Understanding Cultures People with Hofstede Dimensions

Understanding Cultures People with Hofstede Dimensions INTRODUCTION TO HOFSTEDE’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONSThe original model of Hofstede was the outcome of factor analysis done on a global survey of the value system of employees at IBM between the years 1967 and 1973. This theory was one of the initial ones which could quantify cultural differences.The original theory that Hofstede proposed talked of four dimensions, namely power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism and masculinity vs. femininity. After conducting independent studies in Hong Kong, Hofstede included a fifth dimension, known as long-term vs. short-term orientation, to describe value aspects that were not a part of his original theory. Again in 2010, Hofstede devised another dimension, the sixth one, indulgence vs. self-restraint, in an edition of ‘Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind’, co-authored by Michael Minkov.Hofstede’s work serves as the base for other researches in cross-cultural psychology, inviting a number of researchers to study different aspects of international business and communication. These dimensions founded by Hofstede illustrate the deeply embedded values of diverse cultures. These values impact not only how people with different cultural backgrounds behave, but also the manner in which they will potentially behave when placed in a work-associated context.This is a brief overview of the six cultural dimensions:Power Distance: This dimension explains the extent to which members who are less powerful in a society accept and also expect that the distribution of power takes place unequally.Uncertainty Avoidance: It is a dimension that describes the extent to which people in society are not at ease with ambiguity and uncertainty.Individualism vs. Collectivism: The focus of this dimension is on the question regarding whether people have a preference for being left alone to look after themselves or want to remain in a closely knitted network.Masculinity vs. Femininity: Masculinity implies a soci ety’s preference for assertiveness, heroism, achievement and material reward for attaining success. On the contrary, femininity represents a preference for modesty, cooperation, quality of life and caring for the weak.Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation: Long-term orientation describes the inclination of a society toward searching for virtue. Short-term orientation pertains to those societies that are strongly inclined toward the establishment of the absolute truth.Indulgence vs. Restraint: This revolves around the degree to which societies can exercise control over their impulses and desires.THE SIX HOFSTEDE DIMENSIONS UNDERSTANDING COUNTRIES, CULTURE AND PEOPLEAccording to Geert Hofstede, culture is the mind’s collective programming that differentiates between one category of people and members of one group from another. The term ‘category’ might imply nations, religions, ethnicities, regions across or within nations, genders, organizations, or occupations.#1: Power Dist ancePower distance stands for inequality that is defined not from above, but from below. It is, in fact, the extent to which organizations and societies accept power differentials.Societies with large power distance are characterized by the following features:Autocracy in leadership;Authority that is centralized;Paternalistic ways of management;A number of hierarchy levels;The acceptance of the privileges that come with power;A lot of supervisory staff;An expectation of power differences and inequality.Societies that have small power distance possess the following features:Participative or consultative style of management;Decision-making responsibility and authority decentralized;Flat structure of organizations;Supervisory staff small in proportion;Questioning the authority and lack of acceptance;An inclination toward egalitarianism;Consciousness of rights.#2: Uncertainty AvoidanceUncertainty avoidance is the extent to which the members belonging to a society are capable of coping w ith future uncertainty without going through stress.Weak uncertainty avoidance comes with the following features:Undertaking risk;Flexibility;Tolerance toward differing opinions and behaviors.Strong uncertainty avoidance is represented by the following aspects:Tendency to avoid risk;Organizations that have a number of standardized procedures, written rules, and clearly delineated structures;Strong requirement for consensus;Respect for authority;Requirement for predictability highlighting the significance of planning;Minimal or no tolerance for deviants;Promotions depending upon age or seniority.#3: Individualism vs. CollectivismIndividualism set against its opposite collectivism defines the extent to which individuals are inclined toward remaining in groups.Individualistic cultures are characterized by:Fostering contractual relationships that revolve around the fundamentals of exchange. These cultures engage in the calculation of profit and loss prior to engagement in a behavior.Con centration on self or at the most very near and dear ones, and concern with behavioral relationships as well as own goals, interests, and needs.Emphasis on personal enjoyment, fun, and pleasure, over duties and social norms. They are a part of a number of in-groups which hardly have any influence on their lives.Self-sufficiency and value independence, and placement of self-interest over collective interest. Confrontation is accepted as an attribute.Stress on horizontal relationships (such as the relationship between spouse and spouse) rather than vertical relationships (such as the relationship between parent and child).The notion that they hold unique beliefs.Collectivistic cultures are characterized by:Behavior as per social norms that are established for maintenance of social harmony among in-group members;Considering the wider collective with regards to implications of their actions;Sharing of resources and readiness to give up personal interest keeping in mind the collective in terest;Favoring some in-groups (such as friends and family);Being a part of a few in-groups that have an influence on their lives. Rather than being individualistic, they have an increased inclination towards conformity;Increased concern regarding in-group members. They show hostility or indifference toward out-group members;Emphasis on harmony and hierarchy within group;Regulation of behavior with the help of group norms.#4: Masculinity vs. FemininityMasculinity and femininity revolve around the emotional role distribution between genders, which is again a prime issue in a number of societies.Masculine cultures possess the following characteristics:Clearly distinct gender roles;Benevolence has little or no significance;Men are expected to be tough and assertive with a concentration on material achievements;Much value is associated with mastery of people, nature, job, and the like;Sense of humor, intelligence, affection, personality are considered preferred characteristic traits of a boyfriend by the women;Understanding, wealth, and health are considered desirable characteristic traits of a husband by the women.Feminine cultures possess the following characteristics:Overlapping of social gender roles;Men, as well as women, are expected to be tender, modest, with focus on the quality of life;Emphasis on the non-materialistic angles of success;The preferred traits in boyfriends and husbands are the same.#5: Long-Term vs. Short-Term OrientationThis is based on the Confucian dynamism. According to the teachings of Confucius, the following aspects of life are evident:Unequal relationships existing between people ensure the stability of society.Every social organization has its prototype in the family.Virtuous behavior involves treatment meted out to others in a similar manner as one prefers to be treated oneself.So far as tasks in life are concerned, virtue comprises acquiring skills, working hard, education, being wise in spending as well as showing perseverance a nd patience.Long-term orientation (high Confucian values) reflects the following:A futuristic, dynamic mentality;Emphasis on a relationship order depending on status, and observance of this order;Emphasis on persistence and perseverance;Stress on possessing a sense of shame;Stress on thrift;Positive association with economic growth;Inclination toward interrelatedness represented in sensitivity toward social contacts.Short-term orientation (low Confucian values) is characterized by the following:Orientation toward past and present;Focus on respect for tradition;A comparatively static, more conventional mentality;Emphasis on saving face;Emphasis on personal steadiness;Focus on stability;Emphasis on reciprocation of gifts, favors, and greetings;Negative association with economic growth.#6: Indulgence vs. RestraintThe dimension of indulgence vs. restraint focuses on happiness. A society that practices indulgence makes room for the comparatively free gratification of natural and basic hu man drives pertaining to indulging in fun and enjoying life. The quality of restraint describes a society that holds back need gratification and tries to control it through stringent social norms.International Comparison of Culture on the Basis of Hofstede’s DimensionsWith respect to national scores on a scale of 1 to 120 (1 representing the lowest and 120 representing the highest), the following international comparison has been made between cultures:Arab, African, Asian and Latin countries have a higher score with regards to power distance index while Germanic and Anglo countries possess a lower score. For instance, Guatemala has a score of 95 while Israel scores 13 with a very low power distance, whereas the United States stands somewhere in between with a score of 40.So far as the individualism index is concerned, a substantial gap exists between Eastern and less developed countries on one hand and Western and developed countries on the other. While Europe and North America ar e highly individualistic, Latin America, Africa, and Asia score very low on the individualism index with strong collectivist values.Highest uncertainty avoidance scores are possessed by Latin American countries, Japan as well as Eastern and Southern Europe. The score is lower for Chinese, Nordic, and Anglo culture countries. For instance, Germany has a higher uncertainty avoidance index with a score of 65, compared to Sweden, which scores only 29.Nordic countries exhibit low masculinity, with Sweden and Norway scoring 5 and 8 respectively. Again, Anglo countries, Japan, and European countries such as Switzerland, Austria and Hungary have high masculinity scores.Long-term orientation is high in East Asia, moderate in Western as well as Eastern Europe and low in Latin America and Africa.Nordic Europe, Anglo countries, certain regions of Africa and Latin America have high indulgence scores, while Eastern Europe and East Asia exhibit more restraint.CASE STUDY OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES EXP ERIENCED AT A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN GHANADeveloping countries often lack native engineers, so foreign engineers are often deployed for sanitation and water systems in rural communities. This is necessary to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target for accessing sanitation facilities and clean water. However, often there is a failure to manage the project effectively due to existing cultural differences between local communities and foreign engineers. This case study of one such project in Eastern Ghana, supervised by a British engineer and project manager, explores some of the critical issues that can arise in a cross-cultural project. Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions have been considered here, namely, masculinity vs. femininity, power distance index, uncertainty avoidance index and individualism vs. collectivism.Issues experienced: The engineer expected the community to express their opinions regarding the sanitation and water project, including the procedure of the project, the design or any other facet that the community wanted to discuss. However, it was seen that apart from the elders and the chief, the community’s ordinary members had certain inhibitions regarding expressing their opinions.It was also noticed during the project that if individuals ever voiced their opinions, they preferred not to express opinions that conflicted with what others had expressed. For instance, on a particular occasion, the engineer asked the opinions of two women in a family. After the first shared her opinion, the second woman, who was younger, was asked to share hers, but she refused to do so. Instead, she said that her mother (the other woman), had already spoken.In another case, the engineer approached a woman, who had some problems in walking, for her opinion. In the village, she happened to be the only lady with this problem, so her opinion was sought in order to customize the design for water collection and sanitation systems accord ingly. However, this lady was reluctant to voice any opinion regarding this, as she felt that her own well-being was not so much significant considering the entire group. However, when the other women of the community were asked, one suggested a flat design so that the lady with the walking problem could collect her water easily.At the start of the project, the engineer could more or less comfortably organize the work schedule and ensure good progress. Many members of the community lent helping hands. However, when the project was drawing to an end, the chief showed a temporary loss of interest due to two reasons. First, his mother had died and he was arranging for the funeral. Second, he had an affair with a girl in a neighboring village and was more inclined to meet her than perform his duties.When the community members started returning to work, they seemed lethargic, and the engineer found it very difficult to complete the project within the stipulated deadline.Explanation of th e issues based on Hofstede dimensions:The community is from a culture that exhibits high power distance index, wherein subordinates are accustomed to abide by what their seniors tell them to do rather than following more democratic ways. On the contrary, the engineer came from a culture where the power distance index is low, with flatter power structures, wherein the authority and subordinates worked on more or less equal terms.The community is more collectively oriented, whereas the engineer belonged to a culture that is more individualistic. Therefore, the community gave preference to the group’s opinion instead of personal opinion. Therefore, when the lady with the walking problem was asked to voice her opinion, she was reluctant to express her personal opinion, as the majority of the community members did not possess her problem.Since low uncertainty avoidance and high power distance existed within the community, the members were more inclined toward organizing themselves as a n extended family, with the chief being the grandfather of that family. The main authority lies with the chief, who should decide on the best course of action.In contrast, the engineer’s culture was one with low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance. Hence, when the project was drawing to an end, the engineer wanted to gather in the other members of the community although the chief lacked interest. But since the chief was not there, the members expressed disinterest, which the engineer interpreted as lethargy.THE URGENCY OF MANAGING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AS PART OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENTManagers across the globe are increasingly facing the challenges thrown by the global interdependence of markets, and the human resources department in organizations is not an exception. When a common culture prevails, personnel management is not difficult since everybody has a common conception of right, wrong and accepted behavior. However, when team members come from different cultural backgrounds or the backgrounds of the manager and the team differ, it might lead to grave misunderstandings. Below is an analysis of how culture prevails across some of the major aspects of HR management.Recruiting The definition of a good candidate differs according to cultures. Those who express strong opinions, are outspoken and self-confident, are considered good candidates in individualistic masculine societies. Again in collectivist feminine societies, modest and ‘well connected’ candidates are good ones. Considering this, positioning as an employer in the USA (high on masculinity) is quite different from doing so in Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands (low on masculinity).Target Setting In Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and other low power distance cultures, targets are negotiated, while in high power distance cultures such as Italy, France, and Belgium, targets are set by senior managers.Training In high power distance societies, there is instructor -centric learning, while in low power distance societies, it is more learner-centric and interactive.Appraisal Most of the appraisal procedures are established in the USA or the UK, which are countries with high individualism and low power distance. Hence, as per these countries, the right way of performance enhancement is direct, frank feedback. However, this does not take into consideration that in countries with high power distance and collectivistic cultures, direct feedback is regarded as disrespectful and disgraceful.This cycle of recruitment, target setting, training and appraisal can be successfully used to manage people if it is culturally adapted. Relevant research and preparation is required for this.CONCLUSION The theory of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions constitutes a framework revolving around cross-cultural communication, which was devised by Geert Hofstede. The dimensions collectively portray the impact of the culture ingrained in society on the values of the members of that society. They also describe the relationship between these values and behavior, with the help of a structure based on factor analysis. In other words, this theory studies significant aspects of culture and provides them a rating on a comparison scale.So far as international business is concerned, the dimensions of culture form an important facet. Knowledge of the manner in which different features of a business are viewed in different cultures, can help a manager in understanding and sailing successfully across the international business market. In this article, we discuss the topic of Hofstede cultural dimensions by exploring 1) an introduction; 2) the six cultural dimensions of Hofstede framework, and using those dimensions to better understand cultures and people based on 3) a case study of cultural differences; 4) the urgency of managing cultural difference as part of human resources management; and 5) conclusion.INTRODUCTION TO HOFSTEDE’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONSThe original model of Hofstede was the outcome of factor analysis done on a global survey of the value system of employees at IBM between the years 1967 and 1973. This theory was one of the initial ones which could quantify cultural differences.The original theory that Hofstede proposed talked of four dimensions, namely power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism and masculinity vs. femininity. After conducting independent studies in Hong Kong, Hofstede included a fifth dimension, known as long-term vs. short-term orientation, to describe value aspects that were not a part of his original theory. Again in 2010, Hofstede devised another dimension, the sixth one, indulgence vs. self-restraint, in an edition of ‘Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind’, co-authored by Michael Minkov.Hofstede’s work serves as the base for other researches in cross-cultural psychology, inviting a number of researchers to study different aspects of international business and communication. These dimensions founded by Hofstede illustrate the deeply embedded values of diverse cultures. These values impact not only how people with different cultural backgrounds behave, but also the manner in which they will potentially behave when placed in a work-associated context.This is a brief overview of the six cultural dimensions:Power Distance: This dimension explains the extent to which members who are less powerful in a society accept and also expect that the distribution of power takes place unequally.Uncertainty Avoidance: It is a dimension that describes the extent to which people in society are not at ease with ambiguity and uncertainty.Individualism vs. Collectivism: The focus of this dimension is on the question regarding whether people have a preference for being left alone to look after themselves or want to remain in a closely knitted network.Masculinity vs. Femininity: Masculinity implies a society’s preference for assertiveness, heroism, achievement and material reward for attaining success. On the contrary, femininity represents a preference for modesty, cooperation, quality of life and caring for the weak.Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation: Long-term orientation describes the inclination of a society toward searching for virtue. Short-term orientation pertains to those societies that are strongly inclined toward the establishment of the absolute truth.Indulgence vs. Restraint: This revolves around the degree to which societies can exercise control over their impulses and desires.THE SIX HOFSTED E DIMENSIONS UNDERSTANDING COUNTRIES, CULTURE AND PEOPLEAccording to Geert Hofstede, culture is the mind’s collective programming that differentiates between one category of people and members of one group from another. The term ‘category’ might imply nations, religions, ethnicities, regions across or within nations, genders, organizations, or occupations.#1: Power DistancePower distance stands for inequality that is defined not from above, but from below. It is, in fact, the extent to which organizations and societies accept power differentials.Societies with large power distance are characterized by the following features:Autocracy in leadership;Authority that is centralized;Paternalistic ways of management;A number of hierarchy levels;The acceptance of the privileges that come with power;A lot of supervisory staff;An expectation of power differences and inequality.Societies that have small power distance possess the following features:Participative or consultative style of management;Decision-making responsibility and authority decentralized;Flat structure of organizations;Supervisory staff small in proportion;Questioning the authority and lack of acceptance;An inclination toward egalitarianism;Consciousness of rights.#2: Uncertainty AvoidanceUncertainty avoidance is the extent to which the members belonging to a society are capable of coping with future uncertainty without going through stress.Weak uncertainty avoidance comes with the following features:Undertaking risk;Flexibility;Tolerance toward differing opinions and behaviors.Strong uncertainty avoidance is represented by the following aspects:Tendency to avoid risk;Organizations that have a number of standardized procedures, written rules, and clearly delineated structures;Strong requirement for consensus;Respect for authority;Requirement for predictability highlighting the significance of planning;Minimal or no tolerance for deviants;Promotions depending upon age or seniority.#3: Individualis m vs. CollectivismIndividualism set against its opposite collectivism defines the extent to which individuals are inclined toward remaining in groups.Individualistic cultures are characterized by:Fostering contractual relationships that revolve around the fundamentals of exchange. These cultures engage in the calculation of profit and loss prior to engagement in a behavior.Concentration on self or at the most very near and dear ones, and concern with behavioral relationships as well as own goals, interests, and needs.Emphasis on personal enjoyment, fun, and pleasure, over duties and social norms. They are a part of a number of in-groups which hardly have any influence on their lives.Self-sufficiency and value independence, and placement of self-interest over collective interest. Confrontation is accepted as an attribute.Stress on horizontal relationships (such as the relationship between spouse and spouse) rather than vertical relationships (such as the relationship between parent a nd child).The notion that they hold unique beliefs.Collectivistic cultures are characterized by:Behavior as per social norms that are established for maintenance of social harmony among in-group members;Considering the wider collective with regards to implications of their actions;Sharing of resources and readiness to give up personal interest keeping in mind the collective interest;Favoring some in-groups (such as friends and family);Being a part of a few in-groups that have an influence on their lives. Rather than being individualistic, they have an increased inclination towards conformity;Increased concern regarding in-group members. They show hostility or indifference toward out-group members;Emphasis on harmony and hierarchy within group;Regulation of behavior with the help of group norms.#4: Masculinity vs. FemininityMasculinity and femininity revolve around the emotional role distribution between genders, which is again a prime issue in a number of societies.Masculine culture s possess the following characteristics:Clearly distinct gender roles;Benevolence has little or no significance;Men are expected to be tough and assertive with a concentration on material achievements;Much value is associated with mastery of people, nature, job, and the like;Sense of humor, intelligence, affection, personality are considered preferred characteristic traits of a boyfriend by the women;Understanding, wealth, and health are considered desirable characteristic traits of a husband by the women.Feminine cultures possess the following characteristics:Overlapping of social gender roles;Men, as well as women, are expected to be tender, modest, with focus on the quality of life;Emphasis on the non-materialistic angles of success;The preferred traits in boyfriends and husbands are the same.#5: Long-Term vs. Short-Term OrientationThis is based on the Confucian dynamism. According to the teachings of Confucius, the following aspects of life are evident:Unequal relationships exis ting between people ensure the stability of society.Every social organization has its prototype in the family.Virtuous behavior involves treatment meted out to others in a similar manner as one prefers to be treated oneself.So far as tasks in life are concerned, virtue comprises acquiring skills, working hard, education, being wise in spending as well as showing perseverance and patience.Long-term orientation (high Confucian values) reflects the following:A futuristic, dynamic mentality;Emphasis on a relationship order depending on status, and observance of this order;Emphasis on persistence and perseverance;Stress on possessing a sense of shame;Stress on thrift;Positive association with economic growth;Inclination toward interrelatedness represented in sensitivity toward social contacts.Short-term orientation (low Confucian values) is characterized by the following:Orientation toward past and present;Focus on respect for tradition;A comparatively static, more conventional mentality ;Emphasis on saving face;Emphasis on personal steadiness;Focus on stability;Emphasis on reciprocation of gifts, favors, and greetings;Negative association with economic growth.#6: Indulgence vs. RestraintThe dimension of indulgence vs. restraint focuses on happiness. A society that practices indulgence makes room for the comparatively free gratification of natural and basic human drives pertaining to indulging in fun and enjoying life. The quality of restraint describes a society that holds back need gratification and tries to control it through stringent social norms.International Comparison of Culture on the Basis of Hofstede’s DimensionsWith respect to national scores on a scale of 1 to 120 (1 representing the lowest and 120 representing the highest), the following international comparison has been made between cultures:Arab, African, Asian and Latin countries have a higher score with regards to power distance index while Germanic and Anglo countries possess a lower score. For instance, Guatemala has a score of 95 while Israel scores 13 with a very low power distance, whereas the United States stands somewhere in between with a score of 40.So far as the individualism index is concerned, a substantial gap exists between Eastern and less developed countries on one hand and Western and developed countries on the other. While Europe and North America are highly individualistic, Latin America, Africa, and Asia score very low on the individualism index with strong collectivist values.Highest uncertainty avoidance scores are possessed by Latin American countries, Japan as well as Eastern and Southern Europe. The score is lower for Chinese, Nordic, and Anglo culture countries. For instance, Germany has a higher uncertainty avoidance index with a score of 65, compared to Sweden, which scores only 29.Nordic countries exhibit low masculinity, with Sweden and Norway scoring 5 and 8 respectively. Again, Anglo countries, Japan, and European countries such as Switzerlan d, Austria and Hungary have high masculinity scores.Long-term orientation is high in East Asia, moderate in Western as well as Eastern Europe and low in Latin America and Africa.Nordic Europe, Anglo countries, certain regions of Africa and Latin America have high indulgence scores, while Eastern Europe and East Asia exhibit more restraint.CASE STUDY OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES EXPERIENCED AT A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN GHANADeveloping countries often lack native engineers, so foreign engineers are often deployed for sanitation and water systems in rural communities. This is necessary to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target for accessing sanitation facilities and clean water. However, often there is a failure to manage the project effectively due to existing cultural differences between local communities and foreign engineers. This case study of one such project in Eastern Ghana, supervised by a British engineer and project manager, explores some of the critic al issues that can arise in a cross-cultural project. Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions have been considered here, namely, masculinity vs. femininity, power distance index, uncertainty avoidance index and individualism vs. collectivism.Issues experienced: The engineer expected the community to express their opinions regarding the sanitation and water project, including the procedure of the project, the design or any other facet that the community wanted to discuss. However, it was seen that apart from the elders and the chief, the community’s ordinary members had certain inhibitions regarding expressing their opinions.It was also noticed during the project that if individuals ever voiced their opinions, they preferred not to express opinions that conflicted with what others had expressed. For instance, on a particular occasion, the engineer asked the opinions of two women in a family. After the first shared her opinion, the second woman, who was younger, was asked to share her s, but she refused to do so. Instead, she said that her mother (the other woman), had already spoken.In another case, the engineer approached a woman, who had some problems in walking, for her opinion. In the village, she happened to be the only lady with this problem, so her opinion was sought in order to customize the design for water collection and sanitation systems accordingly. However, this lady was reluctant to voice any opinion regarding this, as she felt that her own well-being was not so much significant considering the entire group. However, when the other women of the community were asked, one suggested a flat design so that the lady with the walking problem could collect her water easily.At the start of the project, the engineer could more or less comfortably organize the work schedule and ensure good progress. Many members of the community lent helping hands. However, when the project was drawing to an end, the chief showed a temporary loss of interest due to two reaso ns. First, his mother had died and he was arranging for the funeral. Second, he had an affair with a girl in a neighboring village and was more inclined to meet her than perform his duties.When the community members started returning to work, they seemed lethargic, and the engineer found it very difficult to complete the project within the stipulated deadline.Explanation of the issues based on Hofstede dimensions:The community is from a culture that exhibits high power distance index, wherein subordinates are accustomed to abide by what their seniors tell them to do rather than following more democratic ways. On the contrary, the engineer came from a culture where the power distance index is low, with flatter power structures, wherein the authority and subordinates worked on more or less equal terms.The community is more collectively oriented, whereas the engineer belonged to a culture that is more individualistic. Therefore, the community gave preference to the group’s opinion in stead of personal opinion. Therefore, when the lady with the walking problem was asked to voice her opinion, she was reluctant to express her personal opinion, as the majority of the community members did not possess her problem.Since low uncertainty avoidance and high power distance existed within the community, the members were more inclined toward organizing themselves as an extended family, with the chief being the grandfather of that family. The main authority lies with the chief, who should decide on the best course of action.In contrast, the engineer’s culture was one with low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance. Hence, when the project was drawing to an end, the engineer wanted to gather in the other members of the community although the chief lacked interest. But since the chief was not there, the members expressed disinterest, which the engineer interpreted as lethargy.THE URGENCY OF MANAGING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AS PART OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENTManagers acr oss the globe are increasingly facing the challenges thrown by the global interdependence of markets, and the human resources department in organizations is not an exception. When a common culture prevails, personnel management is not difficult since everybody has a common conception of right, wrong and accepted behavior. However, when team members come from different cultural backgrounds or the backgrounds of the manager and the team differ, it might lead to grave misunderstandings. Below is an analysis of how culture prevails across some of the major aspects of HR management.Recruiting The definition of a good candidate differs according to cultures. Those who express strong opinions, are outspoken and self-confident, are considered good candidates in individualistic masculine societies. Again in collectivist feminine societies, modest and ‘well connected’ candidates are good ones. Considering this, positioning as an employer in the USA (high on masculinity) is quite differen t from doing so in Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands (low on masculinity).Target Setting In Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and other low power distance cultures, targets are negotiated, while in high power distance cultures such as Italy, France, and Belgium, targets are set by senior managers.Training In high power distance societies, there is instructor-centric learning, while in low power distance societies, it is more learner-centric and interactive.Appraisal Most of the appraisal procedures are established in the USA or the UK, which are countries with high individualism and low power distance. Hence, as per these countries, the right way of performance enhancement is direct, frank feedback. However, this does not take into consideration that in countries with high power distance and collectivistic cultures, direct feedback is regarded as disrespectful and disgraceful.This cycle of recruitment, target setting, training and appraisal can be successfully us ed to manage people if it is culturally adapted. Relevant research and preparation is required for this.CONCLUSIONCultural differences do impact businesses occurring in cross-cultural contexts. A lot of problems arise in matters of participation, communication and other relational areas. However, if business leaders or even the staff understands issues with respect to Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions, these problems can be analyzed through a different perspective, and necessary steps to address these problems can be taken.

The Cage By Ruth Minsky Sender - 1125 Words

It has been days. I stumble, foot over foot to the crack of sunlight that beams into the car. I feel the train rock back and forth, side to side as we tumble over the tracks to a â€Å"better life.† A better life. More bread. They care about us. I hear the screech as the cars stop as we are all tossed forward. â€Å"Welcome to Auschwitz, Jews.† I hear a man scream be strong. I hear the crack of a whip and gun shots. I know they lied. The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender is based on her experiences during World War Two in the Holocaust. Riva and her family lived in Poland before the war, but once it became occupied during the war, they along with thousands of other jewish families were moved into the ghetto where hunger became part of their everyday lives. Once they arrived they were torn away from their loved ones, and sent to concentration camps where the horrors progressed at a very rapid rate. This book is about the emotional and physical battles Riva and her family endured during the war. They may have killed us physically, but we will remain strong mentally. Names are taken from the Jews and replaced with numbers when they enter the camp. This act is an attempt to steal the Jews’ identities; however, they fight against this act of dehumanization. The Nazi’s hoped to kill them mentally by doing this. My arm burns. I look up into the blue eyes of a Nazi guard as he burns the number into my skin. I smell burning flesh and want to barf. All around me irons are being heated up. â€Å"YouShow MoreRelatedCharacter Analysis of Riva from The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender839 Words   |  4 Pages1. Riva was truly a â€Å"smart owl† she found different ways to keep her and her brothers alive, and out of harm’s way. For instance, she managed to get herself off the Nazi deportation record that was made every week. Riva did this by making friends with the work manager who was forced to make the deportation list. Riva realized that if she kept on worrying about what is going to happen in the future it would be depressing; ins tead she thought about when she was going to be reunited with her familyRead MoreHow Hitler Became Chancellor Of Germany1164 Words   |  5 Pagesand 1945. Through an excerpt from Ruth Minsky Sender’s memoir, The Cage, the cruel and harsh treatment that was received by the Jews from the Nazis was horrific. More than one hundred concentration camps were established by the Nazis during WWII (â€Å"Germany: Establishment of the Nazi Dictatorship.†). They were starved, beaten, and exposed to all kinds of filth and disease (Bigelow and Slovey). Camp survivor Ruth Minsky Sender named her moving wartime memoir The Cage because of the Nazi’s practice ofRead MoreThe Right And Life Of Abortion1246 Words   |  5 PagesThe Right to Life â€Å"As long as there is life, there is hope† reads The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender. Abortion is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as â€Å"the deliberate termination of a pregnancy and is most often preformed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.† Beginning early on in history, abortions were viable solutions for immigrants, as their pregnancy rates were higher than the natives of an area or region. As timed passed, laws on abortion began to create a war on the separation of Church

Sat Essay Prompts for Dummies

Sat Essay Prompts for Dummies A number of them were in Hindi. Writing prompts can likewise be utilised to help students get prepared for the standardized tests. The Ultimate Sat Essay Prompts Trick The very first thing you ought to take note of is that the prompt tells you exactly what sort of elements you should focus on to observe the way the author builds their argument. You can get in touch with your writer through our support department should you need to specify some vital points to produce your work more customized. The questions are paraphrased for simplicity, but they supply you with a concept of the way the themes are recycled every year. Select a distinctive topic that others may not think of, and whatever you select, make sure that you know a lot about it! Our aim is to supply you with a professionally written essay on the subject you require. Write your essay by means of a practice prompt, then evaluate your piece working with the rubric to find a notion of h ow you'd have scored. If you've already completed other pieces of the SAT test and just an essay is left, check the very best essay prompts for you to demonstrate how great your capacity to express ideas is! If you're authentic, nobody can write the very same essay as you! Write an essay to convince your principal your idea is one that ought to be adopted. You'll ideally need to compose a few practice essays before you sit for the actual thing. Put simply, everything would be dependent on verifiable fact an expository essay. All the information that you want to compose your essay will be contained in the passage or in notes about it. Opt for a prompt at random from above, or select a topic which you think will be hard that you detach from (because you are going to want to write about the subject, as opposed to the argument) set timer to 50 minutes and compose the essay. You obtain a preview of your essay and ask to produce corrections if necessary. As soon as your registration is finished, be certain to print out your Admission Ticket, since you'll need it to the day of your test. Two or three students laughed nervously. Colleges are not solely looking at grades, but they're also thinking about the curriculum the student takes. Students lead busy lives and frequently forget about a coming deadline. Somebody manages health. Prompt can continue to keep your one-stop resource for the university. The Chronicles of Sat Essay Prompts Just take a second to consider why exactly you have to include supporting evidence in your SAT essay. The essay is a significant portion of the college application process, made only more so by the growing number of students applying to college in the USA each year. The SAT Essay demonstrates how well you recognize the passage and utilize it as the foundation for a well-written, thought-out discussion. All SAT essays have precisely the same structure you should stick with. Understanding writing prompts is not really that simple. The Analytical Writing section of the GRE is made up of two writing topics. Writing and essay prompts are a wonderful learning tool that will help you concentrate on a specific subject or topic and practice writing on such topic utilizing appropriate sentence structure and development. All our writers pass a considerable procedure to look at their abilities. Every writer we employ has written a good deal of special papers associated with your subject. You may feel as if you want to begin writing as fast as possible, but be sure you fully grasp the author's argument thoroughly before beginning. The author isn't literally saying that thoughts need more time to get to the hearer.

A Modest Proposal Cannibalism Free Essays

I feel that Jonathan Swift’s piece of work could be used and interpreted different with each and all audiences alike. There is a whole bunch of information to interpret. How Swift, looks at children not as individuals, but as animals used to be sold to the rich as food. We will write a custom essay sample on A Modest Proposal: Cannibalism or any similar topic only for you Order Now Swift’s work is very dark in this piece, with regard to selling of children for food. And with regards to Ireland’s economic advancements actually depend on it. He urges all other people to think that children could be sold in different styles and makes mention of how they could be prepared as a fine food dish. Swift’s states, â€Å"A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragoust. † Now normally if I can’t pronounce it I don’t use it or order it to eat, but these last two ways of preparing the children as food sounds as if a dish the rich would order. To me it sounds like Swift has rather expensive taste for lavish habits and tendencies. I think we can almost compare life in Ireland back then to today. All though there aren’t people selling their children to have the rich feast on their bones, or do I think it will come to that but it is close to our nation’s economic struggle. Our economy wouldn’t allow the selling of children of children to feed the rich. I do believe Ireland was in a lot worse shape than we currently are. They had no renewable resources such as fruits and vegetables to fall back on the way we do. They also didn’t have the amount of import and export trade that we have on our side. Swift constantly throughout his story states that selling the children to the rich is the only solution to the countries hard economic times. He even talks that all the families should consider fattening up the smaller children. Also Swift also makes mention of overpopulation and well makes a suggested solution to this crisis. He proclaims that children at the age of one can be sold to meat markets, thus helping the crisis of over population and in turn saving the parents of the children the cost of raising and providing for that child. Parents, who participated in this crazy idea, would pull the nation out of its current economic struggle. And that’s not all he then talks about how parents who helped out with his proposal how it would affect home life. Husbands would grow to respect wives better. What? I don’t know at all how this could possibly be something that could have a positive impact on a family what so ever. I think that Swift tries to persuade his readers that this is the only option for Ireland and its survival, in a dog eat dog world. He then starts stating statistics, he mentions of 120,000 some Irish children born in a year, that 20,000 should be kept for breeding and the continuance of the Irish legacy. And what’s even better is that a quarter of these choosing few, are to be males, are you serious 5,000 boys and the rest girls. This brings a question to my mind, what was the deciding factor that kept the child to be raised or sold. What tops the cake once more is that he says one boy for a total of four girls. I believe this contradicts his husband respecting the whole wife thing early in the paper. Swift goes on later to explain the idea of cannibalism should not stop at children, but instead its countries enemies, or even political figures. The idea of a nation such as Ireland cannibalizing its own population and natural resources sickens me. I would bat an eye at the thought of eating my son, or selling him off to the butcher to be slaughtered and sold. Swift goes on in this story to talk of common practices and courtesies. He talks that if Irish poor are to be married, and have a family, the family should refrain from domestic violence in and throughout the family, and love and cherish family. I serious think that this guy had dual personalities, he so many different stories to each situation. Possibly he was bi-polar or maybe he used some opium or something of that nature. I don’t think Swift had financial problems what so ever. Swift goes on in his work and states that he admits that this will drastically reduce the Irish population, but other nations should not practice this idea in their cultures. He considers it a â€Å"healthy patriotism†, and goes on to say that the children that are to be butchered should stay domestically and not be exported. This would keep other nations from wanting to overtake the Irish population and decimate the whole society and Irish culture. In Jonathan Swift’s work you can tell he is rather upset with Ireland’s politicians and the wealthy. You can also see that he is upset at the general population of the poor. He is angry at the poor population because they have made no plans or have no intentions to get out of the downward spiral their country is in. I wonder if he wrote this piece as a way of making the general population consider in participating in cannibalization, as an act to blow the whistle in a sense to make the politicians act on the current situation at hand in their times. How to cite A Modest Proposal: Cannibalism, Essay examples

Puritanism In The Scarlet Letter Essays - English-language Films

Puritanism In The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses the aspects of relationships, religion, community, discipline and punishment in the puritan community of 17th century Boston. Relationships between men and women were very constrained and that is what made adultery such a bad sin in the eyes of everyone in the community. Religion seemed to govern over all, people would look up to reverends and the community believed that fate was their destiny. Public discipline and punishment were used to discourage everyone else from committing the same crime or sin as the offending criminal did. The community was to follow the beliefs of god and to do their duties the best they could, yet were there to criticize and punish all who disobeyed the religion or laws. In 17th century Boston every thing was very strict and everyone was expected to follow the laws, which makes Hester's sin such an excellent example of the beliefs of that time period. The first scaffold scene is very important because the scene sums up the beliefs of the general public at that time, and gives a prospective of what Hester Prynne must deal with. In the beginning of chapter two the scene is described as it could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit,(47) showing that the whole town was there for a ruthless public punishment. The crowd was not there for an execution though, but there for a public punishment of Hester Prynne who had committed adultery. A townsman describes Hester's punishment to a stranger as, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.(58) This scene shows the weight of values and morals upon society in the 17th century and how public punishment was not only used as punishment but as a way to discourage others from committing the same crime. The community was key in this punishment because it helped alienate Hester and further her pain. The punishment brings forth Hester's underlying pain, [Hester] sent forth a cry she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real.(55) This pain only breaks surface once, yet throughout the whole story Hester must deal with the shame and emotional pain of the scarlet letter. The stranger sums it up best with the quotation, Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. Since religion was such a key part of their lives, anyone who did disobey their god was looked down upon. What made religion ironic in this story was how everyone looked up to a reverend that had committed the same sin as someone they looked down upon severely. Dimmesdale says, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I, must stand together! But daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!(134) The reverend knows his sin and wants be punished with Hester and Pearl, yet not until what he calls judgement day. In the 17th century, Puritans believed that there was a stern God who had decreed in advance the fate of each person for all time. Therefore, there was not much people felt they could do to become a better person in God's eyes but do his biding with their jobs. To increase their chances of getting to go to heaven the townspeople would often get one step closer to God by getting close to a religious leader, which was bad for Arthur Dimmesdale who was probably farther away from God than everyone else because of his sin. Relationships were looked upon as something sacred and a woman should be loyal to her husband. Once married it was considered a horrible offense if you were un-loyal to your spouse. They have not been bold to put force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The penalty therefor is death.(58) A townsman explains that the penalty is death for her crime (showing the harshness of the 17th century), yet that the other party in the affair must have played a strong role in tempting her, so they just sentenced her to the letter on her chest and three hours on the scaffold. The stranger shows how most people reacted when only seeing one of the

Video Content Analysis Essays

Video Content Analysis Essays Video Content Analysis Essay Video Content Analysis Essay Video Content Analysis, what is it and why would I want it? White Paper by Nick Hewitson November 2005. What is Video Content Analysis? There are a number of terms used in different industries and markets to describe Video Content Analysis: Analytics Behavior Recognition Content Analysis Concept Coding Intelligent Video Object Tracking Smart CCTV They all however describe the real time use of computer vision in a security environment to monitor the CCTV camera feeds and assist the guard in his or her decision making process. The UK is the country with the most CCTV cameras deployed, with over 4 million in se. Its claimed that if you walk through London you will be watched over 300 times, however this is clearly a misconception. While it is probably true that you will be in the field of view of a CCTV camera over 300 times during your walk through London it is certainly not true that you are observed that many times for number of reasons. Firstly CCTV control rooms have fewer monitors than there are cameras, in many cases a number of cameras are sequentially displayed on a single monitor. If for example five cameras are fed into a single monitor which then you obviously have nly a 20% chance of being viewed while in any individual cameras field of vi ew. Secondly the staff in the control room are often expected to deal with other issues as well as monitoring the CCTV. They will be responsible for issuing keys, badges and permits to both staff and visitors; they are also responsible for monitoring the access control and fire alarm systems, controlling radio communications with both their own foot patrols and possibly the local Police. In addition they will need to be away from their desks for breaks to visit the restrooms etc. During this time they are ot monitoring the CCTV images. Finally the design of CCTV control rooms expects the guard to watch a large number of monitors. According to ASS International, a human can effectively watch 9-12 cameras for only 15 minutes. Security guard shifts are often 12 hours long so 1 1 hours and 45 minutes are ineffective monitoring. CCTV Today in November 2005 estimated that the probability of an event being recognised and acted upon if it was clearly in the view of a CCTV camera was less than 1 in 1000. CCTV has historically been a forensic tool not a real time crime prevention system. The principal of Video Content analysis is to use computers to monitor all of the cameras all of the time and when something unusual happens to alert the security guard to it. For example in a retail shopping centre a person running is unusual. The system can detect that a persons running but is unable to differentiate between a benign event, a teenage girl running over to greet her boyfriend, or a criminal event where someone is running out of a shop with an armload of Jeans. However if the running event is drawn to the security guards attention he is able to make that ubjective decision easily and respond appropriately. Why would I want to use Intelligent Video? The following scenario is taken from a real test of a behavioural recognition system monitoring access to parked aircraft in the USA. It shows what the advantages of computer vision over human monitoring can be. There are 8 cameras monitoring a road that passes through a tunnel, above which is an area where commercial aircraft are parked. The system was tasked with looking for cars that stopped under the bridge and people climbing up the slope towards the aircraft. Over 1 month the system reported almost 300 events where vehicles were seen stopping. 298 of these were originally classified as false alarms caused by normal traffic flow problems. One event was due to a fender bender accident and one to a breakdown. There were no attempts to approach the parked aircraft. At first evaluation, it would seem that the value of the system was negligible, all it had produced were 298 false alarms out of 300 events. Previously the cameras were monitored by a guard on conventional CCTV monitors and no events at all had been reported in the month before. It was found that the 300 events would take the guard on average less than 30 seconds each to determine the risk. So instead of employing staff 24 / 7 for 30 days to monitor the tunnel only two and a half hours man hours were required over the whole 30 day period. In addition, in the previous month the guard reported no events, given that each of the 300 events reported by the system actually took place in the test month. It is probable that a similar number actually took place previously when the guard was supposed to be watching and he didnt notice them. It is therefore highly likely that if someone had stopped a car briefly to allow a passenger to get out and approach the aircraft, the event would have been missed, while the Intelligent Video system would have caught it. The Smart CCTV system had therefore raised the effectiveness of the monitoring from zero to 100% while reducing the operating costs from 720 man hours to 2. 5 man hours of labour. When the security manager looked at the cost effectiveness on this basis, he had no hesitation in purchasing a system. Key issues to determine before looking at Video Content Analysis. What are your operational requirements? As seen above, if it is to have a minimum number of false alarms then the human operator will be more effective, he failed to report any of the traffic events under the bridge, in fact he didnt report anything at all, so his false alarm rate was zero. What percentage of the cameras is best monitored by computer vision, and what percentage is better monitored by a human operator? In general, today computers do better on the cameras where nothing much happens (and therefore guards get bored) and people do better in busy scenarios where occlusion between people akes it hard for the software. A good example is an embassy that has a back alley where no one ever goes. This is covered by a CCTV camera and this was the only camera out of about 50 that was implemented at the beginning. The embassy realised that no one paid attention to this camera because nothing ever happened but if someone was in the alley they really needed to know about it fast. In the majority of applications today, only a percentage of the total number of the cameras are monitored by video content analysis, some are only recorded and some are monitored full time by the security staff. You need to determine what is the specific risk and the most appropriate method of monitoring for each point. Do the risks and scenarios change during the course of 24 hours? Can you build upgradeability into your plans? In many cases the number of cameras monitored by the software increases as experience of the benefits is gained. Video Content analysis is a tool that allows you to improve your operational effectiveness. It is not the all seeing Big Brother monitoring all activity. It helps you spot the needle in the haystack; CCTV provides huge amounts of mostly irrelevant data. Video Content Analysis extracts information from that data. It reduces your costs, manual monitoring is inconsistent and expensive. It reduces your risk by moving away from the limited human attention span of less than twenty minutes, and screening all of the video streams in parallel. It allows you to move from a forensic mindset of finding out what happened after the event has taken place towards real time analysis and decision making. You do still need to employ professional security staff to make the decisions on the information presented to them in a sensible manner. -End-

What to Know About Visual Basic

What to Know About Visual Basic In 2008 Microsoft stopped support for VB and declared it a Legacy software. Feel free to read this article written before that time. It provides good background for the current .NET software still in use today. Its a computer programming system developed and owned by Microsoft. Visual Basic was originally created to make it easier to write programs for the Windows computer operating system. The basis of Visual Basic is an earlier programming language called BASIC that was invented by Dartmouth College professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. Visual Basic is often referred to using just the initials, VB. Visual Basic is easily the most widely used computer programming system in the history of software. Is Visual Basic Just a Programming Language? Its more. Visual Basic was one of the first systems that made it practical to write programs for the Windows operating system. This was possible because VB included software tools to automatically create the detailed programming required by Windows. These software tools not only create Windows programs, but they also take full advantage of the graphical way that Windows works by letting programmers draw their systems with a mouse on the computer. This is why its called Visual Basic. Visual Basic also provides a unique and complete software architecture. Architecture is the way computer programs, such as Windows and VB programs, work together. One of the major reasons why Visual Basic has been so successful is that it includes everything that is necessary to write programs for Windows. Is there more than one version of Visual Basic? Yes. Since 1991 when it was first introduced by Microsoft, there have been nine versions of Visual Basic up to VB.NET 2005, the current version. The first six versions were all called Visual Basic. In 2002, Microsoft introduced Visual Basic .NET 1.0, a completely redesigned and rewritten version that was a key part of a much larger computer architecture. The first six versions were all backward compatible. That means that later versions of VB could handle programs written with an earlier version. Because the .NET architecture was such a radical change, earlier versions of Visual Basic have to be rewritten before they can be used with .NET. Many programmers still prefer Visual Basic 6.0 and a few use even earlier versions. Will Microsoft stop supporting Visual Basic 6 and earlier versions? This depends on what you mean by support but many programmers would say they already have. The next version of the Windows operating system, Windows Vista, will still run Visual Basic 6 programs and future versions of Windows might run them too. On the other hand, Microsoft now charges big fees for any help for VB 6 software problems and soon they wont provide it at all. Microsoft doesnt sell VB 6 anymore so its difficult to find. Its clear that Microsoft is doing everything they can to discourage the continued use of Visual Basic 6 and encourage the adoption of Visual Basic .NET. Many programmers believe that Microsoft was wrong to abandon Visual Basic 6 because their customers have put so much investment into it over more than ten years. As a result, Microsoft has earned a lot of ill will from some VB 6 programmers and some have moved to other languages rather than move to VB.NET. This might be a mistake. Is Visual Basic .NET really an improvement? Absolutely yes! All of .NET is truly revolutionary and gives programmers a much more capable, efficient and flexible way to write computer software. Visual Basic .NET is a key part of this revolution. At the same time, Visual Basic .NET is clearly more difficult to learn and use. The vastly improved capability does come at a fairly high cost of technical complexity. Microsoft helps to make up for this increased technical difficulty by providing even more software tools in .NET to help programmers. Most programmers agree that VB.NET is such a huge leap forward that its worth it. Isnt Visual Basic only for lower skilled programmers and simple systems? This was something that programmers using programming languages like C, C, and Java used to say before Visual Basic .NET. Back then, there was some truth to the charge, although on the other side of the argument was the fact that excellent programs could be written faster and cheaper with Visual Basic than with any of those languages. VB.NET is the equal of any programming technology anywhere. In fact, the resulting program using the .NET version of the C programming language, called C#.NET, is virtually identical with the same program written in VB.NET. The only real difference today is programmer preference. Is Visual Basic object-oriented? VB.NET certainly is. One of the big changes introduced by .NET was complete object-oriented architecture. Visual Basic 6 was mostly object-oriented but lacked a few features such as inheritance. The subject of object-oriented software is a big topic by itself and is beyond the scope of this article. What is the Visual Basic runtime and do we still need it? One of the big innovations introduced by Visual Basic was a way to split a program into two parts. One part is written by the programmer and does everything that makes that program unique, such as adding two specific values. The other part does all of the processing that any program might need such as the programming to add any values. The second part is called the runtime in Visual Basic 6 and earlier and is part of the Visual Basic system. The runtime is actually a specific program and each version of Visual Basic has a corresponding version of the runtime. In VB 6, the runtime is called MSVBVM60. (Several other files are also normally needed for a complete VB 6 runtime environment.) In .NET, the same concept is still used in a very general way, but its not called a runtime anymore (its part of the .NET Framework) and it does a lot more. What is the Visual Basic .NET Framework? Like the old Visual Basic runtimes, the Microsoft .NET Framework is combined with specific .NET programs written in Visual Basic .NET or any other .NET language to provide a complete system. The Framework is much more than a runtime, however. The .NET Framework is the basis of the entire .NET software architecture. One major part is a huge library of programming code called the Framework Class Library (FCL). The .NET Framework is separate from VB.NET and can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft. The Framework is an included part of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. What is Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and how does it fit in? VBA is a version of Visual Basic 6.0 that is used as an internal programming language in many other systems such as Microsoft Office programs like Word and Excel. (Earlier versions of Visual Basic were used with earlier versions of Office.) Many other companies in addition to Microsoft have used VBA to add programming ability to their own systems. VBA makes it possible for another system, like Excel, to run a program internally and provide what is essentially a custom version of Excel for a particular purpose. For example, a program could be written in VBA that will make Excel create an accounting balance sheet using a series of accounting entries in a spreadsheet at the click of a button. VBA is the only version of VB 6 that is still sold and supported by Microsoft and only as an internal component of Office programs. Microsoft is developing a completely .NET capability (called VSTO, Visual Studio Tools for Office) but VBA continues to be used. How much does Visual Basic cost? Although Visual Basic 6 could be purchased by itself, Visual Basic .NET is only sold as part of what Microsoft calls Visual Studio .NET. Visual Studio .NET also includes the other Microsoft supported .NET languages, C#.NET, J#.NET and C.NET. Visual Studio comes in a variety of versions with different capabilities that go well beyond just the ability to write programs. In October 2006, Microsofts posted list prices for Visual Studio .NET ranged from $800 to $2,800 although various discounts are often available. Fortunately, Microsoft also provides a completely free version of Visual Basic called Visual Basic .NET 2005 Express Edition (VBE). This version of VB.NET is separate from the other languages and is also completely compatible with the more expensive versions. This version of VB.NET is very capable and doesnt feel at all like free software. Although some features of the more expensive versions arent included, most programmers wont notice anything missing. The system can be used for production quality programming and isnt crippled in any way like some free software. You can read more about VBE and download a copy at Microsofts web site.