Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions

“Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster." Prof. Geert Hofstede, Emeritus Professor, Maastricht University.

Geert Hofstede, Dutch anthropologist, conducted a research in international subsidiaries of IBM between 1967 to 1973. Primarily he wanted to find out the work attitudes of international employees. He used a questioner for his survey.

He published his results in 1980 in a book that titled “cultures consequences”. Hofstede believes that world cultures differ in five dimensions. And those dimensions are power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, femininity vs. masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long- vs. short-term orientation.

Power distance, refers to the unequal distribution of power in a society. He argues that countries like Malaysia, Guatemala and Mexico are high power distance countries, i.e. older generations are respected in a traditional way.

Individualism vs. collectivism, Hofstede claims that individualistic societies like the US and Australia value personal achievement whereas in collective societies like Panama and Ecuador people in exchange of their royalty to a group receive protection.

Femininity vs. masculinity, in Hofstede view masculine cultures, like Japan and Italy, emphasize on traditional distinction between gender roles and perceptions, while feminine cultures such as Norway and Sweden, women are valued as to the same extent as men.

Uncertainty avoidance, refers to the extent people tend to avoid ambiguity and uncertainty. Hofstede says that countries like Greece and Portugal are high in uncertainty avoidance and tend to choose more formal rules and regulations while countries such as Jamaica and Singapore which are low in uncertainty avoidance are vise versa.

Finally Hostage’s fifth dimension is long/short term orientation. In an excerpt of his ideas, Hofstede in his personal homepage says: “this fifth dimension was found in a study among students in 23 countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face' ”.

Hofstede theory of cultural dimensions also came under some harsh criticisms. Some argued that his methodology was not valid. Some questioned the validity of his data and others said that we can not generalize the results that extracted from a survey on a company level to a nation or culture.

But Brendan McSweeney –who is a full professor and Director of Research at the Department of Accounting, Finance and Management, University of Essex, England - was one of the scholars that challenged Hofstede theory seriously. In an article titled “Hostage’s Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A triumph of faith - A failure of analysis”, McSweeney questioned Hostage’s assumptions. He said that IBM Company as a micro-location is not typical of a nation. Also employees of a company are not representatives of a country. Furthermore he discussed that the main dimensions of culture can not be identified by a questionnaire.

In his response to McSweeney, Hofstede accepted that nations are not the best units of studying cultures but said that researchers do not have any other choice as boundaries of different cultures can not easily be determined. He also said that he intended to measure differences between national cultures and any set of samples from national populations can provide information about such differences.

References

Callahan, Ewa (2006).Cultural similarities ad differences in the design of university web sites. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.239-273.

Hofstede,Geert(2008).A summary of my ideas about national culture differences. Available from: http://feweb.uvt.nl/center/hofstede/index.htm retrieved May 3rd 2008.

McSweeney, B. (2002). Hostage’s model of national cultural differences and consequences: A triumph of faith - a failure of analysis. Human Relations, 55, 89–118.