Report on Hofstede's model of national cultural differences and Mc Sweeney's critics on the subject

Résumé du document

Geert Hofstede published his first book in 1980, titled "Culture's Consequences", at a time where empirical studies were particularly needed instead of proliferating theories on cultural issues (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). His findings were, in their own way, revolutionary.

But as Kuhn mentioned earlier (1970)"paradigm shifts in any science meet with strong initial resistance" (Hofstede, 2001). Hofstede has indeed faced large criticism regarding various aspects of his research and one of them is identified here.

In his research, Hofstede claims to have identified a series of cultural differences amongst various national cultures, but does not claim to have found precisely all characteristics of all national cultures. Also, he recognizes the existence of other possible classifications of National culture (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005a).

In order to realize his study, Hofstede used three surveys (Mc Sweeney, p. 91, 2002), two from IBM, the other from "The Chinese Culture Connection (1987)". In these surveys, he selected what he felt were pertinent questions in the right countries as he expected the answers to be good in analysing statistics. Then statistics results and theoretical reasoning brought him to identify five bi-polar dimensions in 40 countries. All of these countries were administered a certain index for each of these dimensions.

Tags: Geert Hofstede, Culture's Consequences

Extraits

[...] Hofstede, G. (1980), “Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values”, Beverly Hill, CA: Sage. Hofstede, G. (1981), American theories apply abroad? A reply to Goodstein and Organizational Dynamics, Summer, 63-8. Hofstede, G. (1991), “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the London: McGraw-Hill. Hofstede, G. (1995), business of international business is culture”, In : Jackson, T. & alii, Cross-cultural Management. Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J. [...]

[...] Its objective is to show how cultural differences can be identified in his selected sample. By claiming that all individuals submitted to the interviews share a similar organizational culture (IBM's) and have similar occupational cultures (marketing-plus-sales departments), it is obvious any differences must arise from variances in national cultures. Mc Sweeney's critical argument is relevant here as one can prove anything with an equation where he/she has selected and defined its variables. The survey only covers a fraction of IBM's population, and therefore an even thinner fraction of a country's population. [...]

[...] Hofstede basically makes the assumption that a national culture is uniform, and is therefore similar amongst all individuals from one country. The demonstration could be taken to its extreme and consider if ONE person from a given country shows a cultural pattern, then it can be generalized to all of its inhabitants. This kind of correlation is hardly relevant Creation of a fifth dimension The UA dimension does not fit the Confucian-based population. This precise culture does not relate to uncertainty avoidance but rather to what Hofstede called long/short-term orientation. [...]

[...] It seems this argument is just one amongst others that reflect pure complaint without constructive purpose The dimensions' bi-polarity Mc Sweeney makes an irrelevant critical argument when tackling the issue of Hofstede's dimensions. He depicts them as bi-polar (Mc Sweeney, 2002g) and mentions both poles are treated as opposites that cannot cohabitate or merge. But when taking a look at scores attributed to countries for their respective dimensions, a vast majority of these scores amongst the 40 countries are not positioned at extremes on the scale, but rather in between (e.g 53,67). [...]

[...] Also, to come back to Hofstede's equation, it relates to one of Mc Sweeney's initial interrogation followed as a guideline to his reflexion: can culture be theorized? It is doubtable that absolutely all dimensions of a culture may be compiled into an equation or statistic tables. Perhaps the problem lies in defining correctly and universally WHAT “culture” is. Hofstede (2005c) enumerates what he does not consider to be part of, or at least influence, among which age, gender, region, ethnicity, or religion. [...]