Advice for An American in Spain Based on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

You may have heard before that you’re going to eventually experience some degree of culture shock after living in a foreign country. But if you’ve never experienced it before, what does that even mean? After all, western nations aren’t all that different right? Well, believe it or not, even though differences may seem relatively small, they still can add up to create cultural clashes, confusions and miscommunications that have a greater impact on you than you’d realize. For the most part, bracing yourself to live in another culture can be something difficult to prepare for, but thankfully, Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions can provide some insight on how culture can lead things to be lost in translation. Geert Hofestde is a Dutch professor and former IBM employee who developed cultural dimensions theory based around how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. The very controversial and recently developed spectrum is an introspective tool for understanding other countries’ value systems and how those value systems are manifested in the workplace and through communication styles.  Even though there are many academics critical of his work on the methodological level, it is still one of the most comprehensive studies done on culture that exists, and in my opinion still quite useful. As long as you take this theory with a grain of salt and remember that when it comes down to it, people are still people, I think you always stand to gain a lot by educating yourself as much as you can to be prepared for a new living situation.