Culture′s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations

Although many comments have already been accumulated let me add something, since some of the reviews tend to get out of focus. Hofstede never claimed to have studied cultures in general, he studied effects of culture on work-related values. For this topic his work is still the standard. The starting point is like this: a large company like IBM tries to establish a strong corporate identity shared among all of its worldwide employees ("We are IBM" kind of thing). However, if you ask them a couple of questions about their work-related values, they answer differently. Turns out, the differences can be explained to some degree by the employee's country-of-origin, that is his or her culture. Hofstede then goes on and tries to find dimensions in order to describe the differences between cultures, - and it has to be said again and again - dimensions for "work-related values" and not for culture in general! This observation was and is tremendously important for multinational companies. It means that we are still influenced even when we work at a multinational firm by our cultural traditions and that this cannot easily be exchanged by the company's culture. Of course if you are more interested in other aspects of culture, than Hofstede's books might not the prime choice for you to study. Hofstede's work is scientifically sound. The choice of IBM as a case is reasonable given his prime motivation. Sample sizes are impressive for all who have tried similar studies (besides, representativity is not a function of sample size but given by the radomness of the sample draw. Sample size has an effect on standard error but this can be taken into account with a test of significance). Quackery is how other people have used Hofstede's data in contexts other than work-related.

Hofstede's book is essential reading for anyone interested in cross-cultural studies. The reviewer, Nemesis (Washington D.C.), demonstrates a rather appalling lack of knowledge of the current state of cross-cultural research. The original studies of Geert Hofstede were in fact carried out in English within the IBM Corporation, as Hofstede was an IBM employee at the time. However, since then a considerable number of studies have been completed, with the survey administered in English and in local languages, demonstrating the usefulness and consistency of Hofstede's cultural value constructs. Most responsible cross-cultural research today that uses surveys is carried out with data collection in local languages. The reader is referred, for example, to the extensive body of work on values across cultures based upon the Shalom Schwartz value survey. You can look it up. In the social sciences, of which business is one, a theory is a model or framework for understanding phenomena. The term generally is taken to mean a framework derived from a set of basic principles capable of producing experimental predictions for a given category in a system. Humans construct theories in order to explain, predict and master phenomena (e.g. inanimate things, events, or the behaviour of animals). In many instances, it is seen to be a model of reality. A theory makes generalizations about observations and consists of an interrelated, coherent set of ideas. A theory has to be something that is in some way testable; for example, one can theorize that businesses progress from local to international markets by always implementing a certain set of processes in a fixed order. Then the process of internationalization of businesses is studied, and the theory is confirmed or revised in a continuous feedback system. According to Stephen Hawking, a physicist, in A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, "a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state..."Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory." This also applies to business theories, including Hofstede's, from which one can make definite predictions that have been verified. Theories are not facts, but tools.

The publication of the original edition of Hofstede's Culture's Consequences was, within the field of cross-cultural research, comparable to the work of Darwin in evolutionary theory. Now, with a second edition, practitioners and theorists alike have a rich quarry to mine for many years to come. The second addition notably adds references to a number of corroborating studies that have been collected over the more or less twenty years since the first edition. As an example, Appendix 6 contains references to well over 50 statistically linked research papers from other authors. The result is the collection in a single volume of a growing body of literature in the field, work that continues to define a kind of mental geography of culture.When I first come upon Hofstede's research in the 1980's I was immediately taken with the extraordinary relationship between his mental geographies (charted by developing ratios between his four, now five, dimensions) and the physical proximity of real countries. In other words, the countries in his dimensions tended to cluster in similar ways to how countries cluster geographically. Of course there are counter-intuitive examples (e.g., Germany), but in many of those cases, the data helps break cultural stereotypes widely held about those countries.Hofstede's original research focused on over 115,000 questionnaires provided to the worldwide employees of IBM. The premise behind using one company worldwide is that because the company is held constant, the data that can be examined for differences that can be attributed to country cultures. If IBM employees had been compared to, for example, government workers in different countries, organizational culture would have been implicated.More recent studies (for example Michael Hoppe's dissertation work) tend to revalidate the country positions on the dimensions, showing only slow shifts in the data over time.Over the years that I have used Hofstede's research in my practice, I have found it to be a touchstone by which people of all backgrounds can understand how culture influences business and other fields. I know that many, many other practitioners rely on his research approach as well.The book is a compendium of much of the substantive cross-cultural research of the past half-century; it is an essential reference for students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners alike.

Professor Hofstede is the Michael Jordan of Culture and, with this book, he will only add to the luster of his work. Widely read and respected, sometimes controversial and feisty but never ignored, he has led the way for all those interested in the study of culture. The first edition of "Culture's Consequences," published in 1980, has become one of the most widely referenced books in history. This greatly expanded second edition, published in 2001, builds on his original work and extends the bridge to cultural understanding he and his academic colleagues have produced over the past 20 years. His gifts include a creative mind, empirical soundness, and a highly readable writing style which sets him apart from many other serious writers and researchers. He also is the first to suggest his teachings and his Five Dimension Theory should be used as guidelines (vs. absolutes) in recognizing the practical aspects of culture and its influences in the public and private sectors. The Netherlands has provided the world many treasures and, among these, is Professor Hofstede and his work. Anyone who takes the time to even casually look through this book will find numerous cultural gems and other nuggets which make one's professional life more understandable and appreciated...both globally and within his/her own national, organizational, and/or occupational culture.