indings of Hofstede and Andre Laurent about the relationship between national and organizational culture

Discuss findings of Hofstede and Andre Laurent about the relationship between national and organizational culture

There is a widespread belief that organizational culture tends to moderate or erase the impact of national culture. The logic of such conventional wisdom is that if a US MNC established operations in, say, France, it would not be long before French employees began to “think like Americans.” In fact, evidence is accumulating that the exact opposite may be true. Hofstede’s research found that national cultural values ​​of employees have a significant impact on their organizational functioning and that the cultural values ​​that employees bring to the workplace with them are not easily changed by the organization. Thus, for example, while some French employees would have a higher power distance than the Swedes and some a shorter power distance, it is most likely “that if a company hires premises in Paris as a whole, it would be less likely to challenge The hierarchical power than the same number of premises hired in Stockholm. ” André Laurent’s research supports Hofstede’s conclusions. He found that cultural differences are actually more pronounced among foreign employees working within the same multinational organization than among the staff working for businesses on their native lands.