Milica National Culture and Its Dimensions
Milica National Culture and Its Dimensions
Milica National Culture and Its Dimensions
1 National culture has been shown to impact on major business activities, from capital
structure to group performance (Leung et al, 2005). Cultural awareness can lead to
greater success of international business ventures and lack of it can just as well lead to
their failure (Dowling et al, 2008: 57). Geert Hofstede is a renowned author who
developed a model to describe various cultural ‘dimensions’, and has researched
issues relating to cultural differences (for example in the GLOBE Project).
2 Geert Hofstede’s model was based on a study of IBM employees in over fifty
countries. He identified five dimensions or ‘problem areas’ which represent
differences among national cultures (Hofstede, 1997): power distance, uncertainty
avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity and long-term
orientation.
3 Power distance defines how social inequality is perceived and accepted in different
cultures. Hofstede (1997) explains how in high power distance cultures children are
raised with a great emphasis on respecting elders, which is carried through to
adulthood. Therefore organisations are more centralised, employees prefer a more
autocratic leadership style where subordinates are expected to be told what to do and
there are wide wage gaps in the hierarchical structure. On the other hand, in low
power distance cultures inequality is not desired, employees prefer to be consulted
with regards to decision making and thus prefer a more resourceful and democratic
leader.
8 Conclusion
It appears that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are still valid today, supported by the
recent GLOBE study. It can be concluded that cultures have different learned values
and norms which can determine actions and play a significant role in influencing
business outcomes.
References
Leung, K., Bhagat, R. S., Buchan, N. R., Erez, M. and Gibson, C. B. (2005) ‘Culture
and International Business: Recent Advances and their Implications for Future
Research’, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 36, pp. 357-378.
Globalization Note Series
Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche
Copyright © 2011 Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche. This material was developed for students in the GLOBE
course at IESE Business School and should not be cited or circulated without the authors’ written permission.
Globalization Note Series Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche
with family, teachers, officials, experiences, and society-at-large. In this respect, Geert Hofstede speaks of
culture as a process of “collective programming of the mind”4. Third, it is this collective programming that
determines what is considered acceptable or attractive behavior. In other words, cultural values provide
preferences or priorities for one behavior over another.
It is important to note that national cultural differences have remained fairly stable over time. While
at the surface level there may be some convergence in cultural habits, artifacts and symbols, for example as
witnessed by the spread of American consumer culture across the globe, at a deeper level cultural differences
persist. For example, data from the World Value Survey, a study of 65 countries reflecting 75% of the world’s
population, showed a remarkable resilience of distinctive cultural values even after taking into account the
far-reaching cultural changes caused by modernization and economic development.5 Consider the following
high-stakes example. You are riding in a car with a close friend, who hits a pedestrian. “You know that he
was going at least 35 miles per hour in an area of the city where the maximum allowed speed is 20 miles per
hour. There are no witnesses. His lawyer says that if you testify under oath that he was only driving 20 miles
per hour it may save him from serious consequences.” More than 90% of mangers in Canada, the United
States, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Western Germany reported that they would not testify
falsely under oath to help their close friend, while fewer than half of managers in South Korea (26%),
Venezuela (34%), Russia (42%), Indonesia (47%), and China (48%) said they would refuse to testify falsely in
this hypothetical situation.6 Some cultures put more emphasis on universal commitments (like honesty) while
others put more weight on loyalty to particular people and relationships. Thus, the potential for
misunderstanding is large, even between wealthy and deeply inter-connected countries like the United States
and South Korea.
The persistence of cultural value differences is particularly relevant for large multinational companies
that are exposed to multiple national cultures in their daily operations. This suggests that managing across
borders introduces substantial complexity because it forces multinationals to tailor their practices and
approaches to each and every cultural context they operate in. Therefore, while the concepts discussed in this
note will apply to different aspects of cross-border activities, the primary focus is on multinational business
firms.
Section 1 of this note discusses cultural frameworks and value dimensions that have been used to
study national cultural differences. These frameworks are subjective in the sense that they are based on data
that were self-reported by individual members of cultural groups. Section 2 introduces a range of objective
indicators of cultural differences. Section 3 examines how culture shapes various aspects of multinational
business. Section 4 discusses business implications and how multinational companies can manage adaptation
to cultural differences.
I. Cultural Frameworks
The analogy of an iceberg is useful to conceptualize culture as consisting of different layers. 7 Certain
aspects of a culture are more visible, just like the tip of an iceberg. This manifest culture includes observed
elements such as behaviors, language, music and food. A deeper understanding of a culture only develops by
looking at the submerged tip of the iceberg. This deeper layer consists of expressed values that reflect how
cultural members explain the manifest culture. Finally, the very bottom of the iceberg consists of basic and
taken-for-granted assumptions which form the foundations of each culture. It is these basic assumptions that
provide the ultimate meaning to the expressed values and behaviors. For example, in many Asian cultures it
is considered rude not to carefully study a business card that is presented to you because business cards
reflect a person’s professional identity, title and social status. Failing to study the business card is therefore a
sign of disrespect towards that person. In other words, the ritual of exchanging business cards (a behavior)
can be explained by the deeper-seated meaning that is associated with business cards in this particular
context (expressed values). The expressed values, in turn, can only be fully understood by taking into
account the underlying importance of respect towards seniority and status in that culture (basic
assumptions).
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Dealing with national cultural differences therefore requires not only knowledge about adequate
behaviors but, more importantly, an understanding of deeper-level assumptions and values that explain why
certain behaviors are more appropriate than others. A number of cultural frameworks exist that characterize
and describe cultures along different value dimensions.
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firms in feminine cultures place a relatively stronger emphasis on overall employee well-being rather than
bottom-line performance.
Based on the responses to the IBM employee surveys, Hofstede was able to compute average scores
for each national culture involved in the study along these four dimensions. Over the years, Hofstede’s study
has been replicated by other scholars and extended to over 80 cultures for which data on the four dimensions
are available. Exhibit 1 lists the cultural scores for each dimension across 30 selected cultures. Using these
scores, Hofstede developed national cultural profiles to compare cultures and highlight cultural differences
(see Exhibit 2). This provides a useful tool to analyze what to expect when entering into a new culture and
which value differences will be relatively more pronounced.
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intra-cultural variation but it also raises doubts over whether the country is necessarily a suitable proxy for
defining cultural regions.
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official religion of Saudi Arabia is Islam (which prohibits alcohol consumption), is probably the best
explanation for those countries’ widely divergent alcoholic beverage sales. Similarly, we can understand
dietary differences between Indians and Chinese in large part based on religious distinctions.
Most research using religion as a marker of cultural differences has focused only on the binary
condition of whether or not national communities share a common religion. Based on a sample of 163
countries, 51% of country pairs have at least thirty percent or more of both populations practicing the same
religion. But that analysis does not account for differences between denominations within religions. Metrics
that do exist of religious distance treat commonalities at the level of denomination or sect as closest (e.g.
Methodist), then consider matches at broader levels of aggregation within a single religion (e.g. Protestant),
then at the level of a religion (e.g. Christianity), and then most broadly combine groups of religions with a
similar origin and some common beliefs (e.g. “monotheistic religions of a common Middle-Eastern origin,”
the category that encompasses Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).19 Note also that religions differ in their level
of internal diversity.20
Language is another observable aspect of culture, which according to some researchers offers a
window into deeper beliefs and thought processes.21 Writing on potential implications of linguistic
differences on thought patterns across cultures dates back at least to early work by Edward Sapir (1921)22 and
Benjamin Whorf (1940).23 Michael Agar provided the following description of the language’s deeper impact,
“Language carries with it patterns of seeing, knowing, talking, and acting…patterns that mark the easier
trails for thought and perception and action.”24 Later scholars, particularly in the 1960s, moved decisively
away from this view as they focused on universal patterns across languages, but more recently research in
linguistics has again shown a “growing appreciation of how interpretive differences can be rooted as much in
systematic uses of language as in its structure.”25
One simple way to summarize the persistence of linguistic differences is to note that among the same
sample of 163 countries referenced above, in only ten percent of the country pairs do twenty percent or more
of the populations of both countries speak a common language.26 Furthermore, the concept of linguistic
distance allows us to measure cultural distance based on the genealogical classification of languages, i.e. the
presence of common linguistic ancestors. Exhibit 3 presents such a linguistic distance table calculated versus
English as the focal language.
What is particularly interesting about the use of linguistic distance as an objective indicator of
cultural differences is that it has been shown to correlate with cultural distinctions such as those described in
the previous section. Two examples will be presented here, based on distinctions between English and
Spanish that will be familiar to many readers. First, consider Hofstede’s dimension of
individualism/collectivism. English speaking cultures are considered more individualistic (they score 84 on this
dimension) whereas Spanish speaking cultures are deemed more collectivistic (22). Linguistically, the
requirement in Spanish, but not English, to specify a person’s gender when describing his or her occupation is
seen as reflecting the collectivist pattern of rooting description in social context. English, by casting aside the
requirement to communicate such contextual information, “tends to elevate individuals vis-à-vis their
groups.”27 Hofstede’s dimension of power distance is also related to linguistic differences between Spanish
and English. Spanish speaking countries score much higher on this dimension (69) versus English speaking
countries (32). And in Spanish, we note the distinct formal (usted) and informal (tu) forms of the English
“you.” This hierarchical emphasis is also seen in speech patterns such as the tendency in Mexico to introduce
an engineer as “ingeniero” or a lawyer as “licenciado” whereas both would just be called “mister” in
English.28 More sophisticated statistical tests have also validated linguistic distance as a marker of cultural
distance.
In addition to serving as observable markers of cultural differences at deeper levels than behavior,
religion and language categories are also useful for grouping countries. It quickly gets overwhelming to try
to look at the world in terms of countries where business cards are received in particular ways or in terms of
the presence or absence of particular ingredients in local cuisine. Thinking in terms of countries where
English is the main language or where most of the population are Catholic can be useful, though again one
has to be careful of oversimplification. More sophisticated efforts at classifying countries into cultural
clusters have often relied on geography, language, and religion as primary factors, while others have also
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used cultural frameworks such as Hofstede’s as well as levels of economic development.29 The clusters
resulting from a synthesis across eight such studies are shown in Exhibit 4.
communities have also been shown to be more conducive to the development of international trade networks
than others.41 Hofstede’s cultural framework has also been linked to trade flows. One of the more intuitive
findings from such research is that “countries high in uncertainty-aversion export disproportionately less to
distant countries (with which they are presumably less familiar).”42 Other research looking at Hofstede’s
original four dimensions (and their aggregation into a single measure of cultural distance) has produced
results that don’t fit as well with theory and intuition. One study indicates that cultural distance actually
increases bilateral trade, which its authors surmise may result from companies preferring to export to
culturally different markets rather than invest to serve them via local production.43 This, however, contrasts
with the general view that cultural differences are an impediment to trade.
Much research has also been done linking Hofstede’s cultural framework to foreign investment
flows, and in particular to patterns of foreign market entry. A summary article reports that, “Firms from
countries with large power distance prefer subsidiary and equity JV entry modes whereas firms from countries
high in uncertainty avoidance prefer contract agreements and export entry modes.”44 The same summary
article also cited various studies analyzing the effects of cultural distance on entry modes, though we have
already noted methodological concerns about such studies: “Findings demonstrated that as the cultural
distance between countries increased, the tendency to choose a joint venture (JV) over an acquisition
increased Also, as cultural distance increased, Japanese firms were more likely to choose green-fields or
wholly owned subsidiaries over shared ownership; the tendency to choose licensing over JVs or wholly
owned subsidiaries increased; the tendency to choose a greenfield over an acquisition increased; wholly
owned subsidiaries were less preferred than either shared-equity ventures or technology licensing; the
tendency to choose management-service contracts over franchising increased…”45
Moving beyond entry modes specifically, it has also been shown that “cultural distance is a
significant deterrent to Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI), with a coefficient one third the size of geographic
distance….[and] Hofstede’s power distance in the originating country is negatively related to cross-border debt
and equity holdings…uncertainty avoidance is positively related to cross-border debt holdings…[and] both
masculinity and individuality are positively related to cross-border debt and equity FPI.”46 Language
differences have also been shown to have a significant and negative impact on Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI).47 Similar findings have also been found for M&A flows, however, one comparative study found that
“while geographic, linguistic, and colonial variables explain 39% of variations in telephone traffic and trade,
they explain only 24% of the variations in M&A flows.”48
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focusing specifically on power distance. The section concludes with material on managing adaptation to
cultural differences.
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also associated with companies purchasing rather than manufacturing in-house a larger proportion of inputs
for products they make. 58
Finance is an area where one might expect rather limited cultural influence, and indeed power distance
has not been researched heavily in this function. Among other dimensions, uncertainty avoidance has been
linked to greater reliance on bank finance.59 Power distance, however, has been researched in the related area
of Accounting. Hofstede wrote that, “In large power distance countries, the accounting system will be used
more frequently to justify the decisions of the top power holder(s); in fact it usually is their tool to present the
desired image, and figures will be twisted to this end.”60 Subsequent research, however, has cast doubt on
the impact of power distance on accounting disclosure, but does indicate that high levels of uncertainty
avoidance do fit with disclosure and conservatism in accounting.61
Finally, there are important organizational or human resources implications of national culture. In
countries with high (versus low) power distance, employee selection tends to give more emphasis to social
class (over education), training tends to emphasize conformity (versus autonomy), evaluations focus on
compliance or trustworthiness (over performance), wage differences between managers and workers are
larger, leadership is more authoritarian (instead of participative), motivation is based on the assumption that
subordinates dislike work and hence is more coercive (rather than assuming employees like work and trying
to strengthen their motivation through intrinsic and extrinsic rewards), and organizations are more
hierarchical (versus flat).62 Managers who wish to achieve significant change in high power distance cultures
are advised to put senior staff front and center in communication efforts, use legitimate authority, and “tell
subordinates what to do.” In contrast, in lower power distance cultures, it is more important to explain the
reasons for change, “allow for questions and challenges” and involve employees in figuring out how to
implement the desired change.63
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managerial control but requiring acquiring firms to have sufficient cross-cultural capability to manage and in
most cases integrate acquired firms.
Another approach to reducing the need for variation is to promote a strong corporate culture. By
attracting and cultivating employees and customers who are drawn to a particular corporate culture, the need
to respond to national cultural differences might be reduced. However, it’s important not to place too much
confidence in a typical corporate culture overpowering national cultural differences. Recall that Hofstede’s
original research took place within a single company – IBM – and still revealed large cultural differences.
Furthermore, research by Andre Laurent indicates that bringing employees from different cultures together
in the same company might actually strengthen rather than mitigate national cultural differences among
them.64
More broadly, an organization can also improve its capabilities for bridging cultural differences.
Hiring for adaptability and investing in cross-cultural training can improve workforce capabilities and
flexibility. Exposure to and deeper experience with foreign locations and cultures via participation in
international teams, travel, and expatriation can inform and grow these kinds of capabilities. For many
companies with high growth targets in foreign markets, increasing the diversity of their management teams
should also be a priority. However, firms currently make only little use of this source of cultural capability.
Of the 2008 Fortune Global 500 companies, only 14 percent had a nonnative CEO.65 And among the directors
of U.S. S&P 500 companies in 2008, only seven percent were foreign nationals, only 9 percent had degrees
from non-U.S. institutions, and only 27 percent had any international work experience.66 Most firms from
emerging markets have even less internationalized leadership teams.
In thinking through decisions about how far to push efforts to adapt to local cultural conditions, it’s
also important to account for industry characteristics that increase or decrease sensitivity to cultural
differences. Generally, businesses that sell directly to consumers (rather than to other businesses) are less
sensitive to cultural differences. Service industries are generally more sensitive to cultural differences than
industries focused on selling physical products. Thus, while they sell to other businesses, most kinds of IT
services are highly sensitive to language differences. In contrast, industrial machinery (sold to other
companies for use in their factories) tends to be relatively insensitive to cultural distance. This is one factor
that helps explain the global success of Germany’s relatively small mittelstand firms in many such sectors even
though they have fewer resources for cultural adaptation than larger firms.
5. Conclusions
Cultural differences remain persistent and present an array of challenges for multinational
companies. Firms that manage adaptation effectively are able to achieve congruence in the various cultures
where they operate while extending their main sources of advantage across borders, and in some cases even
making cultural diversity itself a source of advantage. While this note has emphasized cultural differences,
which are often underappreciated, it’s equally important to take note of cultural similarities. High and low
power distance cultures, for example, both reflect responses to common challenges around how human beings
should properly interact with each other in the face of inevitable differences in the power they hold in
particular contexts. In managing adaptation, as well as more broadly, there’s also a great deal to be gained by
focusing on what unites us rather than what divides us.
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Exhibit 1
*English-speaking part
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Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3
Source: Joel West and John L. Graham, “A Linguistic-based Measure of Cultural Distance and Its Relationship to Managerial
Values,” Management International Review, vol. 44, no. 3, 2004, p. 249 (Table 1).
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Exhibit 4
Synthesis of Country Clusters
Source: “Integrated Land-Use Management for Sustainable Development” Stig ENEMARK. April 2007, p 6.
See figure 2 The Cultural Map of the world. Adapted form Gert Hofstede, 2001
Exhibit 5
National vs. International Trust
Levels of Trust
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Own Trust Other EU-16 Other Countries
Source: Based on a previous version Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales, “Cultural Biases in Economic
Exchange?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 3 (August 2009): 1095-1131 downloadable at
http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/cultural_biases.pdf.
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Endnotes
1 Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Intellectual Cooperation and its Importance for Survival.
Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 79.
2 The cultural analysis of Korean Air’s plane crashes is described in Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success, 2008,
New York: Little, Brown and Company. For a more detailed discussion of the role of national cultural differences in
commercial aviation see Robert L. Helmreich, “Anatomy of a System Accident: The Crash of Avianca Flight 052,”
International Journal of Aviation Psychology, Volume 4, No. 3, 2000, pp. 265-284.
3 Kwok Leung, Rabi S. Bhagat, Nancy R. Buchan, Miriam Erez and Christina B. Gibson, “Culture and International
Business: Recent Advances and Their Implications for Future Research,” Journal of International Business Studies,
Volume 36, No. 4, 2005, pp. 357-378.
4 Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, 1980, p. 25, Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage.
5 Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values,”
American Sociological Review, Volume 65, No. 1, 2000, pp. 19-51. Shalom Schwartz found similar levels of stability over
time in his own research; see Shalom H. Schwartz, Cultural Value Orientations: Nature & Implications of National
Differences, 2008, Moscow: Publ. House of SU HSE.
6 This is based on research conducted by Tompenaars and Hampden-Turner, as described in Nancy J. Adler and Allison
Gundersen, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, South-Western CENAGE Learning, 2008,
pp. 60-61.
7 Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1992, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. See also Vijay Sathe, Culture and
Related Corporate Realities, 1985, Homewood, IL: Irwin.
8 Hofstede (1980)
9 Brendan McSweeney, “Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith
– A Failure of Analysis,” Human Relations, Volume 55, No. 1, 2002, pp. 89-118.
10 Geert Hofstede and Michael H. Bond, “The Confucian Connection: From Cultural Roots to Economic Growth,”
Organizational Dynamics, Volume 16, No. 1, 1988, pp. 4-21.
11 Bruce Kogut and Harbir Singh, “The Effect of National Culture on the Choice of Entry Mode,” Journal of International
Business Studies, Volume 19, No. 3, 1988, pp. 411-432.
12 Laszlo Tihanyi, David A. Griffith and Craig J. Russell, “The Effect of Cultural Distance on Entry Mode Choice,
International Diversification, and MNE Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of International Business Studies,
Volume 36, No. 3, 2005, pp. 270-283.
13 Oded Shenkar, “Cultural Distance Revisited: Towards a More Rigorous Conceptualization and Measurement of
Cultural Differences,” Journal of International Business Studies, Volume 32, No. 3, 2001, pp. 519-535. See also Anne-Wil
Harzing, “The Role of Culture in Entry-Mode Studies: From Neglect to Myopia?” In Joseph L.C. Cheng and Michael
A. Hitt (Eds.), Advances in International Management, Volume 15, 2004, pp. 75-127, Oxford: Elsevier JAI.
14 Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in
Business (2nd ed.), 1997, London: Nicholas Brealey.
15 Schwartz (2008)
16 Anne Nugent, “The Irish Top The Charts On Alcoholic Drinks Expenditure,” Euromonitor International, October 29,
2003, http://www.euromonitor.com/The_Irish_top_the_charts_on_alcoholic_drinks_expenditure.
17 On Argentina mental health, see “Its GDP Is Depressed, but Argentina Leads World in Shrinks Per Capita,” Wall Street
Journal, October 19, 2009 (accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125563769653488249.html). On Brazilian
beauty products, see Geoff Jones, Geoffrey Jones, Beauty Imagined. A History of the Global Beauty Industry
(OUP,Oxford and New York 2010)
18 http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html and http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm
19 Douglas Dow and Amal Karunaratna, “Developing a multidimensional instrument to measure psychic distance
stimuli,” Journal of International Business Studies(2006), pp. 1-25.
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20 The following religions are ranked from the most unified to the most diverse: (1) Baha’i, (2) Zoroastrianism, (3) Sikhism,
(4) Islam, (5) Jainism, (6) Judaism, (7) Taoism, (8) Shino, (9) Christianity, (10) Buddhism, (11) Hinduism, according to
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
21 The material on language covered in this section draws from Joel West and John L. Graham, “A Linguistic-based
Measure of Cultural Distance and Its Relationship to Managerial Values,” Management International Review, vol. 44,
no. 3, 2004, pp. 239-260.
22 Sapir, E., Language, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1921.
23 Whorf, B.L., Science and Linguistics, Technology Review, 42, 6, 1940, pp. 229-248.
24 Agar, M., Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation,” New York: Quill 1994.
25 John J. Gumperz and Stephen C Levinson, “Introduction: Linguistic Relativity Re-examined,” in Rethinking Linguistic
Relativity, John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, editors, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 2-3.
26 Calculation based on subset of 163 countries based on data from
http://www.cepii.fr/anglaisgraph/bdd/distances.htm
27 Joel West and John L. Graham, “A Linguistic-based Measure of Cultural Distance and Its Relationship to Managerial
Values,” Management International Review, vol. 44, no. 3, 2004, pp. 244.
28 Ibid p. 246.
29 Simcha Ronen and Oded Shenkar, “Clustering countries on attitudinal dimensions: A review and synthesis,” Academy of
Management Review, Jul 1985; Vol. 10, No. 3, p. 435-454
30 Questions on trust were incorporated in the Eurobarometer surveys since 1974.
31 Survey respondents were actually asked to rate the citizens of other countries as well as their own on a spectrum
ranging from “no trust at all” to “a lot of trust.” An academic article based on this survey summarizes data about the
percentage of citizens of each West European country surveyed who report trusting others “a lot” See Luigi Guiso,
Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales, “Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 3
(August 2009): 1095-1131.
32 Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales, “Cultural Biases In Economic Exchange?”
33 This analysis is based on a sample of 63 countries with data from between 1995 and 1999. Domestic calling minutes are
from International Telecommunications Union (ITU) World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators 2009 database.
International calling minutes are from International Telecommunications Union, “Direction of Traffic, 1999: Trading
Telecom Minutes,” 1999. Population data is from World Development Indicators and data on proportion of national
populations speaking particular languages are from CEPII.
34 Per Botolf Maurseth and Bart Verspagen, “Knowledge Spillovers in Europe: A Patent Citations Analysis,” Scandinavian
Journal of Economics, 104 (4), 531-545, 2002.
35 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2009, Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility
and Development
36 James E. Rauch, “Business and Social Networks in International Trade, “ Journal of Economic Literature, Vol XXXIX
(December 2001), pp. 1177-1203.
37 Pankaj Ghemawat and Rajiv Mallick, “The Industry-Level Structure of International Trade Networks: A Gravity-Based
Approach,” working paper, Harvard Business School, Boston, February 2003.
38 Fukunari Kimura and Hyun-Hoon Lee, “The Gravity Equaty in International Trade in Services, paper for the European
Trade Study Group Conference, University of Nottingham, Sept 9-11, 2004.
39 Jaques Melitz, :Language and Foreign Trade, University of Strathclyde, CREST-INSEE, and CEPR, Working Paper, July
2006 (earlier draft denoted as CEPR Working Paper 3590).
40 Gert-Jan M Linders, et al., “Cultural and Institutional Determinants of Bilateral Trade Flows,” Timbergen Institute
Discussion Paper, TI 2005-074/3, p. 12.
41 Joshua J. Lewer and Hendrik Van den Berg,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, “Vol 66 (2007), No. 4
(October), pp. 765-794.
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42 Rocco R. Huang, “Distance and Trade: Disentangling unfamiliarity effects and transport cost effects,” European
Economic Review, Vol. 51, Issue 1, January 2007, pp. 161-181.
43 Gert-Jan M Linders, et al., “Cultural and Institutional Determinants of Bilateral Trade Flows,” Timbergen Institute
Discussion Paper, TI 2005-074/3.
44 Bradley L. Kirkman, Kevin B. Lowe, and Cristina B. Gibson, “A quarter century of Culture’s Consequences: a review of
empirical research incorporating Hofstede’s cultural values framework, Journal of International Business Studies.36 (3).
285-320.
45 Bradley L. Kirkman, Kevin B. Lowe, and Cristina B. Gibson, “A quarter century of Culture’s Consequences: a review of
empirical research incorporating Hofstede’s cultural values framework, Journal of International Business Studies.36 (3).
285-320.
46 Raj Aggarwal, Colm Kearney, and Brian Lucey, “Gravity as a cultural arteface: Culture and distance in foreign portfolio
investment,” January 2009.
47 Agnes Benassy-Quere, Maylis Coupet, and Thierry Mayer, “Institutional Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment,”
CEPII Working Paper No. 2005-05, April 2005.
48 Wei-Kang Wong, “Comparing the Fit of Gravity Models for Different Cross-Border Flows,” July 25, 2007.
49 The following bullet points are drawn from Karen L. Newman and Stanley D. Nollen, “Culture and Congruence: The
Fit Between Management Practices and National Culture,” Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4
(4th Quarter, 1996), pp. 753-779.
50 Dana L. Alden, Wayne D. Hoyer, and Chol Lee, “Identifying Global and Culture-Specific Dimensions of Humor in
Advertising: A Multinational Analysis,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 57 (April 1993), pp. 64-75.
51 Marieke de Mooij, Global Advertising and Marketing: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes, 3rd edition, SAGE Publications,
2010, p, 172, Figure 7.4.
52 This paragraph is based on material in Chapter 7 of Marieke de Mooij, Global Advertising and Marketing: Understanding
Cultural Paradoxes, 3rd edition, SAGE Publications, 2010.
53 Yvonne M. Van Everdingen and Eric Waarts, “The Effect of National Culture on the Adoption of Innovations,”
Marketing Letters, 14:13, 217-232, 2003.
54 Tony C. Garret, David H. Buisson, and Chee Meng Yap, “National Culture and the Use of R&D and Marketing
Integration Mechanisms: A Cross Cultural Study Between Singapore and New Zealand,” Industrial Marketing
Management, Vol. 35, Issue 3, April 2006, pp. 293-307.
55 Hongyi Sun, “A meta-analysis on the influence of national culture on innovation capability,” International Journal of
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 10, No. 3-4, 2009, pp. 353-360.
56 Marieke de Mooij and Geert Hofstede, “Convergence and divergence in consumer behavior: implications for
international retailing, Journal of Retailing 78 (2002), 61-69.
57 Brian P. Matthews, Akiko Ueno, Tauno Kekale, Mikko Repka, Zulema Lopes Pereira, and Graca Silva, “International
Journal of Quality & Reliability Management,” Vol 18 (7): 16, Oct 1, 2001. (Note: This study is based on research
conducted only in the U.K., Finland, and Portugal)
58 Mark Pagell, Jeffrey P. Katz, and Chwen Sheu, “The importance of national culture in operations management
research,” International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 25, No. 4, 2005, pp. 371-394.
59 Chuck C. Y. Kwok and Solomon Tadesse, “National culture and financial systems,” Journal of International Business
Studies, 37, 227-247, March 1, 2006.
60 Geert Hofstede, “The Cultural Context of Accounting,” in Accounting and Culture: Plenary Session Papers and
Discussants’ Comments from the 1986 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association.
61 Nigel Finch, “Towards an Understanding of Cultural Influence on the International Practice of Accounting,” Journal of
International Business and Cultural Studies, 2009.
62 This paragraph is drawn from the Powerpoint slides that accompany Chapter 2 of John B. Cullen and K. Praveen
Parboteeah, Multinational Management: A Strategic Approach¸ Third Edition, South-Western College Publishing, 2005.
Some material is quoted directly while other material is paraphrased (not marked to improve readability).
17
Globalization Note Series Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche
63 John W. Bing, “Hofstede’s consequences: The impact of his work on consulting and business practices,” at
http://www.itapintl.com/facultyandresources/articlelibrarymain/hofstedes-consequences-the-impact-of-his-work-
on-consulting-and-business-practices.html
64 Nancy J. Adler and Allison Gundersen, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, South-Western
CENAGE Learning, 2008.
65 Herman Vantrappen and Petter Kilefors, “Grooming CEO Talent at the Truly Global Firm of the Future,” Arthur D.
Little Prism, February 2009, 90–105.
66 Egon Zehnder International, Global Board Index 2008.
18
Unit 2 Theoretical and Methodological Issues
Article 8
Subunit 1 Conceptual Issues in Psychology and Culture
12-1-2011
Recommended Citation
Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in
Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014
This Online Readings in Psychology and Culture Article is brought to you for free and open access (provided uses are educational in nature)by IACCP
and ScholarWorks@GVSU. Copyright © 2011 International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. All Rights Reserved. ISBN
978-0-9845627-0-1
Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context
Abstract
This article describes briefly the Hofstede model of six dimensions of national
cultures: Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism/Collectivism,
Masculinity/Femininity, Long/Short Term Orientation, and Indulgence/Restraint. It
shows the conceptual and research efforts that preceded it and led up to it, and once
it had become a paradigm for comparing cultures, research efforts that followed and
built on it. The article stresses that dimensions depend on the level of aggregation;
it describes the six entirely different dimensions found in the Hofstede et al.
(2010) research into organizational cultures. It warns against confusion with value
differences at the individual level. It concludes with a look ahead in what the study
of dimensions of national cultures and the position of countries on them may still
bring.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
License.
Introduction
Culture has been defined in many ways; this author’s shorthand definition is: "Culture is
the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or
category of people from others". It is always a collective phenomenon, but it can be
connected to different collectives. Within each collective there is a variety of individuals. If
characteristics of individuals are imagined as varying according to some bell curve; the
variation between cultures is the shift of the bell curve when one moves from one society
to the other. Most commonly the term culture is used for tribes or ethnic groups (in
anthropology), for nations (in political science, sociology and management), and for
organizations (in sociology and management). A relatively unexplored field is the culture of
occupations (for instance, of engineers versus accountants, or of academics from different
disciplines). The term can also be applied to the genders, to generations, or to social
classes. However, changing the level of aggregation studied changes the nature of the
concept of ‘culture’. Societal, national and gender cultures, which children acquire from
their earliest youth onwards, are much deeper rooted in the human mind than occupational
cultures acquired at school, or than organizational cultures acquired on the job. The latter
are exchangeable when people take a new job. Societal cultures reside in (often
unconscious) values, in the sense of broad tendencies to prefer certain states of affairs
over others (Hofstede, 2001, p. 5). Organizational cultures reside rather in (visible and
conscious) practices: the way people perceive what goes on in their organizational
environment.
In an article first published in 1952, U.S. anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn (1962) argued
that there should be universal categories of culture:
In principle ... there is a generalized framework that underlies the more apparent
and striking facts of cultural relativity. All cultures constitute so many somewhat
distinct answers to essentially the same questions posed by human biology and
by the generalities of the human situation. ... Every society's patterns for living
must provide approved and sanctioned ways for dealing with such universal
circumstances as the existence of two sexes; the helplessness of infants; the
need for satisfaction of the elementary biological requirements such as food,
warmth, and sex; the presence of individuals of different ages and of differing
physical and other capacities. (pp. 317-18).
Many authors in the second half of the twentieth century have speculated about the nature
of the basic problems of societies that would present distinct dimensions of culture (for a
review see Hofstede, 2001, pp. 29-31). The most common dimension used for ordering
societies is their degree of economic evolution or modernity. A one-dimensional ordering
of societies from traditional to modern fitted well with the nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Parsons and Shils (1951) claimed that these choices are present at the individual
(personality) level, at the social system (group or organization) level, and at the cultural
(normative) level. They did not take into account that different variables could operate at
different aggregation levels.
U.S. anthropologists Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck (1961, p. 12) ran a
field study in five geographically close, small communities in the Southwestern United
States: Mormons, Spanish Americans, Texans, Navaho Indians, and Zuni Indians. They
distinguished these communities on the following value orientations:
Others have extrapolated Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s (1961) classification to all kind of
social comparisons, without concern for their geographic limitations without considering
the effect of levels of aggregation, and without empirical support.
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Douglas saw these categories as relating to a wide variety of beliefs and social actions:
Views of nature, traveling, spatial arrangements, gardening, cookery, medicine, the
meaning of time, age, history, sickness, and justice. She seemed to imply that these
dimensions are applicable to any level of aggregation.
The one- or more-dimensional classifications above represent subjective reflective
attempts to order a complex reality. Each of them is strongly colored by the subjective
choices of its author(s). They show some overlap, but their lack of clarity about and mixing
of levels of analysis (individual-group-culture) are severe methodological weaknesses.
These weaknesses were avoided in an extensive review article by U.S. sociologist
Alex Inkeles and psychologist Daniel Levinson (1969, first published 1954). The authors
limited themselves to culture at the level of nations, and they summarized all available
sociological and anthropological studies dealing with what was then called national
character, which they interpreted as a kind of modal (most common) personality type in a
national society. What I have labelled dimensions they called standard analytic issues.
From their survey of the literature Inkeles and Levinson (1969) distilled three standard
analytic issues that met these criteria:
1. Relation to authority;
2. Conception of self, including the individual's concepts of masculinity and femininity;
3. Primary dilemmas or conflicts, and ways of dealing with them, including the control
of aggression and the expression versus inhibition of affect.
As will be shown below, Inkeles and Levinson's (1969) standard analytic issues were
empirically supported in a study by this author more than 20 years later.
In 1949 U.S. psychologist Raymond Cattell published an application of the new statistical
technique of factor analysis to the comparison of nations. Cattell had earlier used factor
analysis for studying aspects of intelligence from test scores of individual students. This
time he took a matrix of nation-level variables for a large number of countries, borrowing
from geography, demographics, history, politics, economics, sociology, law, religion and
medicine. The resulting factors were difficult to interpret, except for the important role of
economic development. Replications of his method by others produced trivial results (for a
review see Hofstede, 2001, pp. 32-33). More meaningful were applications to restricted
facets of societies. U.S. political scientists Phillip Gregg and Arthur Banks (1965) studied
aspects of political systems; U.S. economists Irma Adelman and Cynthia Taft Morris
(1967) studied factors influencing the development of poor countries, and Irish
psychologist Richard Lynn (1971; Lynn & Hampson, 1975) studied aspects of mental
health.
In the 1970s this author – more or less by accident – got access to a large survey
database about values and related sentiments of people in over 50 countries around the
world (Hofstede, 1980). These people worked in the local subsidiaries of one large
multinational corporation: IBM. Most parts of the organization had been surveyed twice
over a four-year interval, and the database contained more than 100,000 questionnaires.
Initial analyses of the database at the level of individual respondents proved confusing, but
a breakthrough occurred when the focus was directed at correlations between mean
scores of survey items at the level of countries. Patterns of correlation at the country level
could be strikingly different from what was found at the individual level, and needed an
entirely different interpretation. One of the weaknesses of much cross-cultural research is
not recognizing the difference between analysis at the societal level and at the individual
level; this amounts to confusing anthropology and psychology. From 180 studies using my
work reviewed by Kirkman, Lowe, and Gibson (2006), more than half failed to distinguish
between societal culture level and individual level differences, which led to numerous
errors of interpretation and application.
My hunch that the IBM data might have implications beyond this particular
corporation was supported when I got the opportunity to administer a number of the same
questions to nearly 400 management trainees from some 30 countries in an international
program unrelated to IBM. Their mean scores by country correlated significantly with the
country scores obtained from the IBM database. So it seemed that employees of this
multinational enterprises – a very special kind of people – could serve for identifying
differences in national value systems. The reason is that from one country to another they
represented almost perfectly matched samples: they were similar in all respects except
nationality, which made the effect of national differences in their answers stand out
unusually clearly.
Encouraged by the results of the country-level correlation analysis I then tried
country-level factor analysis. The latter was similar to the approach used earlier by Cattell
and others, except that now the variables in the matrix were not indices for the country as
a whole, but mean scores and sometimes percentages of survey answers collected from
individuals in those countries. Analyses of data at higher levels of aggregation are called
ecological. Ecological factor analysis differs from the factor analysis of individual scores in
that a usual caution no longer applies: the number of cases does not need to be (much)
larger than the number of variables. The stability of the results of an ecological factor
analysis does not depend on the number of cases, but on the number of individuals whose
scores were aggregated into these cases. Ecological factor analysis may even be
performed on matrices with fewer cases than variables.
Factor analyzing a matrix of 32 values questions for initially 40 countries, I found
these values to cluster very differently from what was found at the individual level. The
new factors revealed common problems with which IBM employees in all these societies
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Hofstede: Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context
had to cope, but for which their upbringing in their country presented its own profile of
solutions. These problems were:
1. Dependence on superiors;
2. Need for rules and predictability, also associated with nervous stress;
3. The balance between individual goals and dependence on the company;
4. The balance between ego values (like the need for money and careers) and social
values (like cooperation and a good living environment); the former were more
frequently chosen by men, the latter by women, but there were also country
differences.
These empirical results were strikingly similar to the standard analytical issues described
in Inkeles and Levinson’s 1969 article. Dependence on superiors relates to the first, need
for predictability to the third, the balance between the individual and the company to the
conception of self, and the balance between ego and social values to concepts of
masculinity and femininity, which were also classified under the second standard analytic
issue.
The four basic problem areas defined by Inkeles and Levinson (1969) and
empirically supported in the IBM data represent dimensions of national cultures. A
dimension is an aspect of a culture that can be measured relative to other cultures. The
four dimensions formed the basis for my book Culture’s Consequences (Hofstede, 1980).
The main message of the 1980 book was that scores on the dimensions correlated
significantly with conceptually related external data. Thus Power Distance scores
correlated with a dimension from Gregg and Banks’ (1965) analysis of political systems
and also with a dimension from Adelman and Morris’ (1967) study of economic
development; Uncertainty Avoidance correlated with a dimension from Lynn and
Hampson’s (1975) study of mental health; Individualism correlated strongly with national
wealth (Gross National Product per capita) and Femininity with the percentage of national
income spent on development aid. The number of external validations kept expanding, and
the second edition of Culture’s Consequences (Hofstede, 2001, Appendix 6, pp. 503-520)
lists more than 400 significant correlations between the IBM-based scores and results of
other studies. Recent validations show no loss of validity, indicating that the country
differences these dimensions describe are, indeed, basic and enduring.
In the 1980s, on the basis of research by Canadian psychologist Michael Harris
Bond centered in the Far East, a fifth dimension ‘Long-Term versus Short-Term
Orientation’ was added (Hofstede & Bond, 1988; see also Hofstede, 1991; Hofstede,
2001).
In the 2000s, research by Bulgarian scholar Michael Minkov using data from the
World Values Survey (Minkov, 2007) allowed a new calculation of the fifth, and the
addition of a sixth dimension (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010). The six dimensions are
labelled:
1. Power Distance, related to the different solutions to the basic problem of human
inequality;
2. Uncertainty Avoidance, related to the level of stress in a society in the face of an
unknown future;
3. Individualism versus Collectivism, related to the integration of individuals into
primary groups;
4. Masculinity versus Femininity, related to the division of emotional roles between
women and men;
5. Long Term versus Short Term Orientation, related to the choice of focus for
people's efforts: the future or the present and past.
6. Indulgence versus Restraint, related to the gratification versus control of basic
human desires related to enjoying life.
Each country has been positioned relative to other countries through a score on each
dimension. The dimensions are statistically distinct and do occur in all possible
combinations, although some combinations are more frequent than others.
After the initial confirmation of the country differences in IBM in data from
management trainees elsewhere, the Hofstede dimensions and country scores were
validated through replications by others, using the same or similar questions with other
cross-national populations. Between 1990 and 2002 six major replications (14 or more
countries) used populations of country elites, employees and managers of other
corporations and organizations, airline pilots, consumers and civil servants (see Hofstede
et al., 2010, p. 35).
In correlating the dimensions with other data, the influence of national wealth (Gross
National Product per capita) should always be taken into account. Two of the dimensions,
Individualism and small Power Distance, are significantly correlated with wealth. This
means that all wealth-related phenomena tend to correlate with both these dimensions.
Differences in national wealth can be considered a more parsimonious explanation of
these other phenomena than differences in culture. In correlating with the culture
dimensions, it is therefore advisable to always include the wealth variable. After controlling
for national wealth correlations with culture usually disappear.
Of particular interest is a link that was found between culture according to the
Hofstede dimensions and personality dimensions according to the empirically based Big
Five personality test (Costa & McCrae, 1992). After this test had been used in over 30
countries, significant correlations were found between country norms on the five
personality dimensions (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience,
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) and national culture dimension scores. For
example, 55% of country differences on Neuroticism can be explained by a combination of
Uncertainty Avoidance and Masculinity, and 39% of country differences on Extraversion by
Individualism alone (Hofstede & McCrae, 2004). So culture and personality are linked but
the link is statistical; there is a wide variety of individual personalities within each national
culture, and national culture scores should not be used for stereotyping individuals.
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Validating the dimensions is of course not only and not even mainly a quantitative
issue. Equally important is the qualitative interpretation of what differences on the
dimensions mean for each of the societies studied, which calls for an emic approach to
each society, supporting the etic of the dimensional data.
In this section I will summarize the content of each dimension opposing cultures with
low and high scores. These oppositions are based on correlations with studies by others,
and because the relationship is statistical, not every line applies equally strongly to every
country.
Power Distance
Power Distance has been defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of
organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed
unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from
above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much
as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any
society. All societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others.
Table 1
Ten Differences Between Small- and Large- Power Distance Societies
Table 1 lists a selection of differences between national societies that validation research
showed to be associated with the Power Distance dimension. For a more complete review
the reader is referred to Hofstede (2001) and Hofstede et al. (2010). The statements refer
to extremes; actual situations may be found anywhere in between the extremes, and the
association of a statement with a dimension is always statistical, never absolute.
In Hofstede et al. (2010) Power Distance Index scores are listed for 76 countries;
they tend to be higher for East European, Latin, Asian and African countries and lower for
Germanic and English-speaking Western countries.
Uncertainty Avoidance
Uncertainty Avoidance is not the same as risk avoidance; it deals with a society's tolerance
for ambiguity. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either
uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel,
unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize
the possibility of such situations by strict behavioral codes, laws and rules, disapproval of
deviant opinions, and a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have
it'.
Table 2
Ten Differences Between Weak- and Strong- Uncertainty Avoidance Societies
The uncertainty inherent in life is accepted and The uncertainty inherent in life is felt as a
each day is taken as it comes continuous threat that must be fought
Ease, lower stress, self-control, low anxiety Higher stress, emotionality, anxiety, neuroticism
Higher scores on subjective health and well-
Lower scores on subjective health and well-being
being
Tolerance of deviant persons and ideas: what is Intolerance of deviant persons and ideas: what is
different is curious different is dangerous
Comfortable with ambiguity and chaos Need for clarity and structure
Teachers may say ‘I don’t know’ Teachers supposed to have all the answers
Changing jobs no problem Staying in jobs even if disliked
Dislike of rules - written or unwritten Emotional need for rules – even if not obeyed
In politics, citizens feel and are seen as In politics, citizens feel and are seen as
competent towards authorities incompetent towards authorities
In religion, philosophy and science: relativism In religion, philosophy and science: belief in
and empiricism ultimate truths and grand theories
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Research has shown that people in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more
emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty
accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they
try to have fewer rules, and on the philosophical and religious level they are empiricist,
relativist and allow different currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are
more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express
emotions. Table 2 lists a selection of differences between societies that validation research
showed to be associated with the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension.
In Hofstede et al. (2010) Uncertainty Avoidance Index scores are listed for 76
countries; they tend to be higher in East and Central European countries, in Latin
countries, in Japan and in German speaking countries, lower in English speaking, Nordic
and Chinese culture countries.
Individualism
Individualism on the one side versus its opposite, Collectivism, as a societal, not an
individual characteristic, is the degree to which people in a society are integrated into
groups. On the individualist side we find cultures in which the ties between individuals are
loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the
collectivist side we find cultures in which people from birth onwards are integrated into
strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents)
that continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty, and oppose other in-
groups. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one,
regarding all societies in the world. Table 3 lists a selection of differences between
societies that validation research showed to be associated with this dimension.
Table 3
Ten Differences Between Collectivist and Individualist Societies
Individualism Collectivism
Everyone is supposed to take care of him- or People are born into extended families or clans
herself and his or her immediate family only which protect them in exchange for loyalty
"I" – consciousness "We" –consciousness
Right of privacy Stress on belonging
Speaking one's mind is healthy Harmony should always be maintained
Others classified as individuals Others classified as in-group or out-group
Personal opinion expected: one person one vote Opinions and votes predetermined by in-group
Transgression of norms leads to guilt feelings Transgression of norms leads to shame feelings
Languages in which the word "I" is indispensable Languages in which the word "I" is avoided
Purpose of education is learning how to learn Purpose of education is learning how to do
Task prevails over relationship Relationship prevails over task
In Hofstede et al. (2010) Individualism Index scores are listed for 76 countries;
Individualism tends to prevail in developed and Western countries, while collectivism
prevails in less developed and Eastern countries; Japan takes a middle position on this
dimension.
Masculinity – Femininity
Table 4
Ten Differences Between Feminine and Masculine Societies
Femininity Masculinity
Minimum emotional and social role differentiation Maximum emotional and social role differentiation
between the genders between the genders
Men should be and women may be assertive and
Men and women should be modest and caring
ambitious
Balance between family and work Work prevails over family
Sympathy for the weak Admiration for the strong
Both fathers and mothers deal with facts and
Fathers deal with facts, mothers with feelings
feelings
Both boys and girls may cry but neither should Girls cry, boys don’t; boys should fight back, girls
fight shouldn’t fight
Mothers decide on number of children Fathers decide on family size
Many women in elected political positions Few women in elected political positions
Religion focuses on fellow human beings Religion focuses on God or gods
Matter-of-fact attitudes about sexuality; sex is a Moralistic attitudes about sexuality; sex is a way
way of relating of performing
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Taboos are based on deeply rooted values; this taboo shows that the
Masculinity/Femininity dimension in some societies touches basic and often unconscious
values, too painful to be explicitly discussed. In fact the taboo validates the importance of
the dimension. Table 4 lists a selection of differences between societies that validation
research showed to be associated with this dimension.
In Hofstede et al. (2010) Masculinity versus Femininity Index scores are presented
for 76 countries; Masculinity is high in Japan, in German speaking countries, and in some
Latin countries like Italy and Mexico; it is moderately high in English speaking Western
countries; it is low in Nordic countries and in the Netherlands and moderately low in some
Latin and Asian countries like France, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Korea and Thailand.
This dimension was first identified in a survey among students in 23 countries around the
world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars (Chinese Culture Connection,
1987). As all countries with a history of Confucianism scored near one pole which could be
associated with hard work, the study’s first author Michael Harris Bond labeled the
dimension Confucian Work Dynamism. The dimension turned out to be strongly correlated
with recent economic growth. As none of the four IBM dimensions was linked to economic
growth, I obtained Bond’s permission to add his dimension as a fifth to my four (Hofstede
& Bond, 1988). Because it had been identified in a study comparing students from 23
countries, most of whom had never heard of Confucius, I re-named it Long- Term versus
Short-Term Orientation; the long-term pole corresponds to Bond’s Confucian Work
Dynamism. Values found at this pole were perseverance, thrift, ordering relationships by
status, and having a sense of shame; values at the opposite, short term pole were
reciprocating social obligations, respect for tradition, protecting one's 'face', and personal
steadiness and stability. The positively rated values of this dimension were already present
in the teachings of Confucius from around 500 BC. There was much more in Confucius’
teachings so Long-Term Orientation is not Confucianism per se, but it is still present in
countries with a Confucian heritage. In my book for a student readership Cultures and
Organizations: Software of the Mind (Hofstede, 1991) the fifth dimension was first
integrated into my model. It was more extensively analyzed in the second edition of
Culture’s Consequences (Hofstede, 2001) and in the new edition of Cultures and
Organizations: Software of the Mind, for which my eldest son Gert Jan Hofstede joined me
as a co-author (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005).
My initial cross-cultural data collected around 1970 by the IBM corporation among its
employees in more than 50 countries worldwide represented probably the largest
matched-sample cross-national database available anywhere at that time. Bond’s Chinese
Value Survey showed the power of adding results from other surveys; unfortunately, it
covered only 23 countries, and attempts to extend it to other populations were small-scale
and hardly reliable.
In the past quarter century the volume of available cross-cultural data on self-scored
values and related issues has increased enormously. If I had to start my research now, I
would select the best elements from all these new databases. My prime choice would be
the World Values Survey. In the early 1980s departments of Divinity at six European
Universities, concerned with a loss of Christian faith, jointly surveyed the values of their
countries’ populations through public opinion survey methods. In the following years their
European Values Survey expanded and changed focus: in the hands of U.S. sociologist
Ronald Inglehart it grew into a periodic World Values Survey (WVS). Subsequent data
collection rounds took place with 10-year intervals; as this is written, a fourth round is in
process. The survey now covers more than 100 countries worldwide with a questionnaire
including more than 360 forced-choice items. Areas covered are ecology, economy,
education, emotions, family, gender and sexuality, government and politics, health,
happiness, leisure and friends, morality, religion, society and nation, and work. The entire
WVS data bank, including previous rounds and down to individual respondent scores, is
freely accessible on the Web (www.worldvaluessurvey.org). So far it has remained under-
used; potential users tend to drown in its huge volume of information.
Michael Minkov, a Bulgarian linguist and sociologist whom I had met on the e-mail at
the turn of the millennium, took up the challenge of exploring the riches of the WVS. In
2007 he published a book with a Bulgarian publisher, in which he described three new
cross-national value dimensions extracted from recent WVS data, which he labeled
Exclusionism versus Universalism, Indulgence versus Restraint and Monumentalism
versus Flexumility (the latter a combination of flexibility and humility). Exclusionism versus
Universalism was strongly correlated with Collectivism/Individualism and could be
considered an elaboration of aspects of it. The other two dimensions were new, although
Monumentalism versus Flexumility was moderately but significantly correlated with Short
Term/Long Term Orientation.
Minkov’s findings initially inspired the issuing of a new, 2008 version of the Values
Survey Module, a set of questions available to researchers who wish to replicate my
research into national culture differences. Earlier versions were issued in 1982 (VSM82)
and 1994 (VSM94). Next to the established five Hofstede dimensions, the VSM08 included
on an experimental basis Minkov’s dimensions Indulgence versus Restraint and
Monumentalism versus Flexumility (which I re-baptized Self-Effacement). The Values
Survey Module (VSM) can be downloaded from www.geerthofstede.nl. Aspiring users
should carefully study the accompanying Manual before they decide to collect their own
data. In most cases, the use of available results of already existing quality research is to
be preferred above amateur replications.
The next step in our cooperation with Minkov was that Gert Jan Hofstede and I
invited him to become a co-author for the third edition of Cultures and Organizations:
Software of the Mind (Hofstede et al., 2010). Minkov’s Exclusionism versus Universalism
was integrated into the Individualism/Collectivism chapter. By combining elements from his
Monumentalism versus Flexumility dimension with additional WVS items, Minkov
succeeded in converting into a new version of Long- versus Short-Term Orientation, now
available for 93 countries and regions. Indulgence versus Restraint became an entirely
new dimension that will be described below.
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Table 5
Ten Differences Between Short- and Long-Term-Oriented Societies
Most important events in life occurred in the past or Most important events in life will occur in the
take place now future
Personal steadiness and stability: a good person is
A good person adapts to the circumstances
always the same
There are universal guidelines about what is good What is good and evil depends upon the
and evil circumstances
Traditions are adaptable to changed
Traditions are sacrosanct
circumstances
Family life guided by imperatives Family life guided by shared tasks
Supposed to be proud of one’s country Trying to learn from other countries
Service to others is an important goal Thrift and perseverance are important goals
Large savings quote, funds available for
Social spending and consumption
investment
Students attribute success to effort and failure
Students attribute success and failure to luck
to lack of effort
Fast economic growth of countries up till a
Slow or no economic growth of poor countries
level of prosperity
The sixth and new dimension, added in our 2010 book, uses Minkov’s label Indulgence
versus Restraint. It was also based on recent World Values Survey items and is more or
less complementary to Long-versus Short-Term Orientation; in fact it is weakly negatively
correlated with it. It focuses on aspects not covered by the other five dimensions, but
known from literature on “happiness research”. Indulgence stands for a society that allows
relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and
having fun. Restraint stands for a society that controls gratification of needs and regulates
it by means of strict social norms. Scores on this dimension are also available for 93
countries and regions. Table 6 lists a selection of differences between societies that
validation research showed to be associated with this dimension.
Indulgence tends to prevail in South and North America, in Western Europe and in
parts of Sub-Sahara Africa. Restraint prevails in Eastern Europe, in Asia and in the Muslim
world. Mediterranean Europe takes a middle position on this dimension.
Table 6
Ten Differences between Indulgent and Restrained Societies
Indulgence Restrained
Higher percentage of people declaring Fewer very happy people
themselves very happy
A perception of personal life control A perception of helplessness: what happens to me
is not my own doing
Freedom of speech seen as important Freedom of speech is not a primary concern
Higher importance of leisure Lower importance of leisure
More likely to remember positive emotions Less likely to remember positive emotions
In countries with educated populations, higher In countries with educated populations, lower
birthrates birthrates
More people actively involved in sports Fewer people actively involved in sports
In countries with enough food, higher In countries with enough food, fewer obese people
percentages of obese people
In wealthy countries, lenient sexual norms In wealthy countries, stricter sexual norms
Maintaining order in the nation is not given a Higher number of police officers per 100,000
high priority population
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contribute to their economic development. In fact, data show that the causality is most
probably reversed: wealth tends to lead to individualism (Hofstede, 2001, p. 253). The
individualism in U.S. culture also led people to studying it at the individual level (comparing
one person to another), not at the level of societies. In this case it is no longer a dimension
of culture but an aspect of personality. Also there is no more reason why individualism and
collectivism need to be opposite; they should rather be considered separate features of
personality. An extensive review of studies of individualism at the individual level was
published by Oyserman, Coon and Kemmelmeier (2002). Comparing these studies across
societies they found a different ranking of countries from the Hofstede studies; but
Schimmack, Oishi and Diener (2005) proved this was due to a methodological error:
Oyserman et al. (2002) forgot to control for acquiescence (response set), and the
acquiescence in their data was significantly negatively correlated with the object of their
study which made their results random.
The cultural focus on the Individualism versus Collectivism dimension led Triandis
(1995) to splitting it into horizontal and vertical individualism. This split overlooks the fact
that the Hofstede dimension of large versus small Power Distance already covered the
horizontal/vertical aspect quite satisfactorily. From my point of view the horizontal/ vertical
distinction for Ind/Col as a dimension of culture is redundant. It may be useful at the
individual level, but this is for others to decide.
Like individualism and collectivism, the terms masculinity and femininity have also
been used for describing values at the individual level. Earlier studies by U.S. psychologist
Sandra Bem (1974) showed already that in this case masculinity and femininity should
again rather be treated as separate aspects than as opposite poles.
An important alternative application of the dimensional paradigm was developed by
the Israeli psychologist Shalom Schwartz. Borrowing mainly from the work of U.S.
psychologist Milton Rokeach (1972, 1973) who studied values of U.S. individuals,
Schwartz composed a list of 56 values. Through a network of colleagues he collected
scores from samples of elementary school teachers and of college students in over 50
countries. (Schwartz, 1994; Schwartz & Bardi, 2001). Respondents scored the importance
of each value “as a guiding principle in my life”. Schwartz at first assumed the same
dimensions would apply to individuals and to countries, but his data showed he needed
different classifications at different levels. At the country level he distinguished seven
dimensions: Conservatism (later rebaptized “Embeddedness”), Hierarchy, Mastery,
Affective autonomy, Intellectual autonomy, Egalitarianism and Harmony. Country scores
for teachers published by Schwartz in 1994 were significantly correlated with the IBM
scores for Individualism, Masculinity and Uncertainty Avoidance (Hofstede, 2001, p. 265).
Another large scale application was the GLOBE (Global Leadership and
Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness) project, conceived by US management scholar
Robert J. House in 1991. At first House focused on leadership, but soon the study
branched out into other aspects of national and organizational cultures. In the period 1994-
1997 some 170 voluntary collaborators collected data from about 17,000 managers in
nearly 1,000 local (non-multinational) organizations belonging to one of three industries:
food processing, financial services, and telecommunication services, in some 60 societies
throughout the world. In the preface to the book describing the project (House et al., 2004),
House writes "We have a very adequate dataset to replicate Hofstede’s (1980) landmark
study and extend that study to test hypotheses relevant to relationships among societal-
level variables, organizational practices, and leader attributes and behavior".
For conceptual reasons GLOBE expanded the five Hofstede dimensions to nine.
They maintained the labels Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance (but not
necessarily their meaning). They split Collectivism into Institutional Collectivism and In-
Group Collectivism, and Masculinity-Femininity into Assertiveness and Gender
Egalitarianism. Long Term Orientation became Future Orientation. They added two more
dimensions: Humane Orientation and Performance Orientation. The nine dimensions were
covered by 78 survey questions, half of them asking respondents to describe their culture
(‘as is’) and the other half to judge it (‘should be’). GLOBE thus produced 9 x 2 = 18 culture
scores for each country: nine dimensions ‘as is’ and nine dimensions ‘should be’.
In an evaluation of the GLOBE project (Hofstede, 2006), I re-factor analyzed the
country scores on GLOBE’s 18 dimensions. Five meta-factors emerged, of which the
strongest, grouping seven of the 18 measures, was highly significantly correlated with
GNP per capita and next with the Hofstede Power Distance dimension. Three more meta-
factors were significantly correlated with respectively the Hofstede Uncertainty Avoidance,
Individualism and Long Term Orientation dimensions. The GLOBE questionnaire
contained very few items covering Masculinity in the Hofstede sense, but whatever there
was belonged to the fifth meta-factor. The results show that in spite of a very different
approach, the massive body of GLOBE data still reflected the structure of the original
Hofstede model. The GLOBE research has provoked an extensive debate in the literature,
but I have seen few applications relevant for practical use by cross-cultural practitioners
(Hofstede, 2010). Minkov and Blagoev (2011) have tried to validate each of GLOBE’s 18
dimensions by testing their nomological networks (correlation patterns with variables from
other sources). The largest number of GLOBE’s mutually correlated dimensions can be
considered useful as facets of Hofstede’s Individualism/Collectivism; some have enriched
insights into Hofstede’s Power Distance dimension, and GLOBE’s Assertiveness “should
be” provides some new elements. GLOBE’s Humane Orientation and Performance
Orientation, both “as is” and “should be” cannot be meaningfully validated at all.
An author sometimes cited as having researched dimensions of national culture is
the Dutch management consultant Fons Trompenaars (1993). He distinguished seven
conceptual dimensions, the first five borrowed from Parsons and Shils (1951) and the last
two from Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) which he applied to the level of nations (see
earlier in this article). Trompenaars collected a database of survey items related to these
dimensions, but in the only statistical analysis of his data published so far, applying
Multidimensional Scaling to some 9,000 questionnaires, only two interpretable factors
emerged, both correlated with Hofstede’s Individualism, one of these also with Power
Distance (Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996; Smith, Trompenaars, & Dugan, 1995).
The only country scores that could be based on Trompenaars’ data refer to these two
flavors of individualism (Smith, Peterson, & Schwartz, 2002). Trompenaars’ claim to seven
dimensions therefore lacks empirical support.
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The World Values Survey has been described above. Although the search for
dimensions was not a primary purpose of this study, WVS director Ronald Inglehart in an
overall statistical analysis found two key country-level factors which he called: 'Well-being
versus survival' and 'Secular-rational versus traditional authority' (Inglehart, 1997, pp. 81-
98). Well-being versus survival correlated with a combination of Individualism and
Masculinity; Secular-rational versus traditional authority negatively with Power Distance.
Michael Minkov issued an extended and updated version of his 2007 book in a new
volume Cultural Differences in a Globalizing World (Minkov, 2011). For the dimensions
Exclusionism versus Universalism and Monumentalism versus Flexumility, country scores
have been re-calculated from partly different sources, for 86 countries for exclusionism
and for 43 countries for monumentalism. Indulgence versus Restraint has been reversed
and renamed Industry versus Indulgence; scores for 43 countries have been based on a
slightly different choice of WVS items. The old and new versions of these three dimensions
are still strongly correlated, in the case of Indulgence obviously negatively.
A unique feature of the new book is the addition of a dimension not based on survey
questions but on a statistically strong cluster of national statistics: murder rates, HIV
(AIDS) rates, adolescent fertility rates and low average IQ (Intelligence Quotient,
explainable from low education levels). This can be used for validation of dimensions
based on survey items. Minkov called it Hypometropia versus Prudence; hypometropia is a
medical term for short-sightedness, which he borrowed to avoid an a priori depreciating
term. He calculated hypometropia scores for 80 countries. It correlates significantly with
Minkov’s Exclusionism and Monumentalism. From the six dimensions in Hofstede et al.
(2010) only Individualism correlates significantly negatively with hypometropia, across 55
overlapping countries.
The dimensional paradigm can be applied at other than the national level as well, in
particular at the organizational and occupational levels (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998). A
research project similar to the IBM studies but focusing on organization rather than
national differences was carried out by this author and a team of collaborators in the 1980s
(Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohavy, & Sanders, 1990). Qualitative and quantitative data were
collected in twenty work organizations or parts of organizations in the Netherlands and
Denmark. The units studied varied from a toy manufacturing company to two municipal
police corps. The study consisted of three phases: open-ended interviews with a selection
of informants, forced-choice questionnaires with all, or random samples of, employees,
and collecting measurable characteristics at the organization level. The questionnaires
included the items used for calculating national culture dimensions in the IBM cross-
national survey, but added a large number of questions collected by the 18 interviewers in
the interview phase. This study found large differences among units in perceptions of daily
practices but only modest differences in values, beyond those due to such basic facts as
nationality, education, gender and age group.
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The fact that the world around us is changing does not need to affect the usefulness of the
dimensional paradigm; on the contrary, the paradigm can help us understand the internal
logic and the implications of the changes.
Some critics suggest that the number of dimensions should be extended. Triandis
(2004) has defended this position, and the GLOBE project actually tried to extend the five
Hofstede dimensions to 18. But additional dimensions are only meaningful if they are both
conceptually and statistically independent from those already available, and they should
also be validated by significant correlations with conceptually related external measures.
There is an epistemological reason why the number of meaningful dimensions will always
be small. Dimensions should not be reified. They do not ‘exist’ in a tangible sense. They
are constructs: if they exist, it is in our minds (Levitin, 1973). They should help us in
understanding and handling the complex reality of our social world. But human minds have
a limited capacity for processing information, and therefore dimensional models that are
too complex will not be experienced as useful. In a famous short article, Miller (1956)
argued that useful classifications should not have more than seven categories, plus or
minus two. I would go for the minus rather than the plus.
Within the dimensional model cultures can of course change their position on a
dimension. Critics argue that Hofstede country scores based on IBM subsidiaries around
1970 are obsolete. But studies correlating the old country scores with related variables
available on a year-by-year basis in many cases find no weakening of the correlations. A
good reason for this is that the country scores on the dimensions do not provide absolute
country positions, but only their positions relative to the other countries in the set. The
relationship of the dimensions to basic problems of societies and the historical evidence of
the continuity of national solutions to such problems suggest that even over much longer
periods the measures obtained will retain their validity. Influences like those of new
technologies tend to affect all countries without necessarily changing their relative position
or ranking; if their cultures change, they change together. Only if on a dimension one
country leapfrogs over others will the validity of the original scores be reduced. This is a
relatively rare occurrence. China might be one of those rare cases, where after a period of
relative isolation, decades of unparalleled double-digit economic development concurrent
with rapid global exposure and integration may be bringing about shifts, especially in the
younger generation. But this remains to be demonstrated in carefully designed research.
Some authors predict that new technologies will make societies more and more
similar. Technological modernization is an important force toward culture change and it
leads to partly similar developments in different societies, but there is not the slightest
proof that it wipes out variety on other dimensions. It may even increase differences, as on
the basis of pre-existing value systems societies cope with technological modernization in
different ways.
Culture change basic enough to invalidate the country dimension index rankings, or
even the relevance of the dimensional model, will need either a much longer period – say,
50 to 100 years – or extremely dramatic outside events. Many differences between
national cultures at the end of the 20th century were already recognizable in the years
1900, 1800 and 1700 if not earlier. There is no reason why they should not play a role until
2100 or beyond.
References
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Hofstede: Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context
Smith, P. B., Trompenaars, F. & Dugan, S. (1995). The Rotter locus of control scale in 43
countries: A test of cultural relativity. International Journal of Psychology, 30, 377-
400.
Smith, P. B., Dugan, S. & Trompenaars, F. (1996). National culture and the values of
organizational employees: A dimensional analysis across 43 nations. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, 27, 231-264.
Smith, P. B., Peterson, M. F. & Schwartz, S. H. (2002) Cultural values, sources of
guidance, and their relevance to managerial behavior: A 47-nation study. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 188-208.
Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and Collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Triandis, H. C. (2004). The many dimensions of culture. Academy of Management
Executive, 18, 88-93.
Trompenaars, F. (1993). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in
Business. London, UK: Economist Books.
World Values Survey (ongoing). Online at www.worldvaluessurvey.org .
Geert Hofstede (1928) holds an M.Sc. level degree in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D.
level degree in social psychology. He had a varied career both in industry and in
academia, retiring as a professor of organizational anthropology and international
management from the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, in 1993. Through his
book Culture’s Consequences (1980, new edition 2001) he became a pioneer of
comparative intercultural research; his ideas are used worldwide. A student-level book
Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (1991, third edition 2010 co-authored
with Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov) has so far appeared in 16 European and 3
Asian languages. Geert Hofstede was listed in the Wall Street Journal of May 2008 among
the Top 20 most influential business thinkers. He held visiting professorships in Hong
Kong, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. He received honorary doctorates from seven
European universities, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and the Academy
of International Business in the USA and a Honorary Fellow of the International
Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Discussion Questions
1
Culture scores of countries can be found in Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010) and on our
home website www.geerthofstede.nl under “research and VSM” and “dimension data matrix”.
Scores are also published on a website www.geert-hofstede.com operated by ITIM consultants and
on a “Culture GSM” app, but the author is not responsible for the information presented there.
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