Geert Hofstede is viewed as the founder of comparative intercultural research and his ideas are used world-wide. His book, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, was originally published in 1980 and became a classic text. I interviewed Professor Hofstede following his keynote address at the DiploFoundation’s Second International Conference on Intercultural Communication and Diplomacy. His work had inspired me in my own research on the influence of national culture on our communication.

As our world takes on a progressively multi-cultural dimension, understanding the differences between cultures is becoming increasingly important. Moreover, knowing our own culture, with its strengths and weaknesses, may help us capitalise on opportunities and avoid pitfalls, be it in business, in our professional lives, as well as on a personal basis.

Background

Geert Hofstede took survey data from IBM employees working in over 50 countries and identified four main dimensions which distinguished national cultures.

These were: power distance, collectivism versus individualism, femininity versus masculinity and uncertainty avoidance. He later added a fifth dimension, long-term versus short-term orientation.

Hofstede also found that the data for each dimension could be related to the way in which individual cultures are organised. His work points to the influence of events which may have occurred hundreds or thousands of years ago. He also noted the fact that members of the European Union often have values which are totally opposed and raises the question as to how these potential conflicts over values can be resolved.

The five dimensions

Power distance

Measures the individual’s perception of the degree of inequality in a society (not wealth). Short power distance countries are more democratic in their approach to power. There is a stress on the legal basis of power, a stress on equal rights and equality, and political parties that tend to the centre.

Collectivism versus

individualism

Hofstede says that collectivist nations base their societies on extended families; social networks define people’s identities and that everything is organised in terms of groups.

In contrast, in an individualist nation people look after themselves, and identity is based on the individual. The top three individualist national cultures are all Anglo Saxon, headed by the USA; they are followed by other European countries.

Femininity versus masculinity

Male dominated societies tend to be assertive and competitive, whereas feminine orientation in societies favours cooperation, good working relationships and security.

Feminine nations are strong on caring values, good relationships and stress equality and solidarity. Masculine nations stress material success and progress.

Uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance refers to the avoidance of ambiguity and the creation of complex rules in order to deal with any possible situation. Cultures with weak uncertainty avoidance are more comfortable with ambiguous situations and are also more relaxed about change and innovation.

Strong uncertainty avoidance cultures have many rules and taboos, feel the need to work hard, fear what is different, place much importance on experts and are intolerant of alternative ideas. Weak uncertainty avoidance cultures have few taboos and tend to be tolerant. These societies may ignore rules if the individual does not think them justified.

Differences on this dimension often cause misunderstanding - people from low uncertainty avoidance cultures like the Danes distrust too many rules and regulations, but for the French such rules are necessary. The European Union is made up of nations at the extremes of this dimension and it will be interesting to see how it can deal with the pressures that very different national cultures impose on it.

Long-term versus short-term orientation

A fifth dimension, dealing with time-orientation, was inspired by research started in East Asia. Long-term oriented cultures foster perseverance and thrift: short-term cultures focus on tradition and fulfilling social obligations. Most European countries score around average on this dimension; East Asian countries score long-term, African and Muslim countries short-term.

Conclusion

When we consider what the differences between national cultures mean in terms of the problems faced by a diversity of people living, working and negotiating together, the subject takes on significant importance.

Professor Hofstede, you started out in mechanical engineering and then moved on to social psychology. It seems to me that these two disciplines are poles apart. Why the shift? Do you find any links between the two? Does knowing one area help you in the other?

It became clear I was not cut out to be a mechanical engineer. I probably chose this path because of my father who was also in this profession. Only afterwards I realised that, like me, he soon left it to become a teacher, later a school director. Afterwards he worked in the Ministry of Education. I followed in my father’s footsteps without realising it. But, yes, it can be useful because entering social science with a technical background meant that I was looking for more structure than you would normally find in social science. Social scientists are often rather vague in their expression. One of the reasons why, I think, my work has appealed to many people is because I quantify what I mean. If I say something about a country having a particular characteristic, a particular position on distribution of power, I illustrate that with a number. People may agree or disagree, but at least they can find out what I mean exactly. So this has grown into a discipline.

At first there were four dimensions – do you expect to evolve the dimensions further?

Well, my original book was written in 1980. The second edition appeared in 2001. It is a completely new book. I wrote it after I retired from university 10 years ago. I worked on it for six years and went through all the literature I had collected. The book refers to about 1500 sources, and more than half of this work was published after the first book appeared. So there is an enormous expansion – the first book was really an adventure into unmarked territory. In the meantime we know much more about the territory, more or less a complete map. And that will continue. There are still new fields. For example, this application into Diplomacy is a new field. Relatively little has been done so far. The relevance has always been there but the resistance has also been very strong. I find that it takes about 15 years between the moment when it first becomes evident that an idea is relevant to a field, and for people to start reading in that field and recognising it.

What relevance does your work hold for communicators and for managers?

Anyone can use it for his or her purposes. It depends, of course, on what the problems for these managers are. If they’re managers who operate in their particular country and do not have a relationship with the outside, I don’t think it’s so relevant. It is only relevant if you’re operating in an area where you are exposed to different cultures. With regard to communicators it depends as well on whom you have to communicate with.

For example, I was told by the Japanese wife of a Chinese colleague that I saved their marriage. The Japanese lady thought that her husband did not love her anymore when he started coming home late from work without notifying her. She then read my book and saw that the Japanese are ‘uncertainty avoiding’ and the Chinese are ‘uncertainty tolerant’. She then accepted the situation. A Dutch scholar told me that I saved his relationship with his American partner. There is a wide gap between the culture of Holland and the United States, but they had both read my work and understood the differences.

The accent in your work is on managing …

No, in fact, I’m not happy if my work is only associated with managing, but the point is that it is being used in this field. So who am I to tell them not to do it? I am a Fellow of the Academy of Management in the United States. On the other hand, I wrote an article, together with a psychologist, about the relationship between culture and personality, which is pure psychology. That gives me more pleasure than work on management – there are other areas which I enjoy much more. There’s now the area of marketing. Marketing probably looks like a rather shallow area, but it’s obvious that consumers from different cultures behave differently. There is marvellous information about differences in consumer behaviour between one country and another and developments over time and place. Those are things which fascinate me very much. There are other developments – there’s comparative linguistics – comparing characteristics of spoken languages across the world, for example, the use of the word “I”. Individualist countries use the word “I” more than collectivist countries. If you tell me “I love you”, would you also say “I” or would you, like the Spaniards just say te quiero, without the “I”?

In the Maltese language, it’s without the “I”.

So that would be more of a collectivist approach. Yes, there are countries that suppress the “I”. You see, in English, which is the big individualist, they have “I” with a capital letter. It’s the only language in the world that has it. There is also a certain relationship regarding masculinity and femininity. What irritates the feminine Dutch is that the masculine Americans always talk about themselves. One of the things we learn is that when you write a letter, you never start with “I”. If I write an e-mail, I never start with “I”, not even to start a paragraph. If I get a letter from very nice American people, it’s I, I, I, I, I.

I suppose a lot of us are not aware ...

No. It’s a way of living. But it is also inter-cultural communication. These are issues that are very old.

In Malta, I suppose, it’s rather ambiguous because we have two official languages, Maltese and English, which are so different.

Yes, yes, which is great.

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