6.1 – Hofstede’s Definition of Culture

The Geert Hofstede website

A summary of my ideas about national cultural differences Geert Hofstede

 These ideas were first based on a large research project into national culture differences across subsidiaries of a multinational corporation (IBM) in 64 countries. Subsequent studies by others covered students in 23 countries, elites in 19 countries, commercial airline pilots in 23 countries, up-market consumers in 15 countries, and civil service managers in 14 countries. These studies together identified and validated five independent dimensions of national culture differences:

Power distance is 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 is defined from below, not from above. lt suggests that 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 and anybody with some international experience will be aware that ‘all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others’.

Individualism on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, is the degree to which individuals are integrated d into groups. On the individualist side we sis an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.

Masculinity versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions is found. The IBM studies revealed that

(a)   women’s   values differ less among societies than men’s values;

(b) men’s values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women’s values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women’s values on the other. The assertive pole has been called ‘masculine ‘ and the modest, caring pole ‘feminine’. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries, they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men so these countries show a gap between men’s values and women’s values.

Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance e for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man’s search for Truth. lt 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 laws and rules, safety and security measures,   and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; ‘there can only be one Truth and we have it’. 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 as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions.

Long-term versus short-term orientation: Research by Michael Bond and colleagues among students in 23 countries led him in 1991 to add a fifth dimension called Long – versus Short-Term Orientation. In 2010, research by Michael Minkov allowed the number of country scores for this dimension to be extended to 93, using recent World Values Survey data from representative samples of national populations. Long-term-oriented societies foster pragmatic virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular saving, persistence, and adapting to changing circumstances. Short-term oriented societies foster virtues related to the past and present such as national pride, respect for tradition, preservation of “face”, and fulfilling social obligations.

Indulgence versus Restraint: In the same book a sixth dimension, also based on Minkov’s World Values Survey data analysis for 93 countries, has been added, called Indulgence versus Restraint. Indulgence stands for a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms.

Dimension scores are relative

The country scores on these dimensions are relative – societies are compared to other societies. These relative scores have been proven to be quite stable over decades. The forces that cause cultures to shift tend to be global or continent-wide – they affect many countries at the same time so that if the r cultures shift, they shift together, and their relative positions remain the same.