Hofstede (1980) oriented his model to the underlying values that affect the way people
work. His landmark study ranked 44 countries on work-related cultural dimensions. In his
original model he proposed four dimensions of culture that were important to the work
environment: power distance (social inequality/pecking order); uncertainty avoidance
(resistance to change and ambiguity); individual/collective (cooperative or competitive
relationships); and masculine/feminine (role). In a later study Hofstede (1991), added a
time dimension and a few new countries. His research is important because it relates cultural
influences to the management of work. Because of its scope (80 countries) and his
computation of country scores for each dimension, his work has been widely used in
cross-cultural studies of business situations.
One criticism of Hofstede’s studies is that national boundaries may not exactly coincide
with cultures. Some believe that there may be overlapping connotations between the
dimensions. Others feel that the measurements may be out of date; there have been such
dramatic, sustained changes in some countries that the Hofstede rankings may no longer
hold. Researchers have also noted that data may be confounded by subcultures, industry
differences, and organizational culture (the respondents in the original data were all IBM
employees). While criticisms of his research abound, no other researcher has studied so
many cultures in so much detail or related national cultures to business issues. Business
research that addresses cultural impact continues to use Hofstede’s dimensions.
This current study uses both the Hall and Hofstede dimensions since they clearly are
related to business conduct and are quantifiable. Widely accepted, these models result in
distinctive classifications of cultures.