Hofstede Cultural Dimensions (HL IB Psychology)

Hofstede Cultural Dimensions

What are Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions?

• Between 1971 and 1973 Geert Hofstede, a professor from Maastricht University conducted a huge, global survey of IBM employees focused on cultural attitudes and behaviours

• The survey was in the form of a questionnaire to which over 60,000 people from over 50 countries responded

• Hofstede came to the conclusion that cultural dimensions could be used universally to describe the norms for behaviour within cultures

• From the results of the survey Hofstede was able to categorise cultural dimensions, initially into four broad categories:

• It is possible to visit Hofstede’s website to compare cultural dimensions between countries: just visit this link: Country comparison tool

• When you land on the site just choose four countries to compare – the list of cultural dimensions will then be shown as percentages with an explanation as to what this means per country underneath the graph

• A fifth cultural dimension was added – Long-term orientation, which is the extent to which a culture values behaviours which contribute to long-term achievements e.g. persistence, perseverance as opposed to short-term gains

• The dimensions are revised frequently i.e. in 2010, Indulgence vs. restraint was added to describe the extent to which a culture enjoys pleasurable experiences as opposed to denying pleasures and delaying gratification

Evaluation of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

Strengths

• A large-scale, global survey produces a huge amount of quantitative data which means that the results should be reliable and generalisable

• The research is constantly reviewed and updated which means that it is unlikely to suffer from temporal validity

Limitations

• The findings could be said to be overly reductionist as they attempt to explain complex behaviours via rather rigid and inflexible categories

• Although the sample of IBM employees is large it does not equally represent all countries and cultures - e.g. more employees from the USA and developed countries 

Which research studies investigate cultural dimensions?

• Smith & Bond (1996) – conformity may be higher in collectivist cultures

• Levine & Norenzayan (1999) – pace of life may be different in individualistic and collectivist cultures

Smith & Bond (1996) and Levine & Norenzayan (1999) are available as separate Key Studies – just navigate the Cultural Origins of Behaviour & Cognition section of this topic to find them (Two Key Studies of Cultural Dimensions)