Dimension: Belgium Vs Uk

How Belgians culture as defined by Hofstede's dimensions influence business practices? And therefore, what should be considered by UK companies when conducting business in Belgium?

(Some parts of this essay are exclusively based on Hofstede analysis and therefore might not always perfectly fit with the practical reality.)

Culture has for long been denied by the business world, but, as globalization showed up and international trade expanded it now became one of the most central topics when discussing subject as expansion, acquisition, entering new market, etc... Through this paper we will have a more precise look on Hofstede dimension theory which has revolutionized the importance of culture in the business world. Then, we will try to asses Belgian's culture through the eyes of Hofstede and therefore highlight some of the main differences in business practices between UK and Belgium.

Before getting to the heart of the matter, we believe that it's relevant to give the readers a rapid overview of Belgium's historical framework and some facts.

Belgium is located at the very center of Europe, it has existed as a country since 1830, before the independence it has long been part of the French and Netherlands territory. This historical background and its geographical position explain the fact that Belgium has now three official languages. Since the 19th century, Belgium has always been dedicated to develop his economy and industry. After World War II, reconstruction and adaptation was successful and one of the major results was a steady improvement of its economic situation. Through history, Belgium has often encountered difficulties concerning the relations between the north (Flemish speakers) and the south (French speakers). To respond to both parts queries, Belgium became in 1970 a federal state composed by three communities and Regions relatively independent regarding the decision making process of certain topics and the management of their own territory. Unfortunately, this has not prevented Belgium to sometimes face political tensions between both parts of the country. All this has contributed to make topics such as language usage particularly sensitive.

Economically speaking, Belgium lies in the heart of the largest industrialized trading bloc in the world, the European Union. Brussels is known to be the capital of Europe, since it hosts most of the European institutions. Belgium is ranked 28th out of 183 economies regarding the "ease of doing business" .

Now that Belgium has been briefly introduced we can switch to the heart of the matter. In this section we will first provide the reader with Hofstede's views on culture and will try to understand how National culture influence Businesses. Then we will move on to a practical analysis of Belgian's culture and its implication on businesses (for major cultural differences we will provide a comparison with U.K). Finally, regarding our findings we will try (in a more informal tone) to highlight some common business practices that may be different from the U.K.

Culture is defined by Hofstede as "a collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others". But there are plenty of ways to approach culture; a more detailed definition might be: "Culture is a total way of life held in common by a group of people. Learned similarities in speech, behavior, ideology, livelihood, technology, value system and society bind people together in a culture. It involves a communication system of acquired beliefs, perceptions and attitudes that serves to supplement and channel instinctive or inborn behavior" . Hofstede distinguished himself from his colleagues by its scientific approach of the culture at a time during which culture was close to psychoanalysis and assessed with deep unconscious feelings. Indeed, He systematically collected huge amount of data rather than using impressions and feelings. A good example that helps to understand to which extend Hofstede's approach proved to be relevant is the "France versus Germany" case: before Hofstede, researchers commonly agreed that Germans and French's were authoritarians but what they did not realize is that the source of authoritarianism in Germany was very different from the source of authoritarianism in France. Through his various studies, Hofstede succeeded to establish a universally accepted terminology, well defined and based on empirical studies to describe national cultures. Indeed, he discovered that the values that distinguish one country from another could be classified into four dimensions. The first dimension is called "Power distance" and dealt with the degree to which the less powerful accept that this power is unequally distributed regarding hierarchical pyramid organization. The second dimension, "Individualism versus Collectivism" is defined by the degree to which individuals take care of themselves and direct family only. Then "Masculinity versus Femininity", while the first represent a preference for achievement, heroism and material reward for success, the second stands for modesty, cooperation, caring for the weakest and quality of life. And finally, "Uncertainty avoidance" is expressed by the degree to which members of a society are uncomfortable when dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity. Through the years, two other dimensions were added based on the work of Bond and Minkov; nevertheless we prefer to stay focus on the basis analysis of Hofstede. However, we believe that it's important to mention that other researchers such as Trompenaars, Hamden or Hall have made interesting findings in the field that are often complementary with Hofstede's work.

Now we would like to address the question what implications has culture on businesses? And more precisely how Hofstede's findings impact directly organizations?

"Business practices are embedded within a culture, so learning cultures, monitoring changes in culture and understanding the impact of culture on business practices is important for success." Indeed, culture is omnipresent in business organization and we think that everyone examining this topic will agree with this statement. Every single field in a company includes directly or indirectly people in their process, from leadership to customer services, as well as marketing, consumer behavior, production, etc... Even if we agree that people intrinsically carry differences regarding their way of thinking, acting and analyzing a particular situation, they also share "cultural" common grounds regarding their value system, beliefs, attitudes, etc... So whenever there are people involved; one should include cultural differences factors to his analysis. Numerous