Hofstede is seen as one of the key writers and proponents of cultural theory, through his research in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and to which he has continued to add. His research was based on employees within one organisation – IBM and covered over 116,000 responses, 72 national subsidiaries and 20 language, taking the data at two points in time over a four year period. When first published, over 20 years ago, it was one of the most extensive pieces of research in the area of culture and lead to some critical thinking of what characteristics are observable in different national cultures.
The central premise to Hofstede’s work is that Culture and cultural identity are learned attributes developed over time and he coined the process ‘mental programming’.
We can see how culture is ever-changing, in the ways that values and priorities change from one generation to another. For example, we can see if we look back at key decades in UK society, that values changed from: Being frugal and economical in the 1940’s (key themes: ‘War’ and ‘Rations’); being hard-working and strong family values in the 1950’s (key themes: Post-war Industrial growth); being expressive and freedom of speech in the 1960’s (key themes: Feminism, Free Love, Student Revolts); being politically aware and experiencing hardships in the 1970’s (Increased political unrest, widespread strikes and large scale unemployment). Thus we can say that culture is at the same time traditional yet ever changing. The shifts in cultural values are harder to view in the day-to-day, but evident when looked at through a longer lens.
This brings some interesting challenges to modern day multi-nationals, as it means that cultural identity and values needs to be understood and observed to a point, but that people are open to and willing to change their values and priorities if it makes sense for them to do so.
Culture can feel like an intangible and hard to grasp concept, yet it is both general – i.e. definable at a national or continental level; but also specific – i.e. definable at an organisational, team and even family level. And for each of these situations a new set of norms might be applied.
Hofstede originally defined four dimensions of culture as a way of mapping and explaining differences in national cultures. If we look at how European countries map out on these dimensions, we see some interesting patterns:
Each dimensions looks at a different aspect of human interactions:
1. Power Distance: Defining and prioritizing power in their environments – e.g.. how much are hierarchies respected and maintained
2. Uncertainty Avoidance: How important is it to know what is coming next and how much effort is invested into avoiding uncertainty
3. Individualism ‘v’ Collectivisim: What is more important – to be known and respected as an individual or to be part of and respected as part of a community (or group effort)
4. Masculine ‘v’ Feminine: “Masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct and focused on material success; femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlaps (i.e. both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender and concerned with quality of life)” (Hofstede P.82)
To these original dimensions, a fifth was added – Long Term’v’ Short Term Orientation.
The dimensions give us a frame of reference in which to consider and view culture, and it does allow us to perhaps explain differences that emerge across different countries, even in one geographic regions such as Europe. However Hofstede was at pains to point out that the purpose of his cultural landscape was not to allow us to fall in to the trap of stereotyping countries and national cultures. Far from it, Hofstede believed that by having a frame of reference, we could free ourselves up from our own cultural bias, to look at cultures with a more objective lens.
There are a number of issues with Hofstede’s study methods and conclusions, which remind us of the need to treat it critically. The first is that the data is focused around the respondents in one organisation – IBM. Whilst an organisation of sufficient size (well over 120,000 employees at the time of the research) to provide a statistically significant sample, but that does not mean it is representative on a national level.
Blodgett et al (2008) after examining Hofstede’s model conclude that “Hofstede’s cultural instrument lacks sufficient validity when applied at the individual unit of analysis”. McSweeney B (2002) goes further to systematically deconstruct and debunk his theories stating that “The scale problem of Hofstede’s research is radially compounded by the narrowness of the population surveyed” and that Hofstede oversimplified the importance of organisational culture as a component and a relevant factor when matching samples across countries. Yet despite this criticism, I think that St Claire-Ostwald (2007) offers wise words when she states “To reject totally Hofstede’s or similar functionalist models of national culture, before more satisfactory models have been developed, would be to throw away valuable insight.”
Hofstede’s model still has influence on our current thinking of Culture and its interpretation. One can see his influence in other important models, such as those of Trompenaars and GLOBE, which will be covered in the next section of this series.
Culture is ever-present and all-pervasive and however much we want to imagine that business as usual can continue without it, it cannot. However by becoming more aware of it, is the first step in managing its consequences.
Please share your thoughts or experiences on cross cultural management here, or email us if you would like to find out more about our work in this area at feedback@agents2change.com
Further Reading:
Blodgett J, Bakir A & Rose G (2008) A Test of the Validity of Hofstede’s Cultural Framework, Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 35)
Hofstede G (1994) Cultures and Organizations: Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival; Software of the Mind, London: HarperCollins
McSweeney, B. (2000). Hofstede's model of national cultural differences and their consequences: A triumph of faith – a failure of analysis. Human Relations, 55(1), 89-118.
St Claire-Ostwald B (2007) Carrying Cultural Baggage: the contribution of socio-cultural anthropology to cross-cultural coaching, International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 5(2), 45-52
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