Hofstede Cultural Dimensions

What the Hofstede cultural dimensions are

The Hofstede cultural dimensions (أبعاد هوفستد الثقافية) are a framework for comparing national cultures along a set of dimensions, each of which describes a difference in what people value at work and in public life. The first four dimensions are power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and uncertainty avoidance. Two more were added later: long term orientation, and indulgence versus restraint. The framework is attributed to the Dutch researcher Geert Hofstede and is associated in the literature with his 1980 book “Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values”.

The framework falls within cross cultural management. It compares societies and does not describe individuals. What follows is an explanation of the framework and of its limits. It does not claim that a country’s score on a dimension describes any employee from that country, and it does not judge any particular culture. We quote no score for any country.

Where the dimensions come from

In our search of Crossref for Hofstede’s book “Culture’s Consequences”, reviews of it appear, among them a review by Sorge in Administrative Science Quarterly, volume 28, issue 4, 1983, and a review by Portwood in Industrial and Labor Relations Review, volume 36, issue 1, 1982. Crossref also records Hofstede’s article “Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context” in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, volume 2, issue 1, 2011. It records as well McSweeney’s article “Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith, a Failure of Analysis” in Human Relations, volume 55, issue 1, 2002, pages 89 to 118.

Secondary summaries online say that the dimensions came out of analyzing survey data collected from employees of a multinational company in several countries, that the first four dimensions date from that phase, and that the last two were added afterwards, with the summaries differing on where the additions came from. We did not verify the text of any of these works, so we quote no wording and no score, and all of this comes from summaries and not from the texts.

The dimensions

The names below are English labels that vary between books, and what we write summarizes what writers circulate:

• Power distance. How far the less powerful members of a group accept that power is distributed unequally. At work it shows in what an employee expects of a manager: whether the manager’s decision is discussed or carried out, and whether the employee approaches higher levels directly.
• Individualism and collectivism. Whether a person is defined by individual achievement and independence, or by belonging to a group to which the person is loyal and which is loyal in return. It shows in how reward and responsibility are assigned: to an individual or to a team.
• Masculinity and femininity. Whether the dominant values are closer to competition and achievement, or to cooperation and care for quality of life. We give the label as it circulates, and it needs caution, because it can suggest that the dimension describes men and women.
• Uncertainty avoidance. How comfortable people are with ambiguity. It shows in a preference for written rules and detailed procedures as against acceptance of improvisation.
• Long term orientation. A preference for investing in the future and persisting, as against a focus on the present and the past. It is one of the dimensions that were added later.
• Indulgence and restraint. How far human desires are allowed to be enjoyed as against being restrained by social norms. It is also one of the later additions.

Each dimension is a continuum between two ends and not two separate categories, and each society is given a position on it. The score in this framework is the average of a group and not a property of every individual in it.

How the framework relates to nearby concepts

• A trait attributed to a nationality is a group average, and variation within one group is wide. The same point is stressed under intercultural competence, where the ability to work with people whose norms differ is treated.
• The culture of a particular establishment is covered in organizational culture. The Hofstede dimensions compare societies, according to the summaries, while the culture treated there is that of one establishment.
• For a method of reading an establishment’s culture in levels from the visible to the implicit, see the Schein model of organizational culture. That model is a framework about the establishment and not about countries, and neither framework replaces the other.
• An employee’s belief that the employee can ask a question, admit a mistake or disagree with a manager without penalty defines psychological safety. What counts as acceptable speech toward a boss is affected by what people expect of authority, which is what power distance touches.
• Degrees of involving a team in decisions appear in participative leadership. How much participation and direction a team expects differs between teams; that is our reading, not a claim made by the source.
• Passing part of authority to a subordinate is called delegation, and its acceptance is affected by what both sides expect from the relation between boss and subordinate.

A hypothetical example: one average for two different distributions

Suppose a hypothetical company asked 20 employees in each of two branches to rate from 1 to 5 their agreement with the statement “I can disagree with my manager’s opinion in a meeting”. In the first branch 10 answered 5 and 10 answered 1, so the average is (10 × 5 + 10 × 1) ÷ 20 = 60 ÷ 20 = 3.0. In the second branch everyone answered 3, so the average is (20 × 3) ÷ 20 = 60 ÷ 20 = 3.0.

The averages are equal, but the two pictures are entirely different. The first has two opposed groups with nobody answering in the middle, and the second has a team that is close together. If the branches were described by the average alone, they would be called alike, and that description hides the difference between them.

This is the point of caution in reading any national score in the Hofstede dimensions: it is an average and does not describe how individuals are distributed around the average. The figures are hypothetical and set to illustrate. They do not represent an establishment, a country or a study, and the example does not mean that 3.0 is a customary score.

The calculation does not say that the two branches differ in power distance, since one statement does not measure a dimension. Its value is to warn that descriptive numbers should be read together with the distribution.

Where the framework is limited

• National scores and not individual ones. An individual can differ from the average of the individual’s society, and variation inside one society can exceed the difference between two societies.
• The origin of the sample. Secondary summaries say that the first data were collected from the employees of one company, that critics hold that this sample does not represent societies, and that Hofstede answered that the single company brings out differences between societies.
• Methodological criticism. The title of McSweeney’s 2002 article is sharply critical of Hofstede’s analysis, and secondary summaries report that its author holds that a questionnaire is not enough to derive the main dimensions of culture.
• A static view of culture. Secondary summaries criticize the framework for suggesting that culture is fixed, while societies change.
• Managerial validity. No study showing that matching a management style to the scores on these dimensions improves a result in a particular establishment underlies what we say.

How the framework is misunderstood

• Attributing a country’s score to an employee. A person is expected to behave a certain way because of nationality, which is a mistake.
• Copying scores from an undocumented source. A country’s score should not be carried over without returning to the data set and the date it was collected, so we present no score.
• Treating the dimensions as a ranking of better and worse. Each end of a dimension describes a preference and not a rank.
• Using the dimensions to select or exclude employees. The framework compares societies and is not a selection tool.

The role of human resources

Human resources can use the dimensions as a list of questions when one team brings together varied backgrounds. What does each member expect of the manager? How is an objection raised? How much ambiguity is acceptable in instructions? Is the individual rewarded or the team? These questions are then put to the team, and they are not answered for it from a table. It helps to write work rules clearly so that they are not left to each person’s interpretation, and to train management to ask instead of assuming.

A practical question after any change in management style is whether what is asked of the team has become clearer and whether objections that were silent have appeared. The team’s answer is stronger evidence than a national score, because the score is an average of a large group and the answer is the answer of particular people. The dimensions remain useful to the extent that they draw attention to possible differences, and not to the extent that they supply an answer in advance.

What the evidence allows

We do not state that the Hofstede dimensions predict an employee’s behavior or the success of a management style. We did not verify the text of his original book or of his articles, so what we present of the origin of the dimensions and the criticism of them comes from secondary summaries and from titles recorded in Crossref, and we found no source for scores of Saudi establishments that we adopt. Research works dispute the validity of Hofstede’s method.

The framework is treated as vocabulary for describing possible differences between societies, and it is judged by what is observed in the team. Did a manager’s understanding of the team’s expectations change after asking? Did instructions become clearer? Did what had been silent appear? Any decision after that turns on the team, the establishment and the context.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.