One of the most effective ways to get to know a country and the people who live in that country is to learn about that countries cultural environment. A countries cultural environment is defined as "The integrated sum total of learned behavioral traits that are manifest and shared by members of society". That is, the pattern of actions and behavior shown by the members of that country, in this case, Austria. By understanding the culture, we will have a better idea of how Austrian’s live, and a better idea of how to properly act around the Austrian people, in a working and social environment.
In the 1970’s psychologist Geert Hofstede developed the framework of analyzing a countries cultural environment by surveying employees at IMB. Over time, Hofstede expanded and narrowed down his ideas to come up with the six most important dimensions in the exploration of a countries cultural environment. Hofstede concluded that Power Distance, Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance Index, Masculinity, Long Term Orientation and Indulgence versus Restraint were the six elements that define a countries cultural environment.
Power Distance is the “extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally”. Essentially, power distance is the mindset that citizens carry regarding the difference in power of certain citizens. In Austria, people do not believe that those with power or responsibility are any greater than the average man. Each and every man is more than capable to get to whichever level of success that they chose. People are very independent, believe in equality of rights, and have casual, not strict, relationships with their bosses.
Individualism, as defined by Hofstede, means the degree of interdependence between a society and its members. For many, many years, Austria had been a country defined by its government. Despite a great deal of changes in the last 50 years,...