The third and final series of models (3, 6, and 9) show results for the unbalanced panel maximizing the number of observations. Cool Water accounts for by far most of this explained variation, despite the fact that it is the most remote historic driver. Our re-examination of three of Hofstedes dimensions should not be seen as an effort to legitimize his approach in general, nor are we suggesting that Hofstede is right and other cross-cultural frameworks are wrong. Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Nettelbosje 2, Groningen 9700 AV, The Netherlands. The explained variance of the three factors is high, that is, 27% for Factor 1, 26% for Factor 2, and 19% for Factor 3. Hofstede's first large study included data from over 70 countries. By contrast, the country-specific scores in DistrustTrust are uncorrelated with those in the other two dimensions. One reason is that Scandinavian Europeans are located in the middle of the African-Asian genetic distance but score on one polar end of the DistrustTrust dimension: they are high on Trust. Items 11 to 15 have been included by Hofstede in the construction of the fifth and sixth dimension. Hofstedes cultural dimensions can be used to help explain why certain behaviors are more or less common in different cultures. Hofstede (1980) was the first researcher to reduce cross-national cultural diversity to country scores on a limited number of dimensions. The writings in sociology and political science on cultural change are dominated by modernization theory, predicting that continued economic development goes together with predictable changes in norms, values, and beliefs (Bell, 1973; Flanagan, 1987; Inglehart, 1971, 1990, 1997; Inkeles, 1960; Inkeles & Smith, 1974; McClelland, 1961; Nash, 1964; Welzel, 2013). As a consequence, the emphasis on individual self-determination goes together with an emphasis on equal opportunities, giving rise to emancipative values that support universal freedoms (Welzel, 2013). International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 21 (1), 149. Its opposite pole, restraint, reflects a conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms. They want firm rules and strict codes of behavior. The unknown is more openly accepted, and less strict rules and regulations may ensue. As the level of economic development increases, and people experience higher levels of existential security and lives filled with more opportunities, both Individualism and Joy increase. Drastic events may affect generations differently and different generations may therefore have different fixpoints around which they adjust their values to changing circumstances (Hofstede, 1980). Hence, socioeconomic transformations that turn the nature of life from a source of threats into a source of opportunities nurture a generational shift in priorities from survival to emancipative values. By imputing scores for these single items in these 16 countries, we are able to generate scores on all three dimensions for 102 countries (vs. 86 countries). The DistrustTrust dimension is 10 points lower (N = 44). The fifth item relating to the preference given to own nationals when jobs are scarce captures the parochialism and group-egoism that is inherent in Collectivism at the opposite pole of Individualism. Of these 26 items, six were included by Hofstede to calculate country scores on his two additional dimensions, and 20 correlate with any of the four original Hofstede dimensions. This becomes evident from the results of a factor analysis on Hofstedes six dimensions as shown in Table 1. Long-term vs. short-term orientation is a 5th dimension developed some years after the initial four. Hence, Individualism embodies a strong anti-authoritarian impulse that aligns naturally with Power Distance. This allows us to explore cultural change in an absolute sense, and to shed light on the question to what extent cultural change is present in a cross-cultural framework inspired by Hofstede and whether it is present in the ways suggested by the evolutionary logic in the work of Inglehart and Welzel. For example, Germany has a masculine culture with a 66 on the scale of Hofstede (Netherlands 14). This is clearly reflected in the two generations socialized under the communist regime (1940-1960, and 1960-1980) that have the lowest score on the DistrustTrust dimension. As cohort replacement happens at a glacial pace (especially in the face of rising life expectancies), the upward shift is modest. But as soon as people feel safe, they begin to prioritize freedom because freedom is essential to thrive, in allowing ingenuity, creativity, and recreational pleasure. As a result, values such as self-expression and autonomy begin to replace self-restraint and obedience (Inglehart, 1990, 1997; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Welzel, 2013). Table A3 in the online appendix provides all measurement details of the selected items.10 The correlational wave-averaged analysis yields a set of 15 items that fulfill all of the above criteria, that is, considerable country coverage, multiple wave coverage, attitude-based, and significantly correlated with country scores on the four original Hofstede dimensions or included to calculate country scores in the fifth and sixth dimension. With the above limitation in mind, our main findings regarding cultural change can be summarized as follows: It needs to be emphasized that our analyses have been conducted at the group level, which is the level at which culture operates in shaping the norms and beliefs of individuals. Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Yet, even if the prevailing pattern were a uniform progressive trend in values, there are still three distinct possibilities as concerns cultural convergence/divergence, depending on the speed by which countries move: (a) countries move in the same direction at the same speed, in which case their absolute distances remain constant7; (b) the top scoring countries move faster in the same direction than the low-scoring ones, in which case the absolute distances grow (i.e., the case of cultural divergence); and (c) the low-scoring countries catch up and move faster in the same direction than the top scoring ones, in which case the absolute distances shrink (i.e., the case of cultural convergence). Note: Correlations are at the country level. Accordingly, these residuals reflect more remote determinants of country trajectories, such as precolonial factor endowments and colonial legacies. Table 4 shows the rotated loadings. Substituting GDP per capita by the IPR index gives similar results. Cultural shifts affect outcomes typically studied in cross-cultural psychology and international management because these shifts reduce the possibility to make absolute comparisons over time. Hence, a society composed of non-cooperating, selfish egoists is against human nature and outright impossible. Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory has had a significant impact on the field of cross-cultural psychology and . Moreover, and more important in our context, the 20 items used to generate the two dimensions on the InglehartWelzel world map of cultures only generate two dimensions when one actively enforces the extraction of exactly two dimensions (Welzel, 2013). What have we learned about generalized trust, if anything? This question concerns the degree to which the respondent agrees that a wife must always obey her husband. We do so by taking the GDP per capita ratio of each country relative to the GDP per capita of Yugoslavia in the third cohort, and use that ratio to calculate the score for the second cohort using the score on Yugoslavia for the second cohort. Sparked by Jared Diamonds (1997) epic Guns, Germs and Steel, this literature (for an overview, see Spolaore & Wacziarg, 2009) focuses on historically remote factors at the origin of long-lasting, highly inert country trajectories that stretch well into the present. While industrial structures require rational, hierarchical forms of organization and deferential attitudes toward authority, in a service-dominated, postindustrial economy, information processing and communication become more important. Conceptualizing and measuring cultures and their consequences: A comparative review of GLOBEs and Hofstedes approaches. Former Soviet Union (N = 15; Nrespondents = 81,978) include Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine (only the score of Russia [30] is known for the first cohort). sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal Women are expected to be nurturing and focused on people and quality of life. In Hofstedes view, technological modernization is an important driver of cultural change, which leads to somewhat similar developments in different societies, but it does not wipe out variety. Our finding on the relative stability of country rankings implies that cultural distance scores, too, are relatively stable over the period considered in our article. The second dimension, labeled Duty-Joy, is available for 106 countries and is based on five items. Culture and organizations. If we explore the culture of South Africa through the lens of the 6-D Model, we can get a good overview of the deep driving factors of its culture relative to other world cultures. For these purposes, masculinity refers to traits associated with assertiveness and femininity refers to traits associated with nurture. Hofstedes data collection procedure and sample has been questioned on grounds of representativeness (Baskerville, 2003; McSweeney, 2002, 2009). Inspired by Maslows (1954) hierarchy of human needs, the findings of Inglehart and his co-authors (Inglehart & Norris, 2003; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005) demonstrate a universal principle in the functioning of the human mind: the utility ladder of freedoms, as Welzel (2013) has coined it. Usually, it is impossible to replicate dimensions of cultural variation found at the aggregate level across countries in the same shape at the individual level within countries. This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal it expresses the attitude of the culture towards these inequalities amongst us. Predicting cross-national levels of social trust: Global pattern or Nordic exceptionalism? Moreover, the difference in slopes between advanced postindustrial democracies and developing societies underscores the relevance of economic development for cultural change. Conceptually, the CollectivismIndividualism dimension describes the relationship between the individual and the collectivity (Hofstede, 2001, p. 209), in particular the extent to which people are autonomous individuals or embedded in their groups (Triandis & Gelfand, 2012, p. 499). Data on all birth cohorts covering the entire 20th century is available for 21 countries. 11.The relatively small subject-to-item ratio is no cause of concern (Leung & Bond, 1989; MacCallum, Widaman, Zhang, & Hong, 1999). This review is aimed at exploring the association between the two aspects of Hofstede's model i.e. Acceptance), Individualism versus Collectivism, and Masculinity versus Femininity. In countries with low power distance index values, there tends to be more equality between parents and children, with parents more likely to accept it if children argue or talk back to authority. South Africa scores 63 on this dimension and is thus a Masculine society. Developing societies experienced a modest economic growth of Factor 3, while the group of low-income countries grew by Factor 2. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, For each of the three dimensions, we plot the cohort scores for the earliest survey year possible (1980 for DistrustTrust and 1990 for CollectivismIndividualism and DutyJoy) and the latest year (2010). Which dimensions matter for long-run growth? Among the various characteristics that group people into collectivities of a shared identity, the nation is still among the most powerful ones. Its alpha equals .77. The WVS-EVS items that correlate positively with country scores on Individualism versus Collectivism correlate negatively with Power Distance versus Closeness and vice versa. But all of these scores are based on convenient studentteacher samples. Country-Level Factor Analysis 15 WVS-EVS Questions. The difference between Individualism and Collectivism is by no means one of affiliations per se but of the form of affiliations that prevail. Comparative historical GDP data are taken from the Maddison Project 2013 Update (Bolt & van Zanden, 2014).17 The second series of models (Models 2, 5, and 8) show results for the balanced panel for 65 countries including GDP per capita, country-fixed effects, and now include cohort-fixed effects. There is no reliable data available to calculate a score for the first cohort. Hofstedes dimensional concept of culture, to begin with, dominates in cross-cultural psychology and international management. Communication is more direct in individualistic societies but more indirect in collectivistic societies. The evolutionary logic in the works of Inglehart and Welzel predicts a generational shift from orientations dominant under pressing existential threats (i.e., survival orientations) toward orientations dominant under abundant existential opportunities (i.e., emancipative orientations)to the extent to which socioeconomic development indeed changed objective living conditions that way. (2010) added scores for more countries using WVS data and imputing techniques (Minkov & Hofstede, 2012). Normative societies. The re-examination of Hofstedes dimensions serves to explore the nature of cultural change along these dimensions. Legal. Individualistic societies stress achievement and individual rights, focusing on the needs of oneself and ones immediate family. Note: Pairwise correlations are at the country level and are significant at 1%. In fact, the Autonomy versus Embeddedness and Self-Enhancement versus Self-Transcendence dimensions underlying the Schwartz value space depict the two dimensions of the InglehartWelzel world map of cultures in a 45 rotated manner (Welzel, 2013). The power distance index describes the extent to which the less powerful members of an organization or institution such as a family accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. The minimum of 15 years reduces the sample size considerably. A high femininity score indicates that traditionally feminine gender roles are more important in that society; a low femininity score indicates that those roles are less important. Gelfand, Erez, and Aycan (2007) provide an almost exhaustive overview of cross-cultural organizational behavior and psychology. Femininity stands for a society in which social gender roles In individualistic cultures, people choose their affiliations voluntarily; in collectivistic cultures, they are imposed on them: people cannot escape obligations to their lineagewhat Banfield (1958) once called amoral familism. Likewise, the difference between Individualism and Collectivism is not one of solidarity as such but one of the type of solidarity that prevails. 7.One should note, however, that similar absolute distances mean lower relative distances at higher levels: the same absolute age distancesay 5 yearsmeans a smaller relative distance at higher ages, not only mentally but purely mathematically: a 10 years old sister is 2 times older than her 5 years old brother, but when these siblings have reached the ages of 55 and 50, the same absolute age distance shrank from a ratio of 2.0 to 0.1. While referring to national culture as software of the mind, Hofstede quantified four national culture dimensions based on a survey among IBM employees. Hofstedes current framework consists of six dimensions for which the country scores can be downloaded from his website (www.geerthofstede.com). Become a WITI Member and receive exclusive access to attend our WITI members-only events, webinars, online coaching circles, find mentorship opportunities (become a mentor; find a mentor), and more! High Uncertainty Avoidance is associated with a large fraction of people saying that generally speaking you cannot trust people and need to be careful in dealing with people. The wave-averaged scores for all countries can be found in Table A9 in the online appendix.12. Of the 237 attitudinal items, 26 correlate at |.5| or higher with country scores on any of the Hofstede dimensions. Low-income countries (N = 7; Nrespondents = 37,330) include Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, and Vietnam. Building Your Network. and identical political systems (Hofstede, 2011). The fundamental issue here is what motivates people, wanting to be the best (Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine). We exclude this item, thereby increasing the country coverage from 67 to 104; the correlation between the three-item factor score and the four-item factor score is .97, suggesting that this exclusion does not affect relative country rankings. These are commonly referred to as Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory. As a graph for all 68 countries separately would be unreadable, we have collapsed countries in five groups based on their economic history in the 20th century. The temporal stability of the scores on Hofstedes cultural dimensions is increasingly questioned (Minkov & Hofstede, 2014; Shenkar, 2001; Tung, 2008; Tung & Verbeke, 2010). Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This means there is a high preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. But Schwartz himself, who already expressed his concern about the European Social Survey 25-item condensation of his original 50-item concept, disapproved the WVS 10-item condensation. Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is a framework for cross-cultural communication, developed by Geert Hofstede. Inspire Future Generations. 7:00AM and 4:00PM CEST That is to say; this dimension is a measure of societal impulse and desire control. Intergenerational change in the DutyJoy dimension is almost absent in low-income societies and minimal for developing societies, highlighting the relevance of economic development for developing joyous orientations. Geert Hofstede, in his pioneer study looking at differences in culture across modern nations, identified four dimensions of cultural values: individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity-femininity. For DistrustTrust, we find the largest contribution of the country-fixed effects, a result in line with our earlier observation on the relative stability of this DistrustTrust dimension across generations. We split the latter group in former Soviet Union (N = 9) and former Soviet Satellites (N = 15). Given the content and meaning of the items included and associated with this dimension, we decide to label this second dimension: DutyJoy. For the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we therefore used the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita scores on former Czechoslovakia. For CollectivismIndividualism, the score increases by four points from 44 in the first wave to 48 in the last wave (N = 46 countries). This interpretation is supported by the fact that differences in what Minkov and Bond (2015) call the long-term life strategy gene complex maps on the DistrustTrust difference, with Sub-Saharan Africans and East Asians being the most polar groups. The final selection criterion is that the correlation between a specific WVS-EVS items country score and country scores of any of the four original dimensions is |.5| or higher. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.org. The time period is 1981-2014, including individuals born between 1900 and 1999 covering one century of formative years in our analysis of intergenerational value shifts. In addition to these items, we further screen the WVS-EVS questionnaire for more items resonating with the content of Hofstedes original four dimensions: Individualism versus Collectivism, Power Distance versus Closeness, Uncertainty Avoidance versus Acceptance, and Masculinity versus Femininity. This dimension is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised. The Dutch management researcher, Geert Hofstede, created the cultural dimensions theory in 1980 (Hofstede, 1980). (2002). The end result of this is an emphasis on quick results and respect for tradition. Our article, we hope, illustrates that analytical syntheses can create added value for both of two previously separated theories, especially if these theories are complementary in their strengths. If so, WITI is the place for you! But in terms of representative population data, it remains limited to Europe. First, countries tend to shift north of the 45 line for the CollectivismIndividualism dimension and especially for the DutyJoy dimension, while countries tend to shift south of the 45 line for the DistrustTrust dimension. Bond, M. H. (1991). * A country may score above 100 if it was added after a formula for the scale had already been fixed. Social structure, infectious diseases, disasters, secularism, and cultural change in America, Relation of sample size to the stability of the component patterns, Are cultures becoming individualistic? Countries with lower PDI values tend to be more egalitarian. This theoretical framework has been confirmed by recent findings in psychology using completely different data. First, our finding on the stability of the countries relative cultural position suggests that these measures will not be outdated any time soon and that findings using these measures will not be significantly affected by temporal variation, as long as the country scores are interpreted in a relative sense. Is Japan a Masculine or Feminine culture? Note: Dots above the Isoline changed toward Joy, dots below toward Duty. Nigeria being masculine indicates a society driven by. We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. For example, a country with a high femininity score is likely to have better maternity leave policies and more affordable child care. For the 1920-1999 period, we find the slope for the low-income countries to be less steep than for the countries that have experienced faster economic growth, a result found by Inglehart and Welzel (2005) as well. Individuals with values typically found in societies that score high on this dimension (i.e., less restraint, more indulgence) tend to live in bigger cities, do not find a good income important in a job, embrace democracy, and find imagination an important child quality. The other 50% is explained by country-fixed effects. For example, individualism vs. collectivism can help explain why some cultures place more emphasis on personal achievement than others. Societies that score higher on the masculinity scale tend to value assertiveness, competition, and material success. It has a Cronbachs alpha of .87. The (first) CollectivismIndividualism dimension mimics Hofstedes Individualism dimension. Geert Hofstede shed light on how cultural differences are still significant today in a world that is becoming more and more diverse. The selection of the variables is based on the set of ecological factors identified by Varnum and Grossmann (2017) as deep determinants of cultural change, complemented by variables taken from the literature on remote determinants of socioeconomic and human development (e.g., Murray & Schaller, 2010; Parker, 2010; Spolaore & Wacziarg, 2009). In addition, the group found a unique factor not reflected in Hofstedes work, which they called Confucian dynamism. The third item measures the degree of social trust. Hofstedes work provided researchers with a consistent quantification of cultural differences between countries, causing a surge in empirical studies about the impact of culture on the activities and performance of multinational firms (Kirkman et al., 2006). Unlike Hofstede who used a matched sampling procedure based on IBM employees, the WVS-EVS collect nationally representative samples of a countrys entire residential population at the age of 18 and older. Cultural distance and firm internationalization: A meta-analytic review and theoretical implications. House R. J., Hanges P. J., Javidan M., Dorfman P. W., Gupta V. (2004). Number of countries is mentioned between parentheses. Economic development and generational shifts account for approximately half of the variation in cultural change. Hence, to test whether cultural change follows the evolutionary logic suggested by Inglehart and Welzel, it is necessary to rely on a newly validated set of dimensions. In individualistic cultures, universal institutions of the welfare state (like universal health care) create a generalized form of solidarity that frees people from family obligations. 2.National scores of the Schwartz values are also available for countries outside of Europe. After accounting for differences in level of economic development and generational effects, we find that countries can be grouped together in clusters based on geography, climate, and history, a result in line with Georgas and Berrys (1995) ecocultural model and associated taxonomy of nations. We explain considerably less variance in country specificities across the other two dimensions: DutyJoy (51%) and DistrustTrust (44%). Triandis H. C., Bontempo R., Villareal M. J., Asai M., Lucca N. (1988). Without being clearly demarcated, different generations are associated with different values. There is a clear pattern of a significant culture shift in the direction from Duty to Joy. CollectivismIndividualism is, hence, the most significant cultural marker of historically divergent country trajectories. This has led critics to question the representativeness of the original sample. Although this approach reduces sample size considerably, it allows us to explore (a) life cycle effects, (b) cohort-replacement effects, and (c) time-trend effects in separation. Based on Floridas (2002) work on how members of the growing creative class in postindustrial economies blend Bohemian with Puritan values, we doubt that indulgence automatically includes a Short-Term Orientation. One challenge that confronts humanity, now and in the past, is the degree to which small children are socialized. A second point of critique concerns the labeling of the dimensions and the associated face validity of their content (Minkov, 2018). As Hofstede himself argued, any replication of the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension should be closely associated with national measures of interpersonal trust (Minkov & Hofstede, 2014, p. 165). Countries scoring low on the first dimension having more traditional-collectivist values believe in God and feel that respect is important in a job and that obedience is an important child quality. Hofstede: Masculinity / Femininity. A non-negligible part of this cross-country variation is due to country-fixed effects. Jan van der Ende. The three dimensions we find comprise CollectivismIndividualism, DutyJoy, and DistrustTrust. The extent to which individual countries share key dimensions depends on a number of factors, such as shared language and geographical location. Country scores for the fifth and sixth dimension, Long-Term (vs. Short-Term) Orientation (LTO) and Indulgence versus Restraint (IVR), have been added later. Meanwhile, restraint indicates that society tends to suppress the gratification of needs and regulate them through social norms. The correspondence between objective living conditions and subjective life orientations consists in the fact that preventive closure is adaptive under pressing threats, while promotive openness is adaptive in the presence of promising opportunities. Figure 2 shows the results for DutyJoy and Figure 3 for DistrustTrust. By estimating a fixed-effects model, we control for all other possible characteristics of countries such as their unique country-specific history (including ex-communism) and geography (e.g., climatic conditions). It does not (see Table A4 in the online appendix). The reason is simple: at the later point in time, the population is composed to a larger extent of the higher scoring younger cohorts on Individualism and Joy and to a lesser extent of the lower scoring older cohorts. Hofstedes cultural dimensions are widely used to understand etiquette and facilitate communication across cultures in areas ranging from business to diplomacy. Consistency requires to label both poles on each dimension. A leading authority of women in technology and business, WITI has been advocating and recognizing women's contributions in the industry for more than 30 years. The score on the DutyJoy dimension is on average 11 points higher at the time of the last survey wave compared to the first survey wave (N = 47 countries). Individualism, GNP, climate, and pronoun drop: Is individualism determined by affluence and climate, or does language use play a role? Countries in italics are used in the first cohort (N = 15; Nrespondents = 108,064).
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