The essentials of scholarship: A reply to Geert Hofstede (original) (raw)

Geert Hofstede et al’s Set of National Cultural Dimensions - Popularity and Criticisms

Economic Alternatives, Issue 2, 2014, ISSN (print): 1312-7462 ISSN (online): 2367-9409, 2014

This article outlines different stages in development of the national culture model, created by Geert Hofstede and his affiliates. This paper reveals and synthesizes the contemporary review of the application spheres of this framework. Numerous applications of the dimensions set are used as a source of identifying significant critiques, concerning different aspects in model's operation. These critiques are classified and their underlying reasons are also outlined by means of a fishbone diagram. Key words: cultural differences, national culture, business culture, Geert Hofstede. JEL Classification: M14, Z1.

Forward from a Critique of Hofstede's Model of National Culture

McSweeney's critique rejects Hofstede's model and finds national culture implausible as a systematically causal factor of behaviour. His critique is examined for its useful warnings to those who follow Hofstede's research and for its logical consistency. A paradigmatic perspective identifies where McSweeney argues against Hofstede's logic and where he rejects Hofstede's paradigm and premises. This indicates that both the functionalist and other paradigms are needed for future research into national culture and for understanding social behaviour in different national cultures.

Claiming too much, delivering too little- testing some of Hofstede’s generalisations

Irish Journal of Management, 2016

This paper considers Geert Hofstede’s claim that his national cultural “dimension scores” and related rankings of countries enable effective prediction by examining a causal generalization he has repeatedly used to illustrate that capability. When tested against cross-sectional and longitudinal empirical data about industrial relations conflicts and homicide the generalization is shown not to have predictive power. A second generalization is then tested. It too fails to demonstrate predictive capability. Reflecting on the predictive failures, some characteristics of valid cross-national research are then discussed.

Fang (2003). A critique of Hofstede’s fifth national culture dimension

Using indigenous knowledge of Chinese culture and philosophy, this article critiques Geert Hofstede’s fifth national culture dimension, i.e. ‘Confucian dynamism’, also referred to as ‘long-term orientation’. The basic premise on which the dimension is founded is scrutinized and the way in which this index has been constructed is assessed in detail. It is argued that there is a philosophical flaw inherent in this ‘new’ dimension. Given this fatal flaw and other methodological weaknesses, the usefulness of Hofstede’s fifth dimension is doubted. The article concludes by calling for new visions and perspectives in our cross cultural research.

A critical evaluation of Hofstede’s cross-cultural study

From last few decades, scholars have been discussing the significance of ‘culture’, within business parameters to perform better decision making (Vitell, Nwachukwu and Barnes, 1993). Among many scholars, Professor Dr Geert Hofstede’s work is one of the most cited work on cross- culture relationship (El-Azez Safi, 2010). Dr Hofstede managed to identify different dimensions and its significance on cross-culture relationships. His work become an initial step towards understanding the diversity of human cultures (Dr Kristine Marin Kawamura interviews Geert Hofstede, PhD, 2013) (Minkov and Hofstede, 2011).Even though Hofstede set up an excellent initial fundamental platform regarding cross-culture study, nevertheless his work also attracted criticisms from various scholars such as (Jones,2007) (Fang,2003) and (McSweeney, 2002) .This paper is set out to discuss both practical applicability and criticisms of Hofstede’s cross-culture study on organisations.

Beyond Hofstede: Challenging the Ten Commandments of cross-cultural research

2009

Culture is a pervasive construct. A Google search for -culture‖ provides over half a billion hits, while the Yahoo! search engine generates a figure over two billion, which is more than for other such popular terms as politics, war, the environment, or sex. As for academic sources, the construct of culture has enjoyed immense interest from the scholarly community; major social science electronic databases provide links to 100,000-700,000 scholarly articles when -culture‖ is used as the search keyword.

"HOFSTEDE'S CULTURAL DIMENSIONS: ARE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IMPORTANT?"

Understanding cultural dimensions becomes increasingly important as multinational business activities continue to increase. To remain competitive and minimize problems, businesses cannot assume an ethnocentric approach to staffing (Kopp, 1994). In an attempt to identify how an organization should be structured internationally, considerable research has been conducted to identify various cultural dimensions. Hofstede's model of cultural dimensions (1980) has become the most widely accepted and most frequently cited model for cross-cultural research (Bhagat & McQuaid, 1982; Lonner & Berry, 1998; Sivakumar and Nakata, 2001; Sondergaard, 1994). However, the model assumes similar responses from all individuals within a culture and does not account for individual differences. The finding from this study found significant intracultural differences based on gender and religious orientation. The impact from the findings and needs for future research are also discussed.