CULTURAL VALUE DIMENSIONS IN A STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING CONTEXT
Susan Forquer Gupta, Monmouth University
Contextualizing Culture
Researchers have developed a variety of measures in order to explain the ways in with culture
differs between national groups, (Hofstede 1980, 2001; Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck 1961,
Rokeach 1973, Schwartz 1994; Trompenaars 1993). These measures include lists of values,
value hierarchies, and value dimensions. Much of cross-cultural marketing, as well as
management, research has utilized the Cultural Value Dimensions (CVDs) identified in the
literature (Hall 1976; Hofstede 1980, 1991; Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck 1961; McClelland 1961;
Parsons & Shils 1951, 1962; Schwartz 1994) to explain cultural differences in behaviors, beliefs
and preferences as expressed in the workplace.
Most existing measures of culture focus on societal culture (Dean 1961; Hui & Triandis 1986;
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck 1961; McClellend 1961; Rokeach 1972,1973; Schwartz 1994; The
Chinese Culture Connection 1987). Few studies specifically recognize the differences that exist
between cultural manifestations in a business environment and those in the broader societal
environment. Yet, it is generally believed that the manifestation of culture is context specific
(Earley and Gibson 1998; Triandis 1980). As an individual exposed to a variety of cultural
contexts throughout one's life, you must adjust your behavior to the various contexts in order to
be able to successfully negotiate a given environment. There are broad accepted norms for
behavior that are learned as part of your acculturation or socialization into the broader society,
but in-group behaviors will develop for those context in which a defined set of persons are
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involved. Any individual will negotiate a variety of environmental contexts and do so based
upon their own personal value structure, yet may express different behaviors given the same
stimulus in differing culture contexts. This is explained by a paradigm described by Segal et al.
(1993), containing multiple culture sets, four of which they include in their model: National
Culture, Regional/Familial subculture, Business Culture, and Business Firm Organizational
Culture. Successful interaction within each context requires a different set of expected
behaviors. There is a real cost associated with misunderstandings that can occur when the
individuals involved do not share the same behavioral expectation set or understand the values
motivating the specific response. It is difficult to build the trust required between two parties to
form an exchange relationship (whether lasting or short-term in nature), and as a result, firms can
suffer a reduction in sales; market share; and more importantly, failure to form lasting
relationships that are important in successful strategic alliances. It is quite difficult to repair a
relationship once the miscommunications occur and over time mistrust can develop that result in
relationship failure.
Cultural Values Defined in a Business Context
Hofstede (1980, 2001) is the most recognized researcher to utilize measures of culture that were
defined in a business context. Hofstede was the first to provide strong empirical support for the
existence of four previously theorized dimensions of culture; individualism/collectivism,
masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance, utilizing data collected in
1967-1973 from a single multinational firm’s employees. Later studies identified the long-term
time orientation or Confucianism dimension, (Bond and Hofstede, 1988). Most of the
subsequent studies in marketing and management utilizing CVDs do not measure the dimensions
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in their collection of data, but rely on either Hofstede's (1980) placement of countries on his
dimensions, or intuition, to choose samples for comparison. Differences in behavior, beliefs, and
preferences are then attributed to the country's position on the dimension in relation to the
comparison country. Care is usually taken to attribute only those behaviors that meet the
definition of the dimension under study, however, few studies attempt to measure the degree to
which the sample conforms to the dimensions themselves. According to Earley and Gibson
(1988), this practice is not acceptable. We need to be able to precisely measure when cultural
effects will manifest themselves in a specific work behavior.
There are some notable criticisms of the Hofstede studies. Those criticizing Hofstede's research
do not fault the existence of the cultural dimensions. Rather, they focus on: the
representativeness of the sample (Hunt 1981; Shackleton and Ali 1990); the validity of the claims
made by Hofstede concerning the application of the dimensions (Triandis 1980); and the
ethnocentrism of the items used to measure the dimensions (The Chinese Culture Connection
1987). Most important is the recognition of the weakness of the items' ability to serve as a set of
measures for the dimensions identified. The most troubling criticism comes from Hofstede
himself who states "Obviously, these items from the IBM questionnaire do not totally cover the
distinction between [the four identified dimensions]...in society. They only represent the issues
in the IBM research that relate to this distinction", (Hofstede 1991 p. 52). Given this,
researchers do recognize the usefulness of a set of culture measures, as well as data that will
allow for the comparison of cultures. Hofstede's measures continue to be used despite the
problems associated with their use, because a viable alternative has yet to be developed.
Schwartz (1997) has developed a measure of culture that is gaining recognition in the literature,
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its' focus is on broad societal culture values, and does not define the behavioral expectations as
those values manifest themselves in a given context.
A set of measures is needed that can capture cultural differences as they manifest themselves in a
business environment. The measures should be carefully constructed in order to provide even
coverage of the dimension of study and distinguish between the dimensions. This paper will
present a framework integrating national culture value dimensions in a strategic decision making
context. Building on the previous empirical advances and existing theory, this paper will step by
step lay out the process followed in the framework's development, and present sample
propositions.
Cultural Value Dimensions
Social-psychology research into the national character and modal personality of many countries
has led to the identification of Cultural Value Dimensions (CVDs) within all cultures. As a result
of these findings, CVDs, or value orientations, are conceptualized as being universal in that they
have meaning across cultures, albeit with varying levels of salience in each. This allows for the
comparison of cultures according to their relative positions on a particular dimension.
A literature search encompassing cultural anthropology, sociology, and social-psychology
resulted in the identification of twenty empirically derived CVDs. Table 1 contains a complete
listing of these CVDs and the source of their derivation. A review of Table 1 indicates that the
CVDs cover a wide spectrum of human behavior. Twenty address interpersonal interactions and
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three address time orientation. The other four dimensions seem to be uniquely defined and
narrowly focused.
Selection of the CVDs
The goal of this study is to impart a business context to widely postulated societal CVDs, in
order to better understand how culture manifests itself in a business setting. Starting with the list
of identified CVDs in Table 1, the second step in the process was to select a subset for further
evaluation and operationalization. Criteria proposed by Clark (1990) and originating with Inkeles
and Levinson (1969) for the selection of dimensions were followed. The dimension had to be
important to strategic decision making, and business relationships, either those involving
economic exchange or those involving multiple business units of the same organization. Second,
there had to be considerable evidence that the dimension was meaningful across cultures and
susceptible to intercountry variation. An extensive listing of the research that has been conducted
utilizing cultural value dimensions was collected in order to establish evidence of the CVDs
salience. The studies chosen for inclusion are empirical and either establish the existence of the
dimensions across cultures or focus upon measurement of the dimensions on managerial/worker
populations. They include work conducted in cultural anthropology, social psychology, and
marketing and management disciplines and focus on measurement development of CVDs. Most
recently, work by Schwartz (1994); Schwartz & Ros (1995) and Steenkamp (2001) has provided
strong empirical evidence (using a differing approach and methodology) of a set of dimensions
overlapping those that resulted from Hofstede's (1980) research. This research has shown that
from a business context as well as societal context that the same set of CVDs has resulted.
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Based upon the above stated criteria and supporting evidence the following five cultural value
dimensions chosen for further study: Individualism/Collectivism, Logic/Emotion,
Equality/Hierarchy, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Time Orientation. The reason for this winnowing
of CVDs was that it is not practical to develop and administer all of the cultural value
dimensions in a single study. However, it is important to include a number of dimensions in the
study. Researchers recognize the dangers of relying on a single dimension of culture (Hofstede
1980; Triandis 1994). In fact based upon the large number of studies focussing exclusively on
the Individualism/Collectivism dimension, Earley and Gibson (1998) went so far as to
recommend a moratorium on research on Individualism/Collectivism, and, that at a minimum,
additional cultural factors be incorporated into research within an international context.
Placing CVDs in a Business Context
The goal is to contextualize the CVDs in order to measure their effect upon decision making in a
firm. Traditional organizational culture variables include rituals, heroes, etc. and are utilized to
measure how certain behavioral expectations come to be utilized by a culture group. The CVDs
are not attempting to measure how culture is formed, or how it is utilized to control behavior
within an organization. The CVDs are attempting to identify how culture differentiates the
manner in which a person would interact with an outsider to the organization or group, evaluate
information, and make decisions important to him/herself or home organization. As such, the
variables need to measure the context of an individual and their decision making in regard to
others and the information they provide.
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Evidence collected in a literature review canvassing business, social psychology, and psychology
journals was used to identify the findings of studies pertaining to the salience of the CVDs in a
business decision making context. The constructs selected had to be central in identifying the
way in which decisions are made in a firm, persons interact with others (in-group or out-group),
and relevant to the interaction of parties in an exchange relationship. Second, the constructs had
to have substantial support in the literature as to the salience of each of the five selected CVDs in
explaining differences observed in the construct across cultural groups.
The resulting CVD indexes are unique in their context, method of measurement, and level of
measurement. They were operationalized in a business context instead of a broad societal context.
Each
item addressed a particular business situation and required the respondent to answer
according to his or her preferred behavioral action. The responses allow a behavior pattern to be
mapped for each individual respondent, or group of respondents. The five CVD indexes are
defined and operationalized in a comparative manner. They each have seven items addressing the
same seven business situations. This lends some ability to view the five CVD indexes as a set of
measures that define a culture's set of expected behaviors within a particular business context. The
process to develop the framework in the strategic decision making context can be applied to select
and place a set of CVDs into any context defined by the researcher.
The strategic decision making CVD indexes provide a usable set of measures. Many measures of
culture cannot be measured at the level of the individual respondent. Hofstede's measures, for
example, are collected at the individual level but are calculated at the group level. This results in
every individual within the group receiving an identical cultural value score. Theoretically, this
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approach has support as culture is a group phenomena. However, it greatly limits the ability to
identify sub-cultures or to evaluate the range of individual variation within a single cultural group,
as culture groups must be decided a priori. Other measures of culture rely heavily upon societal
behavior situations instead of focussing the measurement upon a business context. It is important
to recognize the very different set of behavioral expectations that exist in a business context from
the expected behavior of that same individual outside a business interaction.
The cultural value dimensions are grounded in theory. This study provided a framework for item
generation that resulted in focusing all five CVDs on the same specific context. By focussing the
items in this manner, it is possible to explain a complete set of behavior patterns within a particular
cultural value orientation. Viewing the five dimensions as a set provides depth of understanding
that is often unavailable in studies focussing upon a single cultural value dimension. The CVDs
interact and behavior is a result of that interaction. The framework can be used in the development
of items to measure many other behavioral contexts. It provides equal coverage of the context and
equal emphasis on each dimension.
The development of these measures as well as the information they provide may prove to be a
useful tool in understanding where cultural differences are occurring within a firm and between
two partner firms. The information could facilitate interaction as well as aid in the process of
documenting change over time. It is also possible that the measures could prove useful in
defining environments for success within various industries or market conditions. The measures
can be calculated at the level of an individual allowing for cultural sub-groups to be readily
identified, thus reducing reliance upon pre-determined geographic or organizational boundaries.
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The CVD measures are early in their development. The next step is testing the measures on known
culture groups to begin the validating process for the measures.
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TABLE 1: CATEGORIZATION OF CVD's IDENTIFIED IN THE LITERATURE
ORIGINAL CULTURAL VALUE
DIMENSION
SOURCE
Relational Orientation
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck (1961 p. 17-20.)
Self-Orientation/
Collectivity Orientation
Parsons & Shils (1962 p 248)
Individualism/collectivism
Hofstede 1980; 1991 p 51
Universalism/
Particularism
Universalism/ Particularism
Parsons & Shils (1962 p 248)
Logic/Emotion
Need for Affiliation
McClelland (1961)
Affectivity/ Affective Neutrality
Parsons & Shils (1962 p 248)
Masculinity/ Femininity
Hofstede 1980; 1991 p.81-82
Specificity/Diffuse
Diffuseness/ Specificity
Parsons & Shils (1962 p 248)
High/Low Context
High and Low Context
Hall (1976a)
Equality/ Hierarchy
Ascription/ Achievement
Parsons & Shils (1962 p 248).
Need for Achievement
McClelland (1961)
Need for Power
McClelland (1961)
Power Distance
Hofstede 1980; 1991 p 28
Work Centrality
England & Misumi 1987 p 402
Ambiguity Orientation
Uncertainty Avoidance
Hofstede 1980; 1991 p 113
Human Nature
Orientation
Human Nature Orientation
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck (1961 p 11-12.)
Interaction With
Nature Orientation
Man-Nature Orientation
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck (1961 p 13)
Time Orientation
Time Orientation
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck (1961 p. 13-15.)
Monochronic/
Polychronic time
Monochronic and Polychronic time
Hall (1976b)
Activity Orientations
Activity Orientation
Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck (1961 p. 15-17.)
Category
Subcategory
Interpersonal
Interaction
Orientations
Individualism/
Collectivism
Time Orientations
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