Theory of National Culture:
Geert Hofstede, in his pioneer study looking at differences in culture across modern
nations, identified four dimensions of cultural values: individualism-collectivism, power
distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity-femininity. Working with researcher
Michael Bond, Hofstede later added a fifth dimension with called dynamic
Confucianism, or long-term orientation. According to Hofstede’s research, people, in
individualistic societies, are expected to care for themselves and their immediate
families only; while in collectivist cultures, people view themselves as members of
larger groups, including extended family members, and are expected to take
responsibility in caring for each other. With regards to power distance, different
countries have varying levels of accepting the distribution of unequal power.
Uncertainty avoidance takes into consideration that the “extent to which a society feels
threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations.” Then, masculinity-femininity
examines the dominant values of a culture and determines where these values land on
a spectrum in which “masculine” is associated with assertiveness, the acquisition of
money and things, as well as not caring for others. Finally, long-term orientation looks
at the extent to which a society considers respect for tradition and fulfilling social
obligations; some future-oriented values are persistence and thrift.
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have formed a fundamental framework for viewing
others. International business people, psychologists, communications researchers, and
diplomats all benefit from Hofstede’s work, as well as everyone else. Utilizing these
interpretative frameworks leads to a greater understanding of ourselves and others.
Power Distance: This dimension expresses the degree to which the less powerful
members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally: beliefs
about the appropriate distribution of power in society. The fundamental issue here is
how a society handles inequalities among people. People in societies exhibiting a large
degree of Power Distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place
and which needs no further justification. In societies with low Power Distance, people
strive to equalise the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of
power. China and Saudi Arabia are countries with a high Power Distance index.
Individualism: The Individualism/Collectivism dimension is about the relative
importance of individual versus group interests. The high side of this dimension, called
individualism, can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in
which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate
families. Its opposite, collectivism, represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework
in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular in-
group to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. A society’s position on
this dimension is reflected in whether people’s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or
“we.” The USA is considered as one of the most individualistic countries in the world.
Masculinity: The Masculinity/Femininity dimension is about what values are
considered more important in a society. The Masculine side of this dimension
represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and
material rewards for success. Society at large is more competitive. Its opposite,
femininity, stands for a preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and
quality of life. Society at large is more consensus-oriented. In the business context
Masculinity versus Femininity is sometimes also related to as “tough versus tender”
cultures. Japan is considered to be a very masculine country, whereas Scandinavian
countries such as Norway and Sweden are considered highly feminine.
Uncertainty Avoidance: The Uncertainty Avoidance dimension expresses the degree
to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
In addition its impact on rule making is taken into account. The fundamental issue here
is how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try
to control the future or just let it happen? Countries exhibiting a high Uncertainty
Avoidance maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour and are intolerant of
unorthodox behaviour and ideas. These countries often need many rules to constrain
uncertainty. Countries with a low Uncertainty Avoidance index maintain a more relaxed
attitude in which practice counts more than principles, tolerance for ambiguity is
accepted and the need for rules to constrain uncertainty is minimal. South American
countries such as Chile, Peru and Argentina are highly uncertainty avoiding countries.
Time Orientation: Every society has to maintain some links with its own past while
dealing with the challenges of the present and the future. Societies prioritize these two
existential goals differently. Countries that score low on this dimension, for example,
prefer to maintain time-honoured traditions and norms while viewing societal change
with suspicion. They are past and present oriented and value traditions and social
obligations. Countries with cultures that scores high on this dimension on the other
hand take a more pragmatic approach: they are future oriented and encourage thrift
and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future. Asian countries
such as China and Japan are known for their long term orientation. Morocco is a short
term oriented country.
Indulgence: The Indulgence dimension is a relatively new dimension to the model.
This dimension is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and
impulses, based on the way they were raised. Relatively weak control is called
Indulgence and relatively strong control is called Restraint. Cultures can, therefore, be
described as Indulgent or Restrained. 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.
The Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s study of Culture
Trompenaars and Hampden–Turner conducted a survey with employees of various
hierarchical levels and various businesses starting in the 1980s and continuing for
several decades.78 The target group was primarily participants of cross-cultural
training conducted by Trompenaars. Approximately 15 000 questionnaires were
evaluated in the first study. By 2002 there were about 30 000 questionnaires from 55
countries. In their book ‘Riding the Waves of Culture’ Trompenaars and Hampden-
Turner differentiated between seven dimensions, the characteristics of which mark the
differences between cultures. They grouped these seven dimensions by three aspects:
relationships between people, concept of time and concept of nature. Relationships
between people:
Universalism vs. Particularism: Universalist thought is characterized according to the
authors by the following logic: ‘What is good and right can be defined and always
applies’. Particularist cultures, on the contrary, pay more attention to individual cases,
deciding what is good and correct depending on relationship and special friendship
arrangements.
Individualism vs. Communitarianism: The underlying question here is: ‘Do people
regard themselves primarily as individuals or primarily as parts of a group?’82 The
other question is whether it is desirable that individuals primarily serve group aims or
individual aims. Individualist cultures, similar to Hofstede’s explanation, emphasize the
individual, who predominantly takes care of himself.
Emotional vs. Neutral: This dimension describes how emotions are treated and
whether they are expressed or not. Neutral cultures tend to express little emotion;
business is transacted as objectively and functionally as possible. In affective cultures,
an emotional cultural basis is accepted as a part of business life and emotions are
freely expressed across many social contexts.
Specific vs. diffuse: In diffuse cultures a person is involved in the business
relationship, whereas specific cultures focus more on contractually regulated aspects.
Specific cultures demand precision, an objective analysis of circumstances and
presentation of results, whereas diffuse cultures take other context variables into
consideration.86 l Ascription vs. Achievement: In cultures focused on status
achievement, people are judged based on what they have achieved, in other words the
goals they have fulfilled recently. In ascriptive cultures, the status is ascribed from birth
by characteristics such as origin, seniority, and gender.87
Concept of time: l Sequential vs. Synchronic concept of time: Cultures are
differentiated by the concept of time where they may be more past, future or present
oriented. The different concept of time is also demonstrated by the organization of work
processes. Sequential behavior is behavior that occurs successively and synchronous
behavior is the possibility to ‘multitask’ and do a number of things at the same time.
Concept of nature: l Internal vs. external control: This dimension describes the
concept of nature and refers to the extent to which societies try to control nature.
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner refer to the example of the Sony executive Morita,
who explained the invention of the Walkman: from the love of classical music and the
desire not to burden the world with his own music taste. This is an example of external
control, of how people adapt heavily to the environment. In Western societies, the
mindset is different; music is heard in the headphones not to be bothered by the
environment. Another example is wearing a facemask during the cold/flu season.
According to Trompenaars, in external control cultures masks are used because one
does not want to infect others, whereas in internal control cultures masks are used to
protect one’s self from outside sources of infection
An explicit rationale for the operationalization and the genesis of the seven dimensions
by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner remain unclear. The authors use single aspects
of other studies, like Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, Parsons, and Hofstede – without in-
depth justification for their selection – and leave out others, also with no justification. To
date, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner have not demonstrated the validity or
reliability of their dimensions, or justified their classification schema. An empirical basis
for their characterization of differences in national characteristics is also not presented.
However, this model is quite often used in executive education programs as a practical
template to monitor behavior and to draw conclusions for interaction with foreign
business partners.
The cultural dimensions by Hall and Hall:
Based on their own experiences as government and corporate advisors and various
qualitative studies, anthropologist Edward Hall and his wife Mildred Hall90 have
presented four dimensions that differentiate cultures. They do not claim that their
model covers all possibilities pointing out that other dimensions may also exist. The
relationship between culture and communication is emphasized in particular, as one
would not be possible without the other. The dimensions mainly involve cultural
differences in communication forms and time and space concepts.
High vs. Low Context Communication: Cultures differ in the way their members
communicate with each other. In High Context cultures, a more indirect form of
expression is common, where the receiver must decipher the content of the message
from its context, whereas in so-called Low Context cultures the players tend to
communicate more to the point and verbalize all-important information. Examples of
High Context cultures are Japan as well as France. Germany is more of a Low Context
culture.
Spatial orientation: The focus of this dimension is on the distance between people of
various cultures when communicating. Distance that is adequate for members of one
culture, may feel intrusive for members of another culture.
Monochrome vs. polychrome concept of time: A monochrome concept of time is
dominated by processes, where one thing is done after the other, whereas in the
polychrome concept these actions occur at the same time.
Information speed: This dimension focuses on whether information flow in groups is
high or low during communication. Thus, in the USA people tend to exchange personal
information relatively quickly, while in Europe such a rate of information exchange
would require a more extended acquaintance.
As already mentioned, the classification of cultural dimensions by Hall and Hall came
about in an inductive way and does not claim to be complete. In addition, the
dimensions are closely related and overlapping and cultural regions are represented in
a macro sense such as the USA and Europe. Intracultural differences are not touched
upon, but personal differences are referred to. The works by Hall and Hall, similar to
that of Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, focus on offering a practical template,
allowing individuals to perceive and handle cultural differences.
Inglehart’s Theory of Cultural Change
The writings in sociology and political science on cultural change are dominated by
modernization theory, predicting that continued economic development goes
together with predictable changes in norms, values, and beliefs. The shift from
industrial to postindustrial society brings about fundamental changes in people’s
daily experiences, which are reflected in changing worldviews (Inglehart & Baker,
2000). While industrial structures require rational, hierarchical forms of organization
and deferential attitudes toward authority, in a service-dominated, postindustrial
economy, information processing and communication become more important. As a
result, values such as self-expression and autonomy begin to replace self-restraint
and obedience. Moreover, as people in postindustrial societies are used to handle
complex situations, to deal with abstract constructs and to cope with social diversity,
their moral reasoning capacity and empathy expand . As a consequence, the
emphasis on individual self-determination goes together with an emphasis on equal
opportunities, giving rise to emancipative values that support universal freedoms
Inglehart and Baker (2000) show that, despite cultural change in a common
direction, countries have a unique historical past that continues to shape their
national culture. Hofstede agrees with this modified notion of modernization theory
implying the existence of multiple paths to modernity In Hofstede’s view,
technological modernization is an important driver of cultural change, which leads to
somewhat similar developments in different societies, but it does not wipe out
variety. It may even increase differences; on the basis of preexisting value systems,
societies cope with technological modernization in different ways
This “revised theory of modernization” predicts that national cultures change, but that
relative country rankings do not. In other words, countries experiencing similar
socioeconomic transformations change their values in the same direction, but they
do so coming from different starting positions and continue to move along separate
trajectories, which reflect the lasting impact of remote, country-specific historic
drivers. Hence, even though countries change their position in absolute terms,
relative to each other, they seem to remain in a rather stable distance. In fact, Welzel
(2013) even shows evidence for divergence, as those countries having been ahead
in matters of emancipation already decades ago moved even faster toward more
emancipation, Scandinavia and Sweden being the clearest cases in point.
As many times as Inglehart’s work has been cited, it has been criticized—and often
quite strongly so. While most scholars concerned with this work find the dynamic
element of Inglehart’s theory plausible, they object his measures for reasons of a
misspecified dimensionality. Flanagan (1987) argued early on that Inglehart’s narrow
concept of post-materialism presses into single dimension things that are in fact
dimensionally distinct: namely, post-authoritarian liberalism and post-material
idealism Moreover, and more important in our context, the 20 items used to generate
the two dimensions on the Inglehart–Welzel world map of cultures only generate two
dimensions when one actively enforces the extraction of exactly two dimensions. By
contrast, if one lets the data decide if the 20 items cohere in two clearly distinct
dimensions, the answer is a resounding “No”: There is just one dimension, which is
mostly due to the fact that the traditional end in “Traditional versus Secular-rational
Values” and the survival end in “Survival versus Self-expression Values” are highly
convergent.
In light of this criticism, the Inglehart dimensions provide no reliable testing ground
for dynamic theories of cultural change. Hence, to test whether cultural change
follows the evolutionary logic suggested by Inglehart and Welzel, it is necessary to
rely on a newly validated set of dimensions.
