Communicating across Cultural Barriers
Nancy J. Adler
If we seek to understand a people, we have to try to put ourselves, as far as we can, in that particular historical and
cultural background. ... It is not easy for a person of one country to enter into the background of another country.
So there is great irritation, because one fact that seems obvious to us is not immediately accepted by the other party
or does not seem obvious to him at all. ... But that extreme irritation will go when we think ... that he is just
differently conditioned and simply can't get out of that condition. One has to recognize that whatever the future
may hold, countries and people differ ... in their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. In order to
understand them, we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to
use their language as far as we can, not language in the narrow sense of the word, but the language of the mind.
That is one necessity. Something that goes even much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but
some kind of emotional awareness of other people. ...
Jawaharlal Nehru, Visit to America
All international business activity involves communication. Within the international and global business
environment, activities such as exchanging information and ideas, decision making, negotiating, motivating, and
leading are all based on the ability of managers from one culture to communicate successfully with managers and
employees from other cultures. Achieving effective communication is a challenge to managers worldwide even
when the workforce is culturally homogeneous, but when one company includes a variety of languages and
cultural backgrounds, effective two-way communication becomes even more difficult (16:1; 10:3-5, 121-128).
CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Communication is the exchange of meaning: it is my attempt to let you know what I mean. Communication
includes any behavior that another human being perceives and interprets: it is your understanding of what I
mean. Communication includes sending both verbal messages (words) and nonverbal messages (tone of voice,
facial expression, behavior, and physical setting). It includes consciously sent messages as well as messages that
the sender is totally unaware of sending. Whatever I say and do, I cannot not communicate. Communication
therefore involves a complex, multilayered, dynamic process through which we exchange meaning.
Every communication has a message sender and a message receiver. As shown in Figure 3-1, the sent
message is never identical to the received message. Why? Communication is indirect; it is a symbolic behavior.
Ideas, feelings, and pieces of information cannot be communicated directly but must be externalized or
symbolized before being communicated. Encoding describes the producing of a symbol message. Decoding
describes the receiving of a message from a symbol. The message sender must encode his or her meaning into a
form that the receiver will recognize—that is, into words and behavior. Receivers must then decode the words
and behavior—the symbols—back into messages that have meaning for them.
For example, because the Cantonese word for eight sounds like faat, which means prosperity, a Hong Kong
textile manufacturer Mr. Lau Ting-pong paid $5 million in 1988 for car registration number 8. A year later, a
European millionaire paid $4.8 million at Hong Kong's Lunar New Year auction for vehicle registration number
7, a decision that mystified the Chinese, since the number 7 has little significance in the Chinese calculation of
fortune (20).
Similarly, the prestigious members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council refrained from using numbers ending
in 4 to identify their newly installed lockers. Some Chinese consider numbers ending with the digit 4 to be
jinxed, because the sound of the Cantonese word sei is the same for four and death. The number 24, for instance,
sounds like yee sei, or death-prone in Cantonese (9).
SOURCE: Adler, N.J. 1991. International Dimensions of Oganizational Behavior (2nd ed.). Boston,
MA: PWS-KENT Publishing Company. pp. 63-91.
Translating meanings into words and behaviors—that is, into symbols—and back again into meanings is
based on a person's cultural background and is not the same for each person. The greater the difference in
background between senders and receivers, the greater the difference in meanings attached to particular words
and behaviors. For example:
Sent Message
Received Message
RECEIVER
SENDER
Received Response
Sent Response
FIGURE 3-1 Communication Model
A British boss asked a new, young American employee if he would like to have an early lunch at 11 A.M.
each day. The employee answered, "Yeah, that would be great!" The boss, hearing the word yeah instead of
the word yes, assumed that the employee was rude, ill-mannered, and disrespectful. The boss responded
with a curt, "With that kind of attitude, you may as well forget about lunch!" The employee was bewildered.
What had gone wrong? In the process of encoding agreement (the meaning) into yeah (a word symbol) and
decoding the yeah spoken by a new employee to the boss (a word, behavior, and context symbol), the boss
received an entirely different message than the employee had meant to send. Unfortunately, as is the case in
most miscommunication, neither the sender nor the receiver was fully aware of what had gone wrong and
why.
Cross-cultural communication occurs when a person from one culture sends a message to a person from
another culture. Cross-cultural miscommunication occurs when the person from the second culture does not
receive the sender's intended message. The greater the differences between the sender's and the receiver's
cultures, the greater the chance for cross-cultural miscommunication. For example:
A Japanese businessman wants to tell his Norwegian client that he is uninterested in a particular sale. To be
polite, the Japanese says, "That will be very difficult." The Norwegian interprets the statement to mean that
there are still unresolved problems, not that the deal is off. He responds by asking how his company can
help solve the problems. The Japanese, believing he has sent the message that there will be no sale, is
mystified by the response.
Communication does not necessarily result in understanding. Cross-cultural communication continually
involves misunderstanding caused by misperception, misinterpretation, and misevaluation. When the sender of
a message comes from one culture and the receiver from another, the chances of accurately transmitting a
message are low. Foreigners see, interpret, and evaluate things differently, and consequently act upon them
differently. In approaching cross-cultural situations, one should therefore assume difference until similarity is
proven. It is also important to recognize that all behavior makes sense through the eyes of the person behaving
and that logic and rationale are culturally relative. In cross-cultural situations, labeling behavior as bizarre
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usually reflects culturally based misperception, misinterpretation, and misevaluation; rarely does it reflect
intentional malice or pathologically motivated behavior.
Culturally Bizarre' Behavior:
Only in the Eyes of the Beholder
While in Thailand a Canadian expatriate's car was hit by a Thai motorist who had crossed over the double line
while passing another vehicle. After failing to establish that the fault lay with the Thai driver, the Canadian
flagged down a policeman. After several minutes of seemingly futile discussion, the Canadian pointed out the
double line in the middle of the road and asked the policeman directly, "What do these lines signify?" The
policeman replied, "They indicate the center of the road and are there so I can establish just how far the accident
is from that point." The Canadian was silent. It had never occurred to him that the double line might not mean
"no passing allowed."
Unwritten rules reflect a culture's interpretation of its surroundings. A foreign columnist for the Englishlanguage Bangkok Post once proclaimed that the unwritten traffic rule in Thailand is: "When there are more than
three cars in front of you at a stop sign or intersection, start your own line!" This contravenes the Western stayin-line ethic, of course, but it effectively portrays, albeit in slightly exaggerated fashion, a fairly consistent form of
behavior at intersections in Thailand. And it drives non-Thais crazy!(l4)
CROSS-CULTURAL MISPERCEPTION
Do the French and the Chinese see the world in the same way? No. Do Venezuelans and Ghanaians see the
world in the same way? Again, no.
No two national groups see the world in exactly the same way. Perception is the process by which each
individual selects, organizes, and evaluates stimuli from the external environment to provide meaningful
experiences for himself or herself (2;12;16;18). For example, when Mexican children simultaneously viewed
tachistoscopic pictures of a bullfight and a baseball game, they only remembered seeing the bullfight. Looking
through the same tachistoscope, American children only remembered seeing the baseball game (3). Similarly,
adult card players, when shown cards by researchers, failed to see black hearts and diamonds, or red clubs and
spades.
Why didn't the children see both pictures? Why did the adults fail to see the unexpected playing card colors?
The answer lies in the nature of perception. Perceptual patterns are neither innate nor absolute. They are
selective, learned, culturally determined, consistent, and inaccurate.
•
•
•
•
•
Perception is selective. At any one time there are too many stimuli in the environment for us to observe.
Therefore, we screen out most of what we see, hear, taste, and feel. We screen out the overload (5) and
allow only selected information through our perceptual screen to our conscious mind.
Perceptual patterns are learned. We are not born seeing the world in one particular way. Our experience
teaches us to perceive the world in certain ways.
Perception is culturally determined. We learn to see the world in a certain way based on our cultural
background.
Perception tends to remain constant. Once we see something in a particular way, we continue to see it
that way.
We therefore see things that do not exist, and do not see things that do exist. Our interests, values, and culture
act as filters and lead us to distort, block, and even create what we choose to see and hear. We perceive
what we expect to perceive. We perceive things according to what we have been trained to see,
according to our cultural map.
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For example, read the following sentence:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS
OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS
Now, quickly count the number of F's in the sentence. Most non-native English speakers see all six F's. Many
native English speakers only see three F's, they do not see the F's in the word of because of is not an important
word in understanding the sentence. We selectively see those words that are important according to our cultural
conditioning (in this case, our linguistic conditioning). Once we see a phenomenon in a particular way, we
usually continue to see it in that way. Once we stop seeing of's, we do not see them again (even when we look for
them); we do not see things that do exist. One particularly astute manager at Canadian National railways makes
daily use of perceptual filters to her firm's advantage. She gives reports written in English to bilingual
Francophones to proofread and those written in French to bilingual Anglophones. She uses the fact that the
English secretaries can "see" more errors—especially small typographical errors—in French and the French
secretaries can "see" more errors in English.
The distorting impact of perceptual filters causes us to see things that do not exist. This phenomenon was
powerfully demonstrated a number of years ago in a training session for American executives. The executives
were asked to study the picture shown in Figure 3-2 and then describe it to a colleague who had not seen the
picture. The first colleague then attempted to describe it to a second colleague who had not seen the picture, and
so on. Finally, the fifth colleague described his perception of the picture to the group of executives and compared
it with the original picture. Among the numerous distortions, the executives consistently described the black and
the white man as fighting; the knife as being in the hands of the black man; and the white man as wearing a
business suit and the black man as wearing laborer's overalls. Clearly the (inaccurate) stereotypes of blacks
(poorer, working class, and more likely to commit crimes) and of whites (richer, upper class, and less likely to be
involved in violent crime) radically altered the executives' perceptions and totally changed the meaning of the
picture (1). The executives' perceptual filters allowed them to see things that did not exist and to miss seeing
things that did exist.
CROSS-CULTURAL MISINTERPRETATION
Interpretation occurs when an individual gives meaning to observations and their relationships; it is the process
of making sense out of perceptions. Interpretation organizes our experience to guide our behavior. Based on our
experience, we make assumptions about our perceptions so we will not have to rediscover meanings each time
we encounter similar situations. For example, we make assumptions about how doors work, based on our
experience of entering and leaving rooms; thus we do not have to relearn each time we have to open a door.
Similarly, when we smell smoke, we generally assume there is a fire. We do not have to stop and wonder if the
smoke indicates a fire or a flood. Our consistent patterns of interpretation help us to act appropriately and
quickly within our day-to-day world.
Categories
Since we are constantly bombarded with more stimuli than we can absorb and more perceptions than we can
keep distinct, we only perceive those images that may be meaningful. We group perceived images into familiar
categories that help to simplify our environment, become the basis for our interpretations, and allow us to
function in an otherwise overly complex world. For example, as a driver approaching an intersection, I may or
may not notice the number of children in the back seat of the car next to me, but I will notice whether the traffic
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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4
light is red or green (selective perception). If the light is red, I automatically place it in the category of all red
traffic signals (categorization). This time, like prior times, I stop (behavior based on interpretation). Although
people are capable of distinguishing thousands of different colors, I do not take the time to notice if the red light
in Istanbul is brighter or duller than the one in Singapore or more orange or more purple than the one in Nairobi;
I just stop. Categorization helps me to distinguish what is most important in my environment and to behave
accordingly.
FIGURE 3-2 Impact of Perceptual Filters
SOURCE: Projected picture from experiment on accuracy of communication from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith
Rumor Clinic. As shown in Robert Bolton, People Skills (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979), p. 74.
Copyright 1979 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Categories of perceived images become ineffective when we place people and things in the wrong group.
Cross-cultural miscategorization occurs when I use my home country categories to make sense out of foreign
situations. For example, a Korean businessman entered a client's office in Stockholm and encountered a woman
behind the desk. Assuming that she was a secretary, he announced that he wanted to see Mr. Silferbrand. The
woman responded by saying that the secretary would be happy to help him. The Korean became confused. In
assuming that most women are secretaries rather than managers, he had misinterpreted the situation and acted
inappropriately. His category makes sense because most women in Korean offices are secretaries. But it proved
counterproductive since this particular Swedish woman was not a secretary.
Stereotypes
Stereotyping involves a form of categorization that organizes our experience and guides our behavior toward
ethnic and national groups. Stereotypes never describe individual behavior; rather, they describe the behavioral
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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norm for members of a particular group. For example, the stereotypes of English and French businesspeople, as
analyzed by Intercultural Management Associates in Paris, are described as follows:
We have found that to every set of negative stereotypes distinguishing the British and French there
corresponds a particular values divergence that, when recognized, can prove an extraordinary resource. To
illustrate: The French, in describing the British as "perfidious," "hypocritical," and "vague," are in fact
describing the Englishman's typical lack of a general model or theory and his preference for a more
pragmatic, evolutionary approach. This fact is hard for the Frenchman to believe, let alone accept as a viable
alternative, until, working alongside one another, the French man comes to see that there is usually no
ulterior motive behind the Englishman's vagueness but rather a capacity to think aloud and adapt to
circumstances. For his part, the Englishman comes to see that, far from being "distant," "superior," or "out of
touch with reality," the Frenchman's concern for a general model or theory is what lends vision, focus, and
cohesion to an enterprise or project, as well as leadership and much needed authority (7).
Stereotypes, like other forms of categories, can be helpful or harmful depending on how we use them.
Effective stereotyping allows people to understand and act appropriately in new situations. A stereotype can be
helpful when it is
•
•
•
•
•
Consciously held. The person should be aware that he or she is describing a group norm rather than the
characteristics of a specific individual.
Descriptive rather than evaluative. The stereotype should describe what people from this group will
probably be like and not evaluate those people as good or bad.
Accurate. The stereotype should accurately describe the norm for the group to which the person belongs.
The first best guess about a group prior to having direct information about the specific person or persons
involved.
Modified, based on further observation and experience with the actual people and situations.
A subconsciously held stereotype is difficult to modify or discard even after we collect real information about
a person, because it is often thought to reflect reality. If a subconscious stereotype also inaccurately evaluates a
person or situation, we are likely to maintain an inappropriate, ineffective, and frequently harmful guide to
reality. For example, assume that I subconsciously hold the stereotype that Anglophone Quebecois refuse to
learn French and that therefore they should have no rights within the province (an inaccurate, evaluative
stereotype). I then meet a monolingual Anglophone and say, "See, I told you that Anglophones aren't willing to
speak French! They don't deserve to have rights here." I next meet a bilingual Anglophone and conclude, "He
must be American because Canadian Anglophones always refuse to learn French." Instead of questioning,
modifying, or discarding my stereotype ("Some Anglophone Canadians speak French"), I alter reality to fit the
stereotype ("He must be American"). Stereotypes increase effectiveness only when used as a first best guess
about a person or situation prior to having direct information. They never help when adhered to rigidly.
Indrei Ratiu (17), in his work with INSEAD (Institut Europeen d'Administration des Affaires—European
Institute of Business Administration) and London Business School, found that managers ranked "most
internationally effective" by their colleagues altered their stereotypes to fit the actual people involved, whereas
managers ranked "least internationally effective" continued to maintain their stereotypes even in the face of
contradictory information. For example, internationally effective managers, prior to their first visit to Germany,
might stereotype Germans as being extremely task oriented. Upon arriving and meeting a very friendly and lazy
Herr Schmidt, they would alter their description to say that most Germans appear extremely task oriented, but
Herr Schmidt seems friendly and lazy. Months later, the most internationally effective managers would only be
able to say that some Germans appear very task oriented, while others seem quite relationship oriented
(friendly); it all depends on the person and the situation. In this instance, the stereotype is used as a first best
guess about the group's behavior prior to meeting any individuals from the group. As time goes on, it is
modified or discarded entirely; information about each individual supersedes the group stereotype. By contrast,
the least internationally effective managers maintain their stereotypes. They assume that the contradictory
evidence in Herr Schmidt's case represents an exception, and they continue to believe that all Germans are highly
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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6
task oriented. In drawing conclusions too quickly on the basis of insufficient information—premature closure
(12)—their stereotypes be come self-fulfilling (19).
Canadian psychologist Donald Taylor (4;5;21) found that most people maintain their stereotypes even in the
face of contradictory evidence. Taylor asked English and French Canadians to listen to one of three tape
recordings of a French Canadian describing himself. In the first version, the French Canadian used the
Francophone stereotype and described himself as religious, proud, sensitive, and expressive. In the second
version, he used neutral terms to describe himself. In the third version, he used terms to describe himself that
contradicted the stereotype, such as not religious, humble, unexpressive, and conservative. After having listened
to one of the three versions, the participants were asked to describe the Francophone on the tape (not
Francophones in general). Surprisingly, people who listened to each of the three versions used the same
stereotypic terms—religious, proud, sensitive, and expressive—even when the voice on the tape had conveyed
the opposite information. People evidently maintain stereotypes even in the face of contradictory information.
To be effective, international managers must therefore be aware of cultural stereotypes and learn to set them
aside when faced with contradictory evidence. They cannot pretend not to stereotype.
If stereotyping is so useful as an initial guide to reality, why do people malign it? Why do parents and
teachers constantly admonish children not to stereotype? Why do sophisticated managers rarely admit to
stereotyping, even though each of us stereotypes every day? The answer is that we have failed to accept
stereotyping as a natural process and have consequently failed to learn to use it to our advantage. For years we
have viewed stereotyping as a form of primitive thinking, as an unnecessary simplification of reality. We have
also viewed stereotyping as immoral: stereotypes can be inappropriate judgments of individuals based on
inaccurate descriptions of groups. It is true that labeling people from a certain ethnic group as "bad" is immoral,
but grouping individuals into categories is neither good nor bad—it simply reduces a complex reality to
manageable dimensions. Negative views of stereotyping simply cloud our ability to understand people's actual
behavior and impair our awareness of our own stereotypes. Everyone stereotypes.
In conclusion, some people stereotype effectively and others do not. Stereotypes become counterproductive
when we place people in the wrong groups, when we incorrectly describe the group norm, when we
inappropriately evaluate the group or category, when we confuse the stereotype with the description of a
particular individual, and when we fail to modify the stereotype based on our actual observations and
experience.
Sources of Misinterpretation
Misinterpretation can be caused by inaccurate perceptions of a person or situation that arise when what actually
exists is not seen. It can be caused by an inaccurate interpretation of what is seen; that is, by using my meanings
to make sense out of your reality. An example of this type of misinterpretation (or misattribution) comes from an
encounter with an Austrian businessman.
I meet my Austrian client for the sixth time in as many months. He greets me as Herr Smith. Categorizing
him as a businessman, I interpret his very formal behavior to mean that he does not like me or is uninterested
in developing a closer relationship with me. (North American attribution: people who maintain formal
behavior after the first few meetings do so because they dislike or distrust the associates so treated.) In fact, I
have misinterpreted his behavior. I have used the norms for North American business behavior, which are
more informal and demonstrative (I would say "Good morning, Fritz," not "Good morning, Herr
Ranschburg"), to interpret the Austrian's more formal behavior ("Good morning, Herr Smith").
Culture strongly influences, and in many cases determines, our interpretations. Both the categories and the
meanings we attach to them are based on our cultural background. Sources of cross-cultural misinterpretation
include subconscious cultural "blinders," a lack of cultural self-awareness, projected similarity, and parochialism.
Subconscious Cultural Blinders. Because most interpretation goes on at a subconscious level, we lack
awareness of the assumptions we make and their cultural basis. Our home culture reality never forces us to
examine our assumptions or the extent to which they are culturally based, because we share our cultural
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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7
assumptions with most other citizens of our country. All we know is that things do not work as smoothly or
logically when we work outside our own culture as when we work with people more similar to ourselves. For
example:
A Canadian conducting business in Kuwait is surprised when his meeting with a high ranking official is not
held in a closed office and is constantly interrupted. Using the Canadian-based cultural assumptions that (a)
important people have large private offices with secretaries to monitor the flow of people into the office, and
(b) important business takes precedence over less important business and is therefore not interrupted, the
Canadian interprets the Kuwaiti's open office and constant interruptions to mean that the official is neither as
high ranking nor as interested in conducting the business at hand as he had previously thought. The
Canadian's interpretation of the office environment leads him to lose interest in working with the Kuwaiti.
The problem is that the Canadian's interpretation derives from his own North American norms, not from
Middle Eastern cultural norms. The Kuwaiti may well have been a high-ranking official who was very interested
in doing business. The Canadian will never know.
Cases of subconscious cross-cultural misinterpretation occur frequently. For example a Soviet poet, after
lecturing at American universities for two months, said, "Attempts to please an American audience are doomed
in advance, because out of twenty listeners five may hold one point of view, seven another, and eight may have
none at all" (10). The Soviet poet confused Americans' freedom of thought and speech with his ability to please
them. He assumed that one can only please an audience if all members hold the same opinion. Another example
of well-meant misinterpretation comes from the United States Office of Education's advice to teachers of newly
arrived Vietnamese refugee students (22):
Students' participation was discouraged in Vietnamese schools by liberal doses of corporal punishment, and
students were conditioned to sit rigidly and speak out only when spoken to. This background ... makes
speaking freely in class hard for a Vietnamese student. Therefore, don't mistake shyness for apathy.
Perhaps the extent to which this is a culturally based interpretation becomes clearer if we imagine the opposite
advice the Vietnamese Ministry of Education might give to Vietnamese teachers receiving American children for
the first time.
Students' proper respect for teachers was discouraged by a loose order and students were conditioned to chat
all the time and to behave in other disorderly ways. This background makes proper and respectful behavior
in class hard for an American student. Therefore, do not mistake rudeness for lack of reverence.
Lack of Cultural Self-Awareness. Although we think that the major obstacle in international business is in
understanding the foreigner, the greater difficulty involves becoming aware of our own cultural conditioning.
As anthropologist Edward Hall has explained, "What is known least well, and is therefore in the poorest position
to be studied, is what is closest to oneself (8:45)." We are generally least aware of our own cultural characteristics
and are quite surprised when we hear foreigners' descriptions of us. For example, many Americans are surprised
to discover that they are seen by foreigners as hurried, overly law-abiding, very hard working, extremely explicit,
and overly inquisitive (see the example that follows). Many American businesspeople were equally surprised by
a Newsweek survey reporting the characteristics most and least frequently associated with Americans (see Table
3-1). Asking a foreign national to describe businesspeople from your country is a powerful way to see yourself as
others see you.
Cross-Cultural Awareness
Americans as Others See Them
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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People from other countries are often puzzled and intrigued by the intricacies and enigmas of American culture.
Below is a selection of actual observations by foreigners visiting the United States. As you read them, ask
yourself in each case if the observer is accurate, and how you would explain the trait in question.
India "Americans seem to be in a perpetual hurry. Just watch the way they walk down the street. They never
allow themselves the leisure to enjoy life; there are too many things to do."
Kenya "Americans appear to us rather distant. They are not really as close to other people—even fellow
Americans—as Americans overseas tend to portray. It's almost as if an American says, 'I won't let you get too
close to me.' It's like building a wall."
Turkey "Once we were out in a rural area in the middle of nowhere and saw an American come to a stop sign.
Though he could see in both directions for miles and no traffic was coming, he still stopped!"
Colombia "The tendency in the United States to think that life is only work hits you in the face. Work seems to
be the one type of motivation."
Indonesia "In the United States everything has to be talked about and analyzed. Even the littlest thing has to be
'Why, Why, Why?'. I get a headache from such persistent questions."
Ethiopia "The American is very explicit; he wants a 'yes' or 'no.' If someone tries to speak figuratively, the
American is confused."
Iran "The first time ... my [American] professor told me, 'I don't know the answer, I will have to look it up,' I was
shocked. I asked myself, 'Why is he teaching me?' In my country a professor would give the wrong answer
rather than admit ignorance."1
TABLE 3-1 How Others See Americans
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Characteristics Most Often Associated with Americans* by the Populations of
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
France
Japan
West Germany
Great Britain
Brazil
Mexico
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Industrious
Energetic
Inventive
Decisive
Friendly
Nationalistic
Friendly
Decisive
Rude
Self-indulgent
Energetic
Inventive
Friendly
Sophisticated
Intelligent
Friendly
Self-indulgent
Energetic
Industrious
Nationalistic
Intelligent
Inventive
Energetic
Industrious
Greedy
Industrious
Intelligent
Inventive
Decisive
Greedy
Characteristics Most Often Associated with Americans* by the Same Populations
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lazy
Rude
Honest
Sophisticated
Industrious
Lazy
Honest
Sexy
Lazy
Sexy
Greedy
Rude
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
Lazy
Sophisticated
Sexy
Decisive
Lazy
Self-indulgent
Sexy
Sophisticated
Adler
Lazy
Honest
Rude
Sexy
9
SOURCE: Newsweek (July 11, 1983), p. 50, copyright 1981 by Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved, reprinted by permission.
*From a list of fourteen characteristics.
Another very revealing way to understand the norms and values of a culture involves listening to common
sayings and proverbs. What does a society recommend, and what does it avoid? Following is a list of a number
of the most common North American proverbs and the values each teaches.
North American Values: Proverbs
It is evidently much more potent in teaching practicality, for example, to say, "Don't cry over spilt milk" than,
"You'd better learn to be practical." North Americans have heard this axiom hundreds of times, and it has made
its point. Listed below are North American proverbs on the left and the values they seem to be teaching on the
right.2
Proverb
Value
________________________________________________________________________________________
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Cleanliness
A penny saved is a penny earned.
Thriftiness
Time is money.
Time Thriftiness
Don't cry over spilt milk.
Practicality
Waste not; want not.
Frugality
Early to bed, early to rise, makes one healthy,
Diligence; Work Ethic
wealthy and wise.
God helps those who help themselves.
Initiative
It's not whether you win or lose, but how you
Good Sportsmanship
play the game.
A man's home is his castle.
Privacy; Value of Personal Property
No rest for the wicked.
Guilt; Work Ethic
You've made your bed, now sleep in it.
Responsibility
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.
Practicality
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Practicality
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Aggressiveness
Might makes right.
Superiority of Physical Power
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Originality; Determination
A stitch in time saves nine.
Timeliness of Action
All that glitters is not gold.
Wariness
Clothes make the man.
Concern of Physical Appearance
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Persistence; Work Ethic
Take care of today, and tomorrow will
Preparation of Future
take care of itself.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and
Pleasant Outward Appearance
you weep alone.
To the extent that we can begin to see ourselves clearly through the eyes of foreigners, we can begin to
modify our behavior, emphasizing our most appropriate and effective characteristics and minimizing those least
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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helpful. To the extent that we are culturally self-aware, we can begin to predict the effect our behavior will have
on others.
Projected Similarity. Projected similarity refers to the assumption that people are more similar to you than they
actually are, or that a situation is more similar to yours when in fact it is not. Projecting similarity reflects both a
natural and a common process. American researchers Burger and Bass (6) worked with groups of managers from
fourteen different countries. They asked each manager to describe the work and life goals of a colleague from
another country. As shown in Figure 3-3, in every case the managers assumed that their foreign colleagues were
more like themselves than they actually were. Projected similarity involves assuming, imagining, and actually
perceiving similarity when differences exist. Projected similarity particularly handicaps people in cross-cultural
situations. As a South African, I assume that my Greek colleague is more South African than he actually is. As
an Egyptian, I assume that my Chilean colleague is more similar to me than she actually is. When I act based on
this assumed similarity, I often find that I have acted inappropriately and thus ineffectively.
PROJECTED
SIMILARITY
A's
description of
A
B's
description of
A
A's
description of
B
B's
description of
B
PROJECTED
SIMILARITY
FIGURE 3-3 Projected Similarity
At the base of projected similarity is a subconscious parochialism. I assume that there is only one way to be:
my way. I assume that there is only one way to see the world: my way. I therefore view other people in
reference to me and to my way of viewing the world. People may fall into an
illusion of understanding while being unaware of ... [their] misunderstandings. "I understand you perfectly
but you don't understand me" is an expression typical of such a situation. Or all communicating parties may
fall into a collective illusion of mutual understanding. In such a situation, each party may wonder later why
other parties do not live up to the "agreement" they had reached (13:3).
Most international managers do not see themselves as parochial. They believe that as world travelers they
are able to see the foreigner's point of view. This is not always true.
EXAMPLE
When a Danish manager works with a Saudi and the Saudi states that the plant will be completed on time,
"En shah allah" ("If God is willing"), the Dane rarely believes that God's will is really going to influence the
construction progress. He continues to see the world from his parochial Danish perspective and assumes
that "En shah allah" is just an excuse for not getting the work done, or is meaningless altogether.
Similarly, when Balinese workers' families refuse to use birth control methods, explaining that it will
break the cycle of reincarnation, few Western managers really consider that there is a possibility that they too
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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11
will be reborn a number of times. Instead, they assume that the Balinese do not understand or are afraid of
Western medicine.
While it is important to understand and respect the foreigner's point of view, it is not necessary to accept or adopt
it. A rigid adherence to our own belief system is a form of parochialism, and parochialism underlies projected
similarity.
One of the best exercises for developing empathy and reducing parochialism and projected similarity is role
reversal. Imagine that you are a foreign businessperson. Imagine the type of family you come from, the number
of brothers and sisters you have, the social and economic conditions you grew up with, the type of education you
received, the ways in which you chose your profession and position, the ways in which you were introduced to
your spouse, your goals in working for your organization, and your life goals. Asking these questions forces you
to see the other person as he or she really is, and not as a mere reflection of yourself. It forces you to see both the
similarities and the differences, and not to imagine similarities when differences actually exist. More over, role
reversal encourages highly task-oriented businesspeople, such as Americans, to see the foreigner as a whole
person rather than someone with a position and a set of skills needed to accomplish a particular task.
CROSS-CULTURAL MISEVALUATION
Even more than perception and interpretation, cultural conditioning strongly affects evaluation. Evaluation
involves judging whether someone or something is good or bad. Cross-culturally, we use our own culture as a
standard of measurement, judging that which is like our own culture as normal and good and that which is
different as abnormal and bad. Our own culture becomes a self-reference criterion: since no other culture is
identical to our own, we judge all other cultures as inferior. Evaluation rarely helps in trying to understand or
communicate with people from another culture. The consequences of misevaluation are exemplified in the
following:
A Swiss executive waits more than an hour past the appointed time for his Latin colleague to arrive and sign
a supply contract. In his impatience, he concludes that Latins must be lazy and totally unconcerned about
business. He has misevaluated his colleague by negatively comparing him to his own cultural standards.
Implicitly, he has labeled his own group's behavior as good (Swiss arrive on time and that is good) and the
other group's behavior as bad (Latins do not arrive on time and that is bad).
COMMUNICATION: GETTING THEIR MEANING, NOT JUST THEIR WORDS
Effective cross-cultural communication is possible, but international managers cannot approach it in the same
way as do domestic managers. First, effective international managers "know that they don't know." They
assume difference until similarity is proven rather than assuming similarity until difference is proven.
Second, in attempting to understand their foreign colleagues, effective international managers emphasize
description, by observing what is actually said and done, rather than interpreting or evaluating it. Describing a
situation is the most accurate way to gather information about it. Interpretation and evaluation, unlike
description, are based more on the observer's culture and background than on the observed situation. To that
extent, my interpretations and evaluations tell me more about myself than about the situation. Although
managers, as decision makers, must evaluate people (e.g., performance appraisals) and situations (e.g., project
assessments) in terms of organizational standards and objectives, effective international managers delay
judgment until they have had sufficient time to observe and interpret the situation from the perspective of all
cultures involved.
Third, when attempting to understand or interpret a foreign situation, effective international managers try to
see it through the eyes of their foreign colleagues. This role reversal limits the myopia of viewing situations
strictly from one's own perspective.
Fourth, once effective international managers develop an explanation for a situation, they treat the
explanation as a guess (as a hypothesis to be tested) and not as a certainty. They systematically check with other
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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12
foreign and home country colleagues to make sure that their guesses—their interpretations—are plausible. This
checking process allows them to converge meanings—to delay accepting their interpretations of the situation
until they have confirmed them with others.
Understanding: Converging Meanings
There are many ways to increase the chances for accurately understanding foreigners. The excerpt that follows
suggests what to do when business colleagues are not native speakers of your language. Each technique is based
on presenting the message through multiple channels (for example, stating your position and showing a graph to
summarize the same position), paraphrasing to check if the foreigner has understood your meaning (and not just
your words), and converging meanings (always double-checking with a second person that you communicated
what you intended).
What Do I Do If They Do Not Speak My Language?
VERBAL BEHAVIOR
• Clear, slow speech. Enunciate each word. Do not use colloquial expressions.
• Repetition. Repeat each important idea using different words to explain the same concept.
• Simple sentences. Avoid compound, long sentences.
• Active verbs. Avoid passive verbs.
NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOR
• Visual restatements. Use as many visual restatements as possible, such as pictures, graphs, tables, and
slides.
• Gestures. Use more facial and hand gestures to emphasize the meaning of words.
• Demonstration. Act out as many themes as possible.
• Pauses. Pause more frequently.
• Summaries. Hand out written summaries of your verbal presentation.
ATTRIBUTION
• Silence. When there is a silence, wait. Do not jump in to fill the silence. The other person is probably just
thinking more slowly in the non-native language or translating.
• Intelligence. Do not equate poor grammar and mispronunciation with lack of intelligence; it is usually a
sign of second language use.
• Differences. If unsure, assume difference, not similarity.
COMPREHENSION
• Understanding. Do not just assume that they understand; assume that they do not understand.
• Checking comprehension. Have colleagues repeat their understanding of the material back to you. Do
not simply ask if they under stand or not. Let them explain what they understand to you.
DESIGN
• Breaks. Take more frequent breaks. Second language comprehension is exhausting. Small modules.
Divide the material into smaller modules.
• Longer time frame. Allocate more time for each module than usual in a monolingual program.
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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13
MOTIVATION
• Encouragement. Verbally and nonverbally encourage and reinforce speaking by non-native language
participants.
• Drawing out. Explicitly draw out marginal and passive participants.
• Reinforcement. Do not embarrass novice speakers.3
Standing Back from Yourself
Perhaps the most difficult skill in cross-cultural communication involves standing back from yourself, or being
aware that you do not know everything, that a situation may not make sense, that your guesses may be wrong,
and that the ambiguity in the situation may continue. In this sense the ancient Roman dictum "knowledge is
power" becomes true. In knowing yourself, you gain power over your perceptions and reactions; you can control
your own behavior and your reactions to others' behavior. Cross-cultural awareness complements in-depth self
awareness. A lack of self-awareness negates the usefulness of cross cultural awareness.
One of the most poignant examples of the powerful interplay between description, interpretation, evaluation,
and empathy involves a Scottish businessman's relationship with a Japanese colleague. The following story
recounts the Scottish businessman's experience.
Cross-Cultural Communication
Japanese Pickles and Mattresses, Incorporated
It was my first visit to Japan. As a gastronomic adventurer, and because I believe cuisine is one route which is
freely available and highly effective as a first step towards a closer understanding of another country, I was
disappointed on my first evening when the Japanese offered me a Western meal.
As tactfully as possible I suggested that some time during my stay I would like to try a Japanese menu, if that
could be arranged without inconvenience. There was some small reluctance evident on the part of my hosts (due
of course to their thought that I was being very polite asking for Japanese food which I didn't really like, so to be
good hosts they had to politely find a way of not having me eat it!). But eventually, by an elegantly progressive
route starting with Western food with a slightly Japanese bias through to genuine Japanese food, my hosts were
convinced that I really wanted to eat Japanese style and was not "posing."
From then on they became progressively more enthusiastic in suggesting the more exotic Japanese dishes,
and I guess I graduated when, after an excellent meal one night (apart from the Japanese pickles) on which I had
lavished praise, they said, "Do you like Japanese pickles?" To this, without preamble, I said, "No!," to which
reply, with great laughter all round, they responded, "Nor do we!"
During this gastronomic getting-together week, I had also been trying to persuade them that I really did wish
to stay in traditional Japanese hotels rather than the very Westernized ones my hosts had selected because they
thought I would prefer my "normal" lifestyle. (I should add that at this time traditional Japanese hotels were still
available and often cheaper than, say, the Osaka Hilton.)
Anyway, after the pickles joke it was suddenly announced that Japanese hotels could be arranged. For the
remaining two weeks of my stay, as I toured the major cities, on most occasions a traditional Japanese hotel was
substituted for the Western one on my original schedule.
Many of you will know that a traditional Japanese room has no furniture except a low table and a flower
arrangement. The "bed" is a mattress produced just before you retire from a concealed cupboard, accompanied
by a cereal-packed pillow.
One memorable evening my host and I had finished our meal together in "my" room. I was expecting him to
shortly make his "good night" and retire, as he had been doing all week, to his own room. However, he stayed
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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14
unusually long and was, to me, obviously in some sort of emotional crisis. Finally, he blurted out, with great
embarrassment, "Can I sleep with you?!"
As they say in the novels, at this point I went very still! My mind was racing through all the sexual taboos
and prejudices my own up bringing had instilled, and I can still very clearly recall how I analyzed: "I'm bigger
than he is so I can fight him off, but then he's probably an expert in the martial arts, but on the other hand he's
shown no signs of being gay up until now and he is my host and there is a lot of business at risk and there's no
such thing as rape, et cetera.... !
It seemed a hundred years, though it was only a few seconds, before I said, feeling as if I was pulling the
trigger in Russian roulette, "Yes, sure."
Who said that the Orientals are inscrutable? The look of relief that followed my reply was obvious. Then he
looked worried and concerned again, and said, "Are you sure?"
I reassured him and he called in the maid, who fetched his mattress from his room and laid it on the floor
alongside mine. We both went to bed and slept all night without any physical interaction.
Later I learned that for the traditional Japanese one of the greatest compliments you can be paid is for the
host to ask, "Can I sleep with you?" This goes back to the ancient feudal times, when life was cheap, and what the
invitation really said was, "I trust you with my life. I do not think that you will kill me while I sleep. You are my
true friend."
To have said "No" to the invitation would have been an insult— "I don't trust you not to kill me while I
sleep"—or, at the very least, my host would have been acutely embarrassed because he had taken the initiative. If
I refused because I had failed to perceive the invitation as a compliment, he would have been out of countenance
on two grounds: the insult to him in the traditional context and the embarrassment he would have caused me by
"forcing" a negative, uncomprehending response from me. As it turned out, the outcome was superb. He and I
were now "blood brothers," as it were. His assessment of me as being "ready for Japanization" had been correct
and his obligations under ancient Japanese custom had been fulfilled. I had totally misinterpreted his intentions
through my own cultural conditioning. It was sheer luck, or luck plus a gut feeling that I'd gotten it wrong, that
caused me to make the correct response to his extremely complimentary and committed invitation.4
SUMMARY
Cross-cultural communication confronts us with limits to our perceptions, our interpretations, and our
evaluations. Cross-cultural perspectives tend to render everything relative and slightly uncertain. Entering a
foreign culture is tantamount to knowing the words without knowing the music, or knowing the music without
knowing the beat. Our natural tendencies lead us back to our prior experience: our default option becomes the
familiarity of our own culture, thus precluding our ac curate understanding of others' cultures.
Strategies to overcome our natural parochial tendencies exist: with care, the default option can be avoided.
We can learn to see, understand, and control our own cultural conditioning. In facing foreign cultures, we can
emphasize description rather than interpretation or evaluation, and thus minimize self-fulfilling stereotypes and
premature closure. We can recognize and use our stereotypes as guides rather than rejecting them as
unsophisticated simplifications. Effective cross-cultural communication presupposes the interplay of alternative
realities: it rejects the actual or potential domination of one reality over another.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
1.
2.
The most effective international managers use stereotypes. What are some of the ways that you can use
stereotypes to your advantage when working with people from other countries?
Today many managers must work with people from other cultures, both at home and when traveling abroad.
What are some of the ways that your organization could train people to communicate more effectively with
foreigners?
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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15
3.
4.
5.
What stereotypes do you have concerning lawyers? How about South Africans? If you had an appointment
with a South African lawyer, what would you expect and how would you prepare for the meeting?
In seeking to understand the importance of nonverbal communication, we must start by examining
ourselves. List four examples of nonverbal communication that you commonly use and what each means to
you. Then indicate how each might be misinterpreted by someone from a foreign culture.
List four examples of nonverbal communication that are used by managers in other parts of the world but not
in your country. Indicate how each might be misinterpreted by colleagues from your country.
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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16
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
4.
John P. Feig and G. Blair, There Is a Difference, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Meridian House International,
1980).
L. Robert Kohls, Survival Kit for Overseas Living (Yarmouth, Me: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1979), pp. 30-31.
Based on Nancy J. Adler and Moses N. Kiggundu, "Awareness at the Crossroad: Designing Translator-Based
Training Programs," in D. Landis and R. Brislin, Handbook of Intercultural Training: Issues in Training
Methodology, vol. II (New York: Pergamon Press, 1983), pp. 124-150.
A Scottish executive participating in the 1979 Managerial Skills for International Business Program at
INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France.
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Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith Rumor Clinic as cited in Robert Bolton, People Skills (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979), pp. 73-74.
Asch, S. "Forming Impressions of Persons," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 40 (1946), pp. 258290.
Bagby, J. W. "Dominance in Binocular Rivalry in Mexico and the United States," in I. Al-Issa and W. Dennis,
eds., Cross-Cultural Studies of Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), pp. 49-56. Originally in
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 54 (1957), pp. 331-334.
Berry, J.; Kalin, R.; and Taylor, D. "Multiculturalism and Ethnic Attitudes in Canada," in Multiculturalism as
State Policy (Ottawa: Government of Canada, 1976).
Berry, J.; Kalin, R.; and Taylor, D. Multiculturalism and Ethnic Attitudes in Canada (Ottawa: Minister of Supply
and Services, 1977).
Burger, P., and Bass, B. M. Assessment of Managers: An International Comparison (New York: Free Press, 1979).
Gancel, C., and Ratiu, I. Internal document, Inter Cultural Management Associates, Paris, France, 1984.
Hall, E. T. Beyond Culture. (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday and Company, 1976). Also see E. T.
Hall's The Silent Language (Doubleday, 1959, and Anchor Books, 1973) and The Hidden Dimension (Doubleday,
1966, and Anchor Books, 1969).
Ho, A. "Unlucky Numbers are Locked out of the Chamber," South China Morning Post (Dec. 26, 1988), p. 1.
Kanungo, R. N. Biculturalism and Management (Ontario: Butterworth, 1980) .
Korotich, V. "Taming of a Desert of the Mind," Atlas (June 1977).
Lau, J. B., and Jelinek, M. "Perception and Management," in Behavior in Organizations: An Experiential Approach
(Homewood, IL.: Richard D. Irwin, 1984), pp. 213-220.
Maruyama, M. "Paradigms and Communication," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 6 (1974), pp.
3-32.
Miles, M. Adaptation to a Foreign Environment (Ottawa: Canadian International Development Agency, to be
published).
Miller, J. G. "Adjusting to Overloads of Information," in The Association for Research in Nervous and Mental
Disease, Disorders of Communication, vol. 42 (Research Publications, A.R.N.M.D., 1964).
Prekel, T. "Multi-Cultural Communication: A Challenge to Managers," paper delivered at the International
Convention of the American Business Communication Association, New York, November 21, 1983.
Ratui, I. "Thinking Internationally: A Comparison of How International Executives Learn," International
Studies of Management and Organization, vol. XIII, no. 1-2 (Spring-Summer 1983), pp. 139-150. Reprinted by
permission of publisher, M. E. Sharpe, Inc., Armonk, N.Y.
Singer, M. "Culture: A Perceptual Approach," in L. A. Samovar and R.E. Porter, eds., Intercultural
Communication: A Reader (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1976), pp. 110-119.
Snyder, M. "Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes," Psychology Today (July 1982), pp. 60-68.
South China Morning Post, "Mystery Man Gives a Fortune for Lucky '7"' (January 22, 1989), p. 3; and "Lucky '7'
to Go on Sale" (January 4, 1989), p. 4.
Taylor, D. "American Tradition," in R. C. Gardner and R. Kalin, eds., A Canadian Social Psychology of Ethnic
Relations (Toronto: Methuen Press, 1980) .
U.S. Office of Education. On Teaching the Vietnamese (Washington, D.C.: General Printing Office, 1976).
Communicating across Cultural Barriers
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Unit 2 Theoretical and Methodological Issues
Subunit 1 Conceptual Issues in Psychology and Culture
Article 8
12-1-2011
Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model
in Context
Geert Hofstede
Universities of Maastricht and Tilburg, The Netherlands, hofstede@bart.nl
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.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
License.
This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol2/iss1/8
Hofstede: Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context
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.
Classifying Cultures: Conceptual Dimensions
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
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Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, Unit 2, Subunit 1, Chapter 8
belief in progress. Economic evolution is bound to be reflected in people’s collective
mental programming, but there is no reason why economic and technological evolution
should suppress other cultural variety. There exist dimensions of culture unrelated to
economic evolution.
U.S. anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1976) divided cultures according to their ways of
communicating, into high-context (much of the information is implicit) and low-context
cultures (nearly everything is explicit). In practice this distinction overlaps largely with the
traditional versus modern distinction.
U.S. sociologists Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils (1951, p. 77) suggested that all
human action is determined by five pattern variables, choices between pairs of
alternatives:
1. Affectivity (need gratification) versus affective neutrality (restraint of impulses);
2. Self-orientation versus collectivity-orientation;
3. Universalism (applying general standards) versus particularism (taking particular
relationships into account);
4. Ascription (judging others by who they are) versus achievement (judging them by
what they do);
5. Specificity (limiting relations to others to specific spheres) versus diffuseness (no
prior limitations to nature of relations).
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:
1. An evaluation of human nature (evil - mixed - good);
2. The relationship of man to the surrounding natural environment (subjugation harmony - mastery);
3. The orientation in time (toward past - present - future);
4. The orientation toward activity (being - being in becoming - doing); and
5. Relationships among people (linearity, i.e., hierarchically ordered positions –
collaterality, i.e., group relationships – individualism).
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.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol2/iss1/8
4
Hofstede: Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context
British anthropologist Mary Douglas (1973) proposed a two-dimensional ordering of
ways of looking at the world:
1. ‘Group’ or inclusion - the claim of groups over members, and
2. ‘Grid’ or classification - the degree to which interaction is subject to rules.
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.
Empirical Approaches and the Hofstede Dimensions
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
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Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, Unit 2, Subunit 1, Chapter 8
(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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had to cope, but for which their upbringing in their country presented its own profile of
solutions. These problems were:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Dependence on superiors;
Need for rules and predictability, also associated with nervous stress;
The balance between individual goals and dependence on the company;
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:
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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.
The Hofstede Dimensions in a nutshell
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
Small Power Distance
Large Power Distance
Use of power should be legitimate and is
subject to criteria of good and evil
Power is a basic fact of society antedating good or
evil: its legitimacy is irrelevant
Parents treat children as equals
Parents teach children obedience
Older people are neither respected nor feared
Older people are both respected and feared
Student-centered education
Teacher-centered education
Hierarchy means inequality of roles,
established for convenience
Hierarchy means existential inequality
Subordinates expect to be consulted
Subordinates expect to be told what to do
Pluralist governments based on majority vote
and changed peacefully
Autocratic governments based on co-optation and
changed by revolution
Corruption rare; scandals end political careers
Corruption frequent; scandals are covered up
Income distribution in society rather even
Income distribution in society very uneven
Religions stressing equality of believers
Religions with a hierarchy of priests
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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
Weak Uncertainty Avoidance
Strong Uncertainty Avoidance
The uncertainty inherent in life is accepted and
each day is taken as it comes
The uncertainty inherent in life is felt as a
continuous threat that must be fought
Ease, lower stress, self-control, low anxiety
Higher stress, emotionality, anxiety, neuroticism
Higher scores on subjective health and wellbeing
Lower scores on subjective health and well-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
competent towards authorities
In politics, citizens feel and are seen as
incompetent towards authorities
In religion, philosophy and science: relativism
and empiricism
In religion, philosophy and science: belief in
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 ingroups. 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
herself and his or her immediate family only
People are born into extended families or clans
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
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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
Masculinity versus its opposite, Femininity, again as a societal, not as an individual
characteristic, refers to the distribution of values between the genders which is another
fundamental issue for any society, to which a range of solutions can be 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 that these countries
show a gap between men's values and women's values. In masculine cultures there is
often a taboo around this dimension (Hofstede et al., 1998).
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 and women should be modest and caring
Men should be and women may be assertive and
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
feelings
Fathers deal with facts, mothers with feelings
Both boys and girls may cry but neither should
fight
Girls cry, boys don’t; boys should fight back, girls
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
way of relating
Moralistic attitudes about sexuality; sex is a way
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.
Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation
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
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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 underused; 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 lists a selection of differences between societies that validation research
showed to be associated with the old and new version of the Long- versus Short-Term
Orientation dimension. In our 2010 book, dimension scores have been re-calculated
including Minkov’s analysis of recent World Values Survey data.
Long-term oriented are East Asian countries, followed by Eastern- and Central Europe. A
medium term orientation is found in South- and North-European and South Asian
countries. Short-term oriented are U.S.A. and Australia, Latin American, African and
Muslim countries.
Table 5
Ten Differences Between Short- and Long-Term-Oriented Societies
Short-Term Orientation
Long-Term Orientation
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
and evil
What is good and evil depends upon the
circumstances
Traditions are sacrosanct
Traditions are adaptable to changed
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
Social spending and consumption
Large savings quote, funds available for
investment
Students attribute success and failure to luck
Students attribute success to effort and failure
to lack of effort
Slow or no economic growth of poor countries
Fast economic growth of countries up till a
level of prosperity
Indulgence versus Restraint
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
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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
themselves very happy
Fewer very happy people
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
birthrates
In countries with educated populations, lower
birthrates
More people actively involved in sports
Fewer people actively involved in sports
In countries with enough food, highe...
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