Business 6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Business 6 - Essay Example In this social orientation, people are more self-focused and tend to put their interest before those of a group. On the other hand, China practices collectivism. This is whereby the group’s interests come before individuals’ interests. Power orientation categorizes cultures into power respect and power tolerant societies. Power respect societies respect the chain of command and accept power based on position in an organization or in the society. Authority is not usually questioned. This orientation is common in China. Power tolerant societies question authority and do not necessarily buy what authority says as seen in the United States of America. The third category of Hostede’s classification is uncertainty orientation, which focuses on people’s feelings toward vague or uncertain situations. This categorizes cultures into uncertainty acceptance and uncertainty avoidance. The United States tends to lean more on uncertainty acceptance because her cultures are undisturbed by change. Chinese cultural set ups, on the other hand, tend to embrace uncertainty avoidance, which exhibits rigid systems based on rules (Ajami, Cool, Goddard, & Khambata, 2006). China and the United States are among the leading economies in the world. However, the socio-cultural aspects of the two economies greatly differ. Chinese cultures tend to avoid uncertainty, favor power distance and are usually adapted to long-term feminism and collectivism orientations (Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996). On the other hand, Americans are more short-term-oriented and tend to favor individualism and masculinity. They are also not bothered by uncertainty and are more democratic (Fu & Yukl, 2000). In this regard, Americans and Chinese seem to differ in almost all aspects of their cultures. Culture has a major influence on business both at domestic and international levels. Cateora and Graham (1999) observed that