Cultural Differences Affecting Decision-Making Style: A Comparative Study Between Four Countries

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of this paper was to identify the impact of national culture on decision-making styles in selected countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary. The estimation of Hofstede's dimensions of national cultures and comparative analyses was carried out by using a narrow-sample strategy. The estimated positions on each dimension confirmed the Hofstede's original research ranking. The result with significant value was the confirmation of the global trend of decreasing power distance and significant movement towards the individualism. Besides the standardization procedure of comparative cross-cultural analyses, variance analyses were used to identify cultural differences in decision-making styles related to complex decisions (Janis and Mann's typology). The proposition is that complex decisions are, above and beyond all others, the consequence of social and cultural values installed in every individual. Statistically significant dependency was identified for hyper-vigilant and vigilant decision-making style and national culture's dimensions. A beneficial goal was to identify the differences and the similarities in value orientation and those in the decision-making style which should not be mistreated as they may influence future business cooperation and political and economic integrations within the CEE context. Keywords: cultural differences, decision-making styles, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary.Jel Classification: M10, M16. IntroductionIn the context of globalization processes and the growth of economic interdependence among countries, the national culture is becoming more and more important (Adler 1991;Harvey, Miceli 1999;Ginevičius, Vaitkūnaitė 2006;Radović-Marković 2008;Harvey, Moeller 2009;Stah et al. 2010; Minkov, Hofstede, 2011;Schwartz 2014). Understanding culture can equip a person for the challenges of contemporary international business even within the national context. Nevertheless, recognizing the importance of cultural differences helps managers understand their international partners and competitors and ultimately helps to improve their managerial skills (Cullen, Praveen Parboteeah 2011). The objective of this research was to identify the cultural distinction between Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary using the methodology introduced by Hofstede. Countries positioning by the Hofstede's dimensions do not expose all differences among cultures or countries, but do sum up the greater part (MacNab, Worthley 2013). These dimensions representing 2 cultural differences have confirmed empirically on many occasions that they are related with numerous aspects from the management and organizational domains (Iglehart 1997;Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner 2000;House et al. 2002). The additional interest of this research is to determine cultural differences in decisionmaking styles. The decision-making process depends on cultural background and choice of "the right way" -the decision-making style is dependent on values and beliefs of people involv...

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