CRITICALLY CONSIDER GEERT HOFSTEDE’S CONTRIBUTION TO
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
ANDRES FELIPE MOLINA
INTERNATIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
AUTUMN, 2005
AALBORG UNIVERSITY
AALBORG, DENMARK
Critically consider Geert Hofstede’s contribution to intercultural communication
7-DAY ASSIGNMENT
IIC, AUTUMN 2005
ANDRES FELIPE MOLINA
CRITICALLY CONSIDER GEERT HOFSTEDE’S CONTRIBUTION TO
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
“Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at
best and often a disaster.”
Prof. Geert Hofstede, Emeritus Professor, Maastricht University.
The intercultural communication has been a concern for the last century, the new world order is
making the international communication an every day aspect. Professor Geert Hofstede tried to
make an approach of national cultures to interact between countries. His model has helped many
of researchers around the world to understand the people’s behavior. This paper gives a short
overview of the Professor Geert Hofstede’s contribution to intercultural communication.
The international and intercultural communication has become a subject of differents studies and
research the last decade. The importance of the understanding of the relations and interactions
between people from different places has increase since the world became a “small place”, the
internet, communications, and businesses have made the world more active.
Now it is possible to have information at the same time for several parts of the world, right in the
computer, telephone, or television, but it is important to comprenhend the meanings of the words
and the actions in each society.
Mead in 1934, defined communication as “a social process whose origins can be traced to the
coming together of individual humans to solve problems of survival,” but when the society gets
bigger, it is hard to get all the people together by understanding each other.
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Critically consider Geert Hofstede’s contribution to intercultural communication
Welch (2001), made a good example of the communication’s misunderstanding:
International marketing texts are replete with examples of inappropriate literal translation
of product names and slogans. Some of the most commonly cited are: General Motors
naming one of its models “Nova”, which some Spanish pronounce “no va”, meaning “does
not go”; the “Body by Fisher”, mistranslated as “Corpse by Fisher”; and Kentucky Fried
Chicken’s slogan of “finger-licking good”, translated into Farsi as “It’s so good, you will
eat your fingers”.
Communication has been studied by several people trying to find the “key” to avoid differences
between cultures, or at least to trying to understand those differences.
Other examples about the importance of misunderstandings in the intercultural communication
are cited follow:
“Mist Stick” was the splendid name of a curling iron, which Clairol wanted to sell in Germany.
The problem is that the product has as a name the same German expression for “manure.”
(Interkulturelle Management- und Organisationsberatung)
Another example was the Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer approached the American market
with the slogan: “Nothing sucks like an XYZ”. (Interkulturelle Management- und
Organisationsberatung)
A banker from Texas spoiled the business with his French partners in the last moment. Invited to
celebrate the big deal in a fancy restaurant he shocked them by having beer at the dinner - straight
from the bottle. (Interkulturelle Management- und Organisationsberatung)
A frustrated sales agent of a German mechanical engineering manufacturer waited for his return
flight in Ghuanzo. One week of negotiations with his Chinese counterparts and no results. All
kind of subjects were discussed but not to mention a contract. Short before his departure a
Chinese delegate approached him and confirmed the order of two engines: Due to his patience
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and his respect, they were convinced both, of his reliability and the reliability of his products.
(Interkulturelle Management- und Organisationsberatung)
Shuter (1989) said that the structure of an organization and its rules, reflect the values and
traditions of the country in which the organization is situated, giving big importance to the nation
and the culture of the country.
This paper proceeds as follow. First, it makes a explanation about Hofstede’s work. Secondly, it
explores the “national culture” concept. Thirdly, it shows th way the five dimensions have
contributed in some fields. And fourth, it concludes about the Hofstede’s model.
Hofstede’s model
Geert Hofstede (1928- , The Netherlands) is an expert on the interaction between national
cultures and organizational cultures.
In 1991, he made a statement about “national culture”: the patterns of thinking, feeling, and
acting are established by the late childhood. These patterns are part of the national cultural
differences, which are manifest in a culture’s choices of symbols, heroes, rituals and values.
He has been working for long time on the influence of this “national culture” on the behavior.
This work has helped him to conclude that there are five different dimensions in communication.
During 1967-73, Hofstede conducted detailed interviews with hundreds of IBM employees in
more than 70 countries. Through standard statistical analysis of data sets, he was able to
determine patterns of similarities and differences among the answers.
Based on an empirical research data he initially identified four of such dimensions, related to four
basic problems with which human societies have to cope: inequality, uncertainty, the relationship
between the individual and the primary group, and the social role division between women and
men. His five dimensions of culture are the following:
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1.
Power-distance
2.
Collectivism vs. individualism
3.
Femininity vs. masculinity
4.
Uncertainty avoidance
5.
Long- vs. short-term orientation (Michael Bond, 1989, Confucian dynamism)
Greet Hofstede (1980) described his work in the book “Culture’s Consequences, Comparing
Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations” (2001), and in the book
“Culture and Organizations: Software of the Mind” (2004). He described the five dimensions as
follow:
Power
Hofstede named this Power Distance (PD). It is the extent to which less powerful members
expect and accept unequal power distribution. High PD cultures usually have centralized,
top-down control. Low power distance implies greater equality and empowerment.
Self
Hofstede named this Individualism versus Collectivism (ID). In an individual environment,
the individual person and their rights are more important than groups that they may belong
to. In a collective environment, people are born into strong extended family or tribal
communities, and these loyalties are paramount.
The US was number one here, closely followed by Australia and Great Britain.
Gender
Hofstede named this Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS). It focuses on the degree to
which “traditional” gender roles are assigned in a culture; i.e., men are considered
aggressive and competitive, while women are expected to be more gentle and be concerned
with home and family.
Japan led the list, followed by Austria and Venezuela. The US was 15th.
Predictability
Hofstede named this Uncertainty Avoidance (UA). It defines the extent to which a culture
values predictability. UA cultures have strong traditions and rituals and tend toward
formal, bureaucratic structures and rules. Greece was number one, followed by Portugal
and Guatemala. The US was 43rd.
Time
Hofstede named this Long- versus Short-term Orientation (LTO). It is the cultural trait that
focuses on to what extent the group invests for the future, is persevering, and is patient in
waiting for results.
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(Hofstede, 1997)
Based on the five dimensions model, in 1985, Hofstede with Neuyen, Ohayv and Sanders, made
a research but at this time contrary to the “national culture” project, at this time they studied the
people working in different companies in two countries, Denmark and the Netherlands (Ohayv
and Sanders, 1990). After this work, Hofstede came with new six dimensions but this time in
“organizational culture.” Those dimensions are:
1. Process versus Results Orientation
2. Employee versus Job Orientation
3. Parochial versus Professional
4. Open versus Closed System
5. Loose versus Tight Control
6. Normative versus Pragmatic
People should not be confused about the two kinds of Hofstede’s cultures. The “organizational
culture” refers to values based on practices, while the “national culture” refers to people’s values
(Uliijn, 2000).
National culture
Wikipedia (2005) defines culture as “patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that
give such activity significance.” The web site www.geographic.org defines culture as “The
accumulated habits, attitudes, and beliefs of a group of people that define for them their general
behavior and way of life; the total set of learned activities of a people.”
Spencer-Oatey in 2000, states that “Culture is a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs, behavioral norms,
and basic assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people, and that influence each
member's behavior and his/her interpretations of the "meaning" of other people's behavior.” She
added more factors to the basic definition, factors that would play an important role in the
definition of national culture.
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Even in 1991, Geert Hofstede defined culture as “is always a collective phenomenon, because it
is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment, which
is where it was learned. It is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the
members of one group or category of people from another.”
In the previous culture’s definitions, any of the authors did mention the nationality as part of the
fundamental aspects to create culture.
A person can belong to different groups, and even live in different places. His (her) culture is not
defined by the country his (her) living in, is defined by the social environment.
Walter Lippmann (1922) called stereotypes as the “pictures in our Heads” which are necessary,
useful and an efficient process” because it was easier to define a group of people in a big group
than study person one by one. There was the first time that the groups started being used as a part
of the study of behaviors and traditions.
In the research of Professor Geert Hofstede, he mention that each country has its own culture
behavior, and he makes an emphasis on the way people can understand each other using the five
dimensions. He group people for nationality as an stereotype.
One weakness of the Hofstede’s approach is that he is excluding differences between people
within the country, for example, the United States of America has a population of 297,700,000,
the third largest of the world, and it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each,
and numerous others represented in smaller amounts (Wikipedia, 2000), but Hofstede’s model
shows the United States as a country with only one culture with specific characteristics, like the
highest level on individualism (91), a medium level of power distance (40), and a masculine
society (62), claiming there is only that kind of behavior.
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The national characteristics that Hofstede claimed to uncover are the cluster of people using
stereotypes. While the statement may be true for many people within a culture, there are many
others within the culture for which it is not true.
Another problem with Hofstede’s approach is that he claims that he can call a “national culture”
based on interviews to only IBM’s employees. Brendan McSweeney (2002) critiqued Hofstede
because “his claim to have uncovered the secrets of entire national cultures are described and
challenged.” The main problem that Hofstede’s model has faced is about the size of the model.
He did the questionnaire to a very small amount of people.
As McSweeney showed in his paper in 2002, “In only six of the included countries were the
number of respondents more than 1,000 in both surveys viz. Belgium, France, Great Britain,
Germany, Japan, and Sweden. In fifteen countries, the number was less than 200 viz. Chile,
Colombia, Greece, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey. The first survey in Pakistan was of 37 IBM
employees, the second of 70 employees. The only surveys in Hong Kong and Singapore were of
88, 71 and 58 respondents respectively (Hofstede, 1980).”
There are not enough people to affirm that a whole country have the characteristics those people
have. For example, Colombia has a population of 44,531,434 (Wikipedia, 2003) and Hofstede
made the research with less than 200 people. In addition, there are thousands of international
companies and millions of national companies, it is very difficult to standardized the behavior of all
these people, and it is harder to do it with a model of less than 200 people. But Professor Geert
Hofstede claimed that “(The theory) identifies five main dimensions along which dominant value
systems in more then 50 countries can be ordered and that affect human thinking, feeling, and
acting, as well as organizations and institutions, in predictable ways” (Hofstede, 2001).
IBM employees have to respect the rules and the parameters of the main office (located in
Armonk, New York) about the working style and the company’s regimentation. IBM has the
program they named “The IBM Institute for Business Value” which provides strategic insights
and recommendations that address critical business challenges and capitalize on new
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opportunities. This is the kind of knowledge that every employee has to have, as Kylie Nicolson,
an IBM employee in Australia, said “Employees must recognise and act on global opportunities.
They must be able to operate effectively in a variety of cultural and business environments,
whether traveling overseas or operating at home.” This is one of the reasons because the
Hofstede’s model should not be used to make a statement of the culture of a whole country.
The national culture that the Hofstede’s questionnaire, based on twenty-six questions, was trying
to find, is incomplete and extremely empiric.
Even Hofstede reduced his own model when he affirms that, “I used to write big: CULTURE
DOES NOT EXIST. In the same way values do not exist, dimensions do not exist. They are
constructs, which have to prove their usefulness by their ability to explain and predict behavior.”
It means that those dimensions are not the best way to describe a country, moreover the research
is obsolete, and there were countries those days that do not longer exist. Soviet Union,
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the secession of Eritrea, are countries that after some conflicts
become in more than one, but the model keeps with the scores for the new countries. As
McSweeney (2002) remarked “Yugoslavia as having a high level of Collectivism; a strong degree
of Uncertainty Avoidance, and being very Feminine (Hofstede, 1980) it violently disintegrated
into a number of separate states. And we are now, consistent with his claims, supposed to believe
that the national cultures of each of these states: Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and so forth,
are identical to each other.” How can be that a country as Yugoslavia had a national culture, but
some years after the research, this national culture was complete different? If one country as
Yugoslavia had two national cultures, why other country cannot? How can people trust in the
model if this national culture is changing all the time?
But anyway, national culture concept can be use as the first step in any research about a country.
The culture is dynamics and it keeps changing while time is changing. But the social, political
and economical situation in one country cannot change from one day to another, it takes too
much time to change those realities. It is for this reason that the dimensions still can be useful
when people are trying to get an idea about any country. Baba (1995) remarked that even those
problems were out of the company’s control, they can be managed by adequate statistics.
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But people have to be careful when they are managing the national culture concept, and when
they are doing business abroad. Sometimes, people living abroad start behaving as the people at
the host culture, and Glen Fisher (1989) wrote that “being bicultural (bi national cultural) does
not necessarily mean breaking away entirely from the mold of one’s native culture”, this is really
important to success in business, Nathan Rothman (1998), the CEO of Trade Interface Corp,
stated “Abide by the principles you would follow when doing business in America, rather than
trying to conform to the Asian ways of business.” Giving more transcendentalism to the Fisher
statement.
Hofstede’s model contribution
The national culture concept and the Hofstede’s model could be a good first step in any
intercultural research; there are different fields that have used the five dimensions as a part of the
knowledge of the culture in countries around the world.
One of the fields that Professor Geert is being studied is the management and negotiation.
The management practice in negotiation requires an understanding of the culture and
communication of the other party. Because the world has been becoming in one big international
market place, people need to interact more with different cultures and traditions. One good
example of management of differences is between Middle Eastern countries and Western
Countries. In the United States of America, when the two parts of the negotiation “shake-hands”
means that the deal is over, while in Middle Eastern cultures means the beginning of a good
negotiation (Hofstede).
Pruitt (1981) defined negotiation, as a process through which agreement may be reached on
matters of mutual interest, is essentially the art of persuasion. In negotiation, the culture can be an
asset, a challenge and even a competitive advantage of a business strategy, but everyone needs to
know how to use it, and also needs to understand there are many differences (and similarities)
between countries (national culture).
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People need to understand when they are doing business that people are different, and therefore,
if they are in another country and make decisions based on how they operate in their own home
country, the chances that they are going make some very bad decisions are very high (Hofstede).
People have to understand that the antecedents are very important in international negotiation,
those antecedents are part of the cultural biases, which include behavior, motivation, and
traditions. There is too much information (inputs), and the Hofstede’s approach helps to get a
synergy which can result in integrative, distributive, or null outcomes (Adler, 1991), depends of
the cross-cultural framework for negotiation we have encompassed.
No matter how much information Hofstede’s work is giving, the knowledge of the oher culture
cannot stop there, people need to increase their knowledge of the other party to be more effective
when interacting. Like Prof. Geert said, he is giving people the “edge of undestanding” which
means, that if people understood and applied it properly, the information about each country
should reduce the level of frustration, anxiety, and concern.
Understanding the dimensions of the culture of each country is essential to effective international
business communication (Wardrope, 2005). People should study the norms, rules,
communication practices of each country to have a success in business.
The model would be a good way to understand the behavior in negotiation. For example, the
japanese companies established in the United States of America are companies that have use the
model to understand the differences between both cultures. As Paul Drnevich (2004) said, “This
impact of culture through the influence of cognitive bias creates a challenge to negotiating
strategy and a void which seeks a model that can predict and obtain integrative outcomes”.
Hofstede’s model shows japanese society as a medium collectivism society (46), with the highest
level of masculinity (95), and a medium level of power distance, there are many differences
between Japan and the United States societies, but when they are doing business they have
overcome them.
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Throughout the last two decades, management experts and scientists have developed a series of
new knowledge based on the Hofstede’s model. New dimensions have aroused to fill the void
that Professor Geert’s model had. Wardrope (2005) use the application of the model to analyze
the communication in Latin American Business. He used Hofstede’s work, and he complemented
his work with the model presented by Edward T. Hall in 1959. Prof. Hall predicted different
dimensions such as context, the “pattern of physical cues, environmental stimuli, and implicit
understanding that convey meaning between two members of the same culture” (Thill & Bovee,
2005); and time orientation, “a culture’s attitudes toward time as distinctive cultural aspects”
(Hall, 1959). Professor William Wardrope, used these dimensions to understand the behavior of
the Latin American people and people from the United States, and how they be successful doing
business. He remarked the main points in the negotiation with and within Latin American people,
but he had to make a good research because the dimensions were not enough to get all the
knowledge about one society.
International negotiation is not the only way we can see the Hofstede’s approache, there are many
fields people can find the cultural dimensions indeed, for example, the web design.
The web is nowdays the best way to pertain and to interact with people around the world. The
web, and all its interpretations, had gaven to people a fast, safe and cheap way to distribute
products and services. As Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (2001) said, the web designed user
interfaces improve the performance and appeal of the Web, helping to convert "tourists" or
"browsers" to "residents" and "customers." To obtain “residents” and “customers”, the company
that wants to do international business should consider the impact of culture on the understanding
of the tools, content, and communication through the web. Geert Hofstede’s model contributes to
understand the cross-cultural subjects, and it gives an approach to know the needs, wants,
preferences, and expectations of different cultures (Marcus, 2001).
The model of the five dimensions has a great influence in all the process of web design, each
dimension has been analyzed and used for the improvement of the people’s interaction.
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The five dimension’s model creates patterns of values and thoughts, but it could be a
misunderstanding caused by the stereotyping of each culture and society, but it is a good
approach to the reality, not everyone in a society fits the cultural pattern, but there is enough
statistical regularity to identify trends and tendencies (Marcus, 2001). As the web, internet,
intranet, etc., keep the path it has been follow, the dimensions will become the first step to
understand the behavior of each society and this way people can design better web sites, and
better ways to interact around the world.
The web offers many options, one of those is the information seeking. Th Professor Geert
Hofstede’s five dimensions have been used to understand the behavior of the people around the
world using engines to seek for information. There is another contribution of the model to
communication, intracultural and intercultural.
Komlodi (2004) analyzed each of the dimensions and as Wardrope did in 2005, she used also the
Edward Hall’s dimensions to have a better approach.
The dimensions have helped the researchers to understand the way people select the sources and
the way people can access to information, for this understanding the power distance score is very
useful. The types of information needs and the search techniques used have also been influenced
by the investigation, specially by the individualism score. The Uncertainty Avoidance score has a
strong impact on the definition and expression of information needs and the formulation and
execution of information seeking tasks (Komlodi, 2004).
The contribution could be much better since all the countries begin to use the model. The
problem with the model is that requires a good understanding to avoid misunderstandings. Some
companies and people in general keep doing their business without thinking in the differences
between their culture and the culture of the rest of the people.
The four dimensions (five after 1989) model has been used, as this paper has showed, in different
fields, like negotiation, management, web design, information seeking, and so on and so forth.
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The Professor Low Sui Pheng, PhD, from the National University of Singapore, Department of
Building, School of Design and Environment, has been working, in society with Professor Shi
Yuquan, in the contribution of Hofstede’s dimensions in the construction field.
The construction has became in one of the wealthy business the last decade, the competition
between Chinese, Japanese, European and American builders has been increased faster and faster,
making the construction business an intercultural business. For example, the Shimao
International Plaza, in Shanghai, has been building by German, Chinese, and American
companies (http://www.emporis.com). However, many companies’ leaders do not understand the
importance of understanding and knowledge of the culture in other countries, as Nathan Rothman
(1998), an American architect, says, “Many companies seeking to globalize operations take deals
in Asia that they would not accept in the U.S. I think this is a big mistake.” And that is when the
misunderstanding shows up, people think that the problem is the other people in the business, but
the problem is the uncertainty about the other’s culture.
China and Singapore could be consider as the same kind of culture values, the stereotype could
be the same and even in western countries people might not identify a person from China from a
person from Singapore. But the culture, values, traditions, etc. have different aspects as well as
similar aspects (Pheng, 2002).
After analyzed the answer of the Hofstede’s questionnaire (with some changes) in both countries,
Professor Pheng and Professor Yuquan (2002) could conclude that the culture and behavior of the
constructions experts in China are really different to the experts in Singapore. Moreover, the
scores are complete opposed to onw each other, for example, the power distance level in China
was of 64 while the level in Singapore was around 114, the individualism level in China was of
18 while in Singapore was of 53, the masculinity level in Chinawas of 34 while in Singapore was
of 6; these numbers show the big differences between both cultures.
But that is not only between China and Singapore, Nathan Rothman (1998) affirms that “What
might be acceptable in Asia might not be acceptable in the U.S. Levels of finish may be more
subjective as opposed to a purely objective, measurable standard so we often have used pictures
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or videos showing acceptable standards.” The differences between the culture in the United
Stares and the culture in China are well known by everybody. There is when the Hofstede’s
dimensions are playing a main role in relations. It is a good starting point in business and it is a
good way to guide the projects.
Conclusion
The national culture concept has been being misunderstood for some research and students, the
national culture is a good approach to describe the behavior of people in a country, and it was a
good way twenty-five years ago to get an idea about doing business abroad. The world has
changed a lot the last two decades, and it is still changing fast. By the time that personal
computers where growing in sales (1980’s), and the internet was being known around the world
(1990’s), the concepts of culture, nationality and values, have been also changing.
The Hofstede’s national culture concept was the first step in the modern intercultural and even in
the intracultural communication investigations. Obviating the stereotyping scheme, as Professor
Hofstede (2002) said “I never claim that culture is the only thing we should pay attention to. In
many practical cases, it is redundant, and economic, political or institutional factors provide
better explanations. But sometimes they do not, and then we need the construct of culture.” With
this explanation, Hofstede reply to his critics, and he is showing his model as a part and not as a
whole investigation.
Professor Hofstede had an ideal, to give information to help any kind of research in any country.
When he made his proposal in 1980, after long time of investigation, there were not to many
sources, the technology was not the same as we have today, the relations between companies and
countries were not the same as today, those, and too many more aspects people have to
understand before criticize the dimensions or the Hofstede’s work.
Before Professor Hofstede showed up with his four first dimensions, there were investigators
who were doing the basis for Hofstede’s model. There was Edward T. Hall and his research, the
mainstay for almost all the intercultural research.
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Today it is easier to get information about people around the world; the information is only one
“mouse’s” click away. Anyway, many people are still using the five dimensions.
There are also a great number of critics who have given a remarkable value to Hofstede’s model.
Due these critics there have arouse many new researchers as Markus, H. R. & Kitayama, S.
(1991), Schwartz, S. H. (1992), Triandis, H. C. (1996), Maletzke (1996), Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner (1997), Smith, P. B. & Bond, M. H. (1998), and Spencer-Oatey (2000). These
researchers have been using the Hofstede’s model as a support on their investigations.
The dimensions are being used in different fields giving the label of “indispensable” in any
intercultural and international research. Moreover, Hofstede’s books are primordial in many
studies around the world; universities in the United States, Europe and Asia are using his model
in a countless researches.
Today we are dealing with a new concept, globalization that is making of the world a new place
with new “cultures”, values and ways to do business. The European Union is a good example of
the elimination of boundaries. Now, the Hofstede’s model is being renovated to be suitable with
the modern world.
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