Comparison Of Cambodia And Turkey Cultures: Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

Overview of Cambodia

The name Cambodia is derived from the French word Cambodge that came from the word Khmer that means, “born of Kambu”. Cambodia is located between Vietnam and Thailand under the mainland Southeast Asia. The most central place economically and culturally is lowland flood plain of Tonle Sap Lake and Mekong River. Though Cambodia has coastline on Thailand that coast is separated from central flood plain through the mountains. Thereafter, during 1950s roads and railroads were constructed for providing ready access to coastal port towns (Mazanec et al. 2015). The economy of the country is dominated by the agriculture of wet rice and the iconic image of countryside is one of the rice paddies that are scattered with sugar palms. The people of Cambodia mostly speak in Khmer language and the people mainly belong to the Vietnamese, Mon and various other Asian languages.

On the other hand, Turkey is located at crossroads of Balkans, Middle East, Caucasus and the eastern Mediterranean. About population and territory Turkey is among larger nations and the land area of Turkey is more than any of the European state. Turkey’s modern history started in the beginning of the 20^th century and after the country became republic, the leaders from Turkey started working for modernizing the location and brought various fragments together that was formed during war. The economy of the country is still developing and it is the wide mix of traditional agriculture and modern industry and 30% of the country’s employment consists of agriculture (Bakir et al. 2015).  Major agricultural products of Turkey are hazelnuts, citrus, sugar beets, grains, cotton, tobacco and livestock and the main industries of Turkey are food processing, textiles, electronics, petroleum, steel, paper, lumber and construction. Turkey’s climate is temperate and has wet and mild winters, dry and high summers.  

Based on the Dictionary Website, “culture is the behaviours and beliefs characteristic of particular social, ethnic, or age group.” In other words, culture is relating to behaviours and  beliefs that means not everyone as per person, group, or even country is having the same values. Hence, cultures can gradually change over time. Mentioning about cultural dimensions, here are some of the dimensions that we are going to discuss which formed by Hofstede. Geert Hofstede conducted the most comprehensive studies on national values (Hofstede, 2017).

The Hofstede’s power concept describes the power distance as a degree by which a person feels comfortable with uneven distribution of power or authority within a given setup or organization. The Cambodian power is one that exhibits a high level of power distance when compared to the Turkish power. The Cambodian culture … “honors referent powers, and perceives a clear delineation between superiors and subordinates and between the young and the old … Obedience, respect, and allegiance to superiors or those in power are considered highly desirable” (Selvarajah, Meyer& Davuth, 2012).

Overview of Turkey

The Cambodian culture can be described as hierarchical. The high power distance in Cambodia affects several aspects of the Cambodian society as several conflicts come by with time. Equally, Cambodia exhibits a high level of collectivism.

On the concept of power distance Turkey equally scores high with a score of 66 on the power distance aspect and 37 on the individualism score. This means that turkey is more of a collectivistic society. In turkey we are more important than I, people have a duty to belong to in groups like organizations, clans, and families.in these groups they take care of one another with the exchange to loyalty. This is the same case as Cambodia, in both the two communities the people values unity more than anything else; leading to a well-integrated and cohesive society.

The Cambodian leadership style still moves in the direction of the power distance. The type leadership style that is utilized in Cambodia depends on the individuals view on the power concept on whether they are comfortable with working under the power of others. In Cambodian, the power hierarchy is observed, and the subjects are expected to respect the individuals in power by following the instructions whether they are younger or older (Oney-Yaz?c?, Giritli, Topcu-Oraz, & Acar, 2007).

For the Turkish system, the power is more of centralized with a system that being characterized by hierarchical, dependent; the superiors are not accessible while the ideal boss remains a father figure. The managers have a lot of reliance on the bosses and the rules leaving the employees at a position of expecting to be told what to do. The attitude of the subjects to the managers is more formal. The same trend is observed in the simplest societal units like family, in the family, farther are expected to be the patriarch and all are expected to submit to him.

We are comparing both Cambodia and Turkey value systems. In this case, a value system is a set of values (coherent) which being adopted or evolved by a country as their standard concerning their behavior in any circumstances (Business Dictionary, 2017). The Cambodia is rooted in a deep respect for the ancestors, family identity, the past and a huge desire for smooth and prestigious interaction with other people. They have a high tolerance for ambiguity and are highly willing to accept things the way they are. Turkey is a social nation that tends to concentrate most of their energy on bonding; the festivals are respected as the foundation of the activities like playing backgammon and others are the basis of their uniqueness to other people.

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

It is the measurement of strength of ties of the people with others in the community. A community with high level of collectivism score will have strong group consistency and therefore, will exhibit the high level of respect and loyalty among the members whereas under individualism the ties among the individuals are loose and everyone is expected to take care of her or him or the immediate family (Gholipour and Tajaddini 2014).

Cambodia falls under high collectivism society and therefore the group welfare is valued higher as compared to the individuals. On the other hand, Turkey falls under highly individualism society and the people are generally concerned about themselves, their families and immediate families. In working place also the employees are concerned about themselves and do not consult while taking any decisions.

It measures the level at which the culture values the traditional female and male roles. Under the traditional male roles the virtues are competitive and assertive and the traditional female role virtues are caring and modesty. A culture that has high score for masculinity creates a gap among the men’s and women’s values and a culture with low masculinity values the women (Hofstede 2014). Cambodia falls under the predominant feminine culture and they place high value on the people, nurturing and life quality. Meeting the basic requirements are sufficient to fulfil their needs. On the other hand, Turkey falls under the border of feminine or masculine culture. Boys don’t reveal their emotions and they don’t cry too, however, they are supposed to protect their women. Their most important goal is to earn money whereas the women are supposed to take care of their kids, husband and families. With the changing time, the women are now getting educated, earning money and stand by the all problems of the life (Minkov and Hofstede 2014).

The Turkish information flow is indirect, and the flow is selective. The process aims at improving the harmony of the people. Most of the information channeling does not reach directly to the individuals but moves hierarchically from the top authority trickling down.one of the main reason why it’s done in this manner is to ensure the system remains intact and working. The system of communication adopted in this system is common in most East Asian communities.

On the other side, the Cambodian communication style is based on the protocol where the command has to come from the high orders. They too exhibit a more of indirect communication for example when a Cambodian says that no or “no problem” that would mean that there is a grave problem and if it’s in a negotiation process one may miss what they have requested. The communication systems in the Cambodian culture prefer a lot on the patience of the members involved.

Power Distance

Hofstede’s concept decision-making style is not same as the organizational and management aspect. The decision making approach is useful means to understand the managers, their problem solving approach and the decision making ability for interacting with other people in the organization.

The culture of the country has an impact on the decision making process by the managers or others to solve the problems (Upadhyaya, and Rittenburg 2015). Cultural contingencies for decision-making process are as follows:

5 steps for Decision-Making	Cultural variations
	Problem Solving Approach	Situation Acceptances
1. Recognition of Problem	Situations shall be changed	Few situations shall be accepted instead of changing
2. Search of information	Gathering the facts	Gathering the possibilities and ideas
3. Alternative construction	Future-oriented, new alternatives can be changed and learnt	Future-present-past oriented alternatives substantially cannot be changed
4. Choice	The responsibilities of decision making are delegated and decisions are taken quickly	The senior managers takes the decisions and the decisions are taken slowly
5. Implementation	Process is slow as the single person is responsible for all the responsibilities	Process is fast as it involves participation from all groups

Segregation of the styles of decision-making are made on the basis of democracy and autocracy as opposite poles of same scale (Rienties and Tempelaar 2013). Six alternatives under the decision making style are as follows:

Serial No.	Type	Definition for Decision-Making Style
1.	Autocratic	Generally, the person involved makes his own decision or solve the problem using the information that is available without consulting the subordinates
2.	Consultative	Generally, the persons consults the subordinates and then take the major decision after analysing various alternatives
3.	Pseudo-consultative	The person consults with the subordinates, however, it does not mean that he considers their ideas while making decision
4.	Participative	The person analyze and share the issues with the subordinates under the group, analyse the alternatives and then arrive at the major decision
5.	Pseudo-Participative	Normally the person analyze and share the issues with the subordinates under the group, analyse the alternatives to establish the right decision and inform the subordinates regarding what he thinks to be right and then carries out the process of decision vote.
6.	Delegatory	Generally, the subordinates are asked to take the decision on their own.

The consumer’s decision-making style in Cambodia is involved with the mental orientation strategy the consumer has towards the choice selection. The people in Cambodia are of participative or delegator type as they falls under highly collectivism and the manager does not make their own decision without discussion it with their subordinates (Samaha, Beck and Palmatier 2014). Further, in Cambodia the group welfare is valued higher as compared to the individuals.

Turkey falls under highly individualism society and the people are generally concerned about themselves, their families and immediate families. In working place also the employees are concerned about themselves and do not consult while taking any decisions. Further, they make their decision based on the autocratic type of communication and the person involved makes his own decision or solve the problem using the information that is available without consulting the subordinates (Putnam and Gartstein 2017).

In comparison with the case of Cambodia, the Cambodian style is seen to be more decentralized compared to the Turkish system. Cambodia exhibits perfect decentralization where commune councils of various areas are tasked with the pre decision-making process. The councils give a skeleton of what the decision of the central government should look like. The commune councils hold regular meetings, and the decision is taken through a majority vote system before it’s forwarded to the national level to be acted upon (Zhao, 2011).

Turkish system is one of the well-diversified systems in the world with an almost equal score on both feminine and masculine scores. The system encourages practices like sympathy, leveling with others and consensus. This culture helps them in avoiding necessary conflicts in the public and private life, and there is always an inclination to building the consensus at the end of every simple conflict. They take a lot of importance on leisure time, and this means that anybody managing teams in Turkey must schedule on providing the citizens with their freedom to enjoy leisure time. This is time the family, clan, and friends come together to get a quality life (Taras, & Kirkman, 2012)

Collectivism

The Cambodian workforce is one that tends to be extensively diversified and in comparison to the Turkish system it’s more diversified. The Cambodian government involves several expatriates from other parts of the world in most of their appointments. Each that comes into their system enriches them with a sample of their native cultural ideas, attitudes, experiences, and innovations that have over time been incorporated well to form the Cambodian workplace culture. The well-cultivated diversified work place culture has been a very big advantage to Cambodian more so in the corporate sector.

The Cambodian culture places emphasis on protocol during business negotiations. These population likes people to appreciate their place within negotiation. This means that they start slow during negotiations as they get to the person they are negotiating with. This means that Cambodians recognize patience in negotiations. Cambodians are non-confrontational and do not like saying “no”, rather they say “no problem” to mean there is a problem. On the other hand, Turkish people are homogenous with high interaction levels (Katz, 2008). This makes them to expect things their way in business negotiations. Distributive and contingency bargaining strategies are used with tough negotiation skills to reach an agreement. Turks value long term relationships and will seek to achieve win agreements rather than end up with no deal. However, Katz (2008) suggests that this people are strict Muslims and are not used to logical or argumentative reasoning in business negotiation. Their bargaining is based on limited information sharing since they believe information forms privileged information creates bargaining advantages. This means that when negotiating, one should be prepared to face a holistic approach that seeks to pursue multiple goals thus the negotiation may be iterative unlike monochromic cultures in Germany or United Kingdom. This makes the negotiation process to take longer than expected.

Conclusion:

As per the above discussion it is concluded that as far as the international business is under consideration, the cultural dimensions plays an important role. The manner, in which the different cultures are viewed, can assist the manager to sail and understand the various concepts of  international business. About the cultural dimensions, Cambodia’s business market significantly varies with that of Turkey. The people from Cambodia have high level of power distance as compared to the Europeans, whereas the people from Turkey have low level of power distance. Further, the Cambodian people have collectivist and feminist culture. They prefer to take the decisions collectively and concerned about the team members benefits. Further, they value their women as like the men. On the other hand, turkey has individualism and masculinity culture. They are concerned about themselves or their near and dear ones. Further, the women are supposed to do the household works and take care of their babies, husbands and family members. In Cambodia, important decisions are taken only after discussing the points with subordinates whereas in Turkey decisions making are mainly to be taken by a top-level management or the head of family.

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