Activity 1:

GlobeScan Ltd conducted a massive study to explore the relationship between attitudes to
corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the cultural dimensions of business activity
identified by Hofstede & Hofstede using a sample of nearly 90,000 stakeholders drawn
from 28 countries

The respondents were asked ‘did you considered but did not punish’ and ‘have you
actually punished’

Two key findings of this research are:

Uruguay scored highest on ‘did you considered but did not punish’
Australia scored highest on ‘have you actually punished’

Discuss with your group members can these two results be explained by propositions
discussed in lecture on culture. Specifically answer the two questions

You may want to use https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/

To check how these two countries, score on different dimensions of national culture

Why Uruguay might have the highest percentage of stakeholders who “Considered but
did not punish”?

 Uruguay scores very highly (99) on UAI which is the degree to which the
members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity
 It seems people there have very high preference to avoid uncertainty and
ambiguity and are deviant/irresponsible behaviour of companies makes them
‘uncomfortable’
 At the same time, they score low on ‘long term orientation’ which emphasises
upon the limited nature of time; time is limited and irresponsible behaviour of
companies should be immediately dealt with
 Both UAI and long-term orientation scores make people there consider punishing
irresponsible behaviour BUT
 A low score on individualism means that Uruguay is a very collective society
which emphasis on collective actions; societies like these will like to wait for a
general consensus to be built before any collective stakeholder action can be taken
against irresponsible behaviour
 That’s why they considered but did not punish

Why Australia might have the highest percentage of stakeholders who “have actually
punished”?
  Australia has a very low degree of ‘power distance’: degree to which the less
powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed
unequally”
 Societies with low power distance do not expect to receive and take orders from
authorities and put up with injustice and inequality
 In countries with low power distance organisations are more likely to be pressured
by stakeholders to behave responsibly towards society/environment; injustice is
not readily accepted
 Couple this with its high score on ‘individualism’ not only Aussies do not accept
injustice readily but are more willing to go ‘solo’ to punish irresponsible behaviour
rather than waiting endlessly for a consensus to develop

Activity 2

Interview person sitting next to you

Do they accept organisations’ new role of taking care of society and environment along
with its profits?
They have developed a high sense of social justice and how

Based on your observation can you predict whether in future they will be

a. Committed
b. Indifferent
c. Dissident