. A quota approach to sampling was used with the aim of equal numbers of males and females, and of young and old respondents. The young group consisted of university students in arts and science classes in universities in both countries. Undergraduate university students usually consist of the youngest adults available for study. For the older respondents, approximately half  were from the university communities in both countries and included administrative and staff  employees (not professors). The balance in China were completed in various work locations, while in Canada, a mall intercept approach was employed. Results

Total sample size was 554. Six incomplete questionnaires were discarded. A split at 23 years of  age effectively separated regular-stream students from non-students and mature students. A tabulation of the sub-groups is shown in Table 1. Scale factor items were averaged and analysis of variance was conducted with country, ge nder  and age group as factors and the five cultural dimensions as dependent variables. The results of  this ANOVA are shown in Table 2.

Male

Table 1 TABULATION OF RESPONDENTS Young Old China 64 74 Canada 33 69 Total 97 143

Total 138 102 240

Female

China Canada Total

105 86 191

57 58 115

162 144 306

Table 2 SUMMARY OF ANOVA RESULTS

Cell Contents - p value - direct’n of  effect - expectation a. PowerDistance  b. Uncert. Avoid

Country

Gender Age

Country x Gender 

Country x Age

Age x Gender 

3-way

.000 Ch>Ca x ns

.001 m>f  ** ns

ns

.005 Fig.1

ns

ns

ns

ns

ns

ns

ns

ns

.098

.058

ns

ns

.039 o>y x .019 o>y ** .001 o>y ** .020 o>y o ns

* ** c. .003 .040 ns ns Collectivism Ch>Ca m>f  x ** d. .000 .000 ns ns Masculinity Ch>Ca m>f  o x e. Long Term .003 ns ns ns Orientation Ch>Ca (LTO) x ** ** ns = not significant x = result found in expected direction of hypothesis o = result found opposite of expected direction of hypothesis * = result expected but not found ** = no result expected

The nature of the country by age interaction is shown in the plot of the means (Figure 1).

Figure 1 COUNTRY BY AGE INTERACTION 3.5   r   o   c    S 3   e   c   n   a    t   s 2.5    i    D     r   e 2   w   o    P

3.33 2.86 Young Old 2.06 1.99

1.5 China

Canada

DISCUSSION Power Distance. Main effects were seen on Power Distance across country where Chinese scored higher than Canadians, as expected. Chinese culture appears to tolerate and expect greater differences in social power and wealth.

The old outscored the young as hypothesized in H2, however, there was an age by country interaction as well. The young Chinese are much less tolerant of power differences than are the old while in Canada there is very little difference. This may be a reflection of rapidly changing values or industrialization and globalization differentially influencing the young in China. Males outscored females. Perhaps this is due to males being more closely associated with  business and more accepting of the inherent power structures therein. Uncertainty Avoidance. The only main effect for Uncertainty Avoidance was with age where the old outscored the young. While no effect was hypothesized here, it seems reasonable that older respondents might be found to be more cautious and risk averse. Individualism-Collectivism. On the individualism/collectivism dimension, Chinese were more collectivist than Canadians as expected in H1.

Old were more collectivist than young. This would be consistent with Hofstede’s (2001) observation that there has been a general trend toward higher levels of individuality around the world. This may be a trend that is working its way through age cohorts. Males were more collectivist than females, a direction opposite of that expected in H1 (although this was the least significant of all the results). The nature of individualism/collectivism may need to considered here though. There would appear to be differences between an empathetic social closeness type of collectivism that was suggested by LaBarbara and Gurhan (1997) that may be characteristic of female relationships, and team spirit type of collectivism that might appeal to males.

Masculinity. As expected, males outscored females (H1) but the gender by country interaction,  predicted from Hoftede was not seen.

Chinese outscored Canadians and the old outscored the young contrary to what was expected. Again, the nature of the dimension is worth examining. There seem to be at least two elements to masculinity factor. One has to do with values and work goals held by the individuals (p289), while the other considers degree of difference in gender roles (p280). The Yoo, Donthu and Lenartowicz (2004) CVScale used in this study appears to focus on the gender roles more than the values and work goals. In this study, the Chinese and the older respondents, perhaps with a more traditional approach to life, would hold more traditional views which included greater  differentiation of gender roles. LTO. Chinese scored higher than Canadians. Not surprisingly, LTO dimension was derived from Chinese values and has sometimes been called Confucian Dynamism. No other difference was seen on this dimension. Summary Effects of globalization . Hofstede notes changes in measured levels of his dimension between 1968 and 1972. It seems very likely that changes between 1972 and now would be much more  profound with globalization of business and telecommunication and the shift of China to more free-market economy. While there has been some debate on whether there is convergence of  world culture, Inglehart and Baker (2000) conclude that while cultural differences will persist there is a trend to more common cultural values as countries industrialize. Perhaps China’s values are beginning to change and that change is seen especially in its cohort of young people.

The focus of the current study was on people in general rather than people in the workplace as was Hofstede’s approach. Individuals’ attitudes, perceptions and priorities may be different  between the two environments. A study of the separation between one’s work and private values might be interesting. There is also a need to examine more closely the nature of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. A closer look at the difference between old and young responses might be worthwhile – at what age does the change take place? Are there really sub factors in dimensions such as masculinity or others? As well, examining how these factors vary across other subgroups within countries, beyond male and female and old and young may be worthwhile.

References

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