What about Spain?

If we explore the Spanish culture through the lens of the 5-D Model, we can get a good overview of the deep drivers of Spanish culture relative to other world cultures.

Power distance
This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal – it expresses the attitude of the culture towards these inequalities amongst us.
Power distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

Spain’s score on this dimension (57) reflects that hierarchical distance is accepted and those holding the most powerful positions are admitted to have privileges for their position.
Management controls, i.e. the boss requires information from his subordinates and these expect their boss to control them. A lack of interest towards a subordinate would mean this one is not relevant in the Organization. At the same time, this would make the employee feel unmotivated.
Negative feedback is very distressed so for the employee it is more than difficult to provide his boss with negative information. The boss needs to be conscious of this difficulty and search for little signals in order to discover the real problems and avoid becoming relevant.

Individualism
The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”.
In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for loyalty.

Spain, in comparison with the rest of the European countries (except for Portugal) is Collectivist (because of its score in this dimension: 51). However, compared with other areas of the world it is seen as clearly individualist. This has made Spaniards quite easy to relate with certain cultures -mainly non European- whereas other cultures can be perceived as aggressive and blunt.
On the other hand, teamwork is considered as something totally natural, employees tend to work in this way with no need for strong motivation from Management.

Masculinity / Femininity
A high score (masculine) on this dimension indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner / best in field – a value system that starts in school and continues throughout organisational behaviour.
A low score (feminine) on the dimension means that the dominant values in society are caring for others and quality of life. A feminine society is one where quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable. The fundamental issue here is what motivates people, wanting to be the best (masculine) or liking what you do (feminine).

Spain scores 42 on this dimension and is a country where the key word is consensus. So polarization is not well considered or excessive competitiveness appreciated. Spanish children are educated in search of harmony, refusing to take sides or standing out. There is a concern for weak or needy people that generate a natural current of sympathy.
Regarding management, managers like to consult their subordinates to know their opinions and, according to it, make their decisions.

In politics, it is desirable to have participation of all the minorities, trying to avoid the dominant presence of just one winning party. It is the country opposite to ‘the winner takes it all’.

Uncertainty avoidance   
The dimension Uncertainty Avoidance has to do with the way that a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen? This ambiguity brings with it anxiety and different cultures have learnt to deal with this anxiety in different ways.  The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these is reflected in the UAI score.

If there is a dimension that defines Spain very clearly, it is Uncertainty Avoidance. Spain is considered the second noisiest country in the world. People like to have rules for everything, changes cause stress, but, at the same time, they are obliged to avoid rules and laws that, in fact, make life more complex. Confrontation is avoided as it causes great stress and scales up to the personal level very quickly. There is great concern for changing, ambiguous and undefined situations. Thus, for example, in a very recent survey 75% of Spanish young people wanted to work in civil service (i.e. a job for life, no concerns about the future) whereas in the USA only 17% of young people would like it.

Long term orientation
The long term orientation dimension is closely related to the teachings of Confucius and can be interpreted as dealing with society’s search for virtue, the extent to which a society shows a pragmatic future-oriented perspective rather than a conventional historical short-term point of view.

Spanish people like to live in the moment, without a great concern about the future. In fact, Spain is the country that has given the meaning of ‘fiesta’ to the world. In Spain, people look for quick results without delays. Moreover, there is a need for clear structures and well defined rules prevailing against more pragmatic and relaxed approaches to life, particularly, in the long term time.