Influence of Culture on Decision Making in Organizations: Applying Hofstede’s Value Dimensions

Abstract

Quite often, the decision making process has been understood from the quantitative approach; highly infl uenced by, inter alia, game theory, decision tress and linear programmes. Moreover, there is a preoccupation with rational and economic explanations, political dimensions, procedures, and the institutional framework of public organizations. Yet organizations and the people that work in them have emotions, feelings and context. Thus there is the need for analyzing the decision maker and decision making in the crosscultural context. This paper seeks to draw the relationship between culture and decision making. I explain the process through which policy subsystem arrives at a decision of recommending policy options. The article argues that there is a fruitful intellectual dimension linking culture to decision making an area which is not usually preferred in public administration, on the pretext that culture has limited explanatory power since culture could be broadly considered to mean everything.