Cultural Analysis – Czech Republic

Missouri University of Science and Technology
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table of contents

table of contents ii 1.0 Czech vs u.s. Culture – hofstede’s model 3 2.0 Czech business culture – trompenaaris classificaion 7 3.0 U.S. Business culture change needed 7 4.0 bibliography 9

1.0 Czech vs u.s. Culture – hofstede’s model

The Czech Republic has its roots as a former communist state known as Czechoslovakia. The fall of communism and the transformation to a democratic government has seasoned this country’s history. From the “Velvet Revolution” in 1989 to the charismatic leadership of the poet Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic has developed well in the European cultures (Katz 2008). The Czech Republic …show more content…

The U.S. has a significantly lower score when it comes to uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). The U.S. is willing to take risks and accepts risk as part of life and business. The U.S. culture is more open to new ideas and is willing to try something new or different. The U.S. subscribes to the value of “freedom of expression.”

Long-term orientation is the measure of where a society is focused. It can be defined as “the extent to which a society shows a pragmatic future-oriented perspective rather than a conventional historical short-term point of view” (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). Both the Czech Republic and the U.S. score low on this dimension. This means that business measure their performance on a short-term basis. They are focused on what they can earn right now, and can be seen in the fact that profits are calculated on a quarterly reporting basis. This drives people to struggle for quick results in the work place. The Czech Republic can be said to be competitive, but know the value of a long-term relationship (Katz 2008). Even with this said, the Czech Republic scores a lower score than the U.S.

These five cultural dimensions described above can be seen graphically in the figures below (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005).

Figure 1: Hofstede dimensions of Czech Republic and U.S. 2.0 Czech business culture –