St.gallen April Final Version

7/31/2019 St.gallen April Final Version

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A Post-Hofstedeian Notion ofCulture

Professor Dr. Brendan McSweeneyChair in Management, Royal Holloway, University ofLondon/Visiting Professor in Business Administration, School

of Business, Stockholm University


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Why bother?

Why is the cultural research of Geert Hofstede,and similar work, a desirable/useful object ofreview?

Diversity/inter-culturality presents hugeintellectual and practical challenges.

Within the business school communities andmanagement consultancy arenas Hofstedes, andsimilar work, has an immense following.

As of this morning, Hofstedes work has beencited almost 61,000 times.

Is his work a road-bridge or a road-block?


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Hofstedes Claims

To have empirically identified found the national cultures (or differencesbetween such cultures) of numerous countries.

The cultures or differences between them are described on the basis of the six

[bi-polar] dimensions of national culture viz.Power-distance attitudes about power distribution

Uncertainty Avoidance high-low uncertainty tolerance

Individualism vs Collectivism

Masculinity vs Femininity

Confucian Dynamism long vs short-term time orientation

More recently (2010) Indulgence vs. Restraint

And that these dimensions strongly influence national thinking, feeling,and acting, as well as organizations, institutions, etc. in predictable ways


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The data obtained from within a single MNC does have the power to

uncover the secrets of entire national cultures (Hofstede,1980).

[N]ational values are given facts, as hard as countrys geographic position orits weather (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005)

In ... masculine cultures ... there is a feeling that conflicts should be resolved bya good fight... The industrial relations scene in these countries is marked by

such fights ... In feminine cultures ... there is a preference for resolving conflictsbycompromise and negotiations (Hofstede, 2010; Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005:143)(Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010), and elsewhere.

Freud was an Austrian; and there are good reasons in the culture profile of

Austria in the IBM data why his theory would be conceived in Austria rather thanelsewhere (Hofstede, 2001; 1980).

The five main dimensions along which the dominant value systems in morethan 50 countries can be ordered and that [they] affecthuman thinking, feeling,

and acting, as well as organizations and institutions, in predictable ways(Hofstede, 2001: xix


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This particular notion of culture and itssupposed consequences is not unique toHofstede

The claim that populations (civilizations,regions, countries, organizations, ethnic (andother sub-national groups) aredistinguishable on the basis of distinct,shared, enduring, causal, and identifiablecultures (defined as subjective values) has

considerable following both as an explanationand a guide to action.


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According to David Hickson and Derek Pugh nationalculture lie[s] beneath [a societys] characteristic arts,clothes, food, ways of greeting and meeting, ways of

working together, ways of communicating, and so on(1995: 17).

Nancy Adler, states that a national cultural orientation

describes the attitude of most people most of the time

(2002: 19).

David Landes, states that: culture makes almost all the

difference (2000: 2)


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Many varieties of culture as enduring,identifiable, subjective valueconfigurations


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A long-standing view

In 1797 the French counter-revolutionary Joseph de

Maistre declared I have seen Frenchmen, Italians,Russians. But for man, I declare I have never in my life

met him.

W. B. Yeats claim that there was a national "Collective

Unconscious or Anima Mundiof the race" (1922)

W. W. M. Eiselen the intellectual architect of apartheid

- stated in 1929 that culture not race was the true basisof difference, the sign of destiny

A. J. P. Taylor pronounced that: The problem with Hitler

was that he was German (in Davies, 1999)


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Understanding and managingdiversity

As academics or/and advisors/consultantswe seek to, or are expected to, identify,teach, and otherwise communicate methods

of management that create enduring successfor uninational and multinationalorganizations whether for- or not-for-profit.

But there is a gap between the speculativegeneralisations/practical expected of usabout complex worlds and what meets thestandards of rigorous scholarship (March &

Sutton, 1997) .


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Conditions

i. the world is not flat; ii. performanceadvantages are unstable; iii. the causes ofsuccess are complex; iv. atomistic

explanations of action are notcomprehensive; and v. causes are not alwaysreducible to the exterior/materialistic.

Because of these (and other) conditions,understanding and/or managing transnational

business activities is immensely challenging.


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Cultural values theories therefore addressmajor intellectual and practical challenges,but how realistic and/or useful are thesetheories?


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My view, in short ... As an academic, and also as someone engaged

in managing across many country borders, in myopinion, partitioning populations (civilizations,regions, countries, organizations, ethnic (andother sub-national groups) on the basis that theyare distinguishable from other populations onthe basis distinct, shared, enduring, causal, and

identifiable cultures (defined as configurations ofsubjective values) is an intellectual cul-de-sac;lacks scholarly rigour; and is not merely useless,but is misleading.


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Good theory?

Theory as surprise: defamiliarising Hofstede et al. perhaps once usefulagainst the global one best way view but overfamiliar now. And bestachieved through descriptions of real differences

Theory as covering laws? Every good theory does not consist of coveringlaws, but the culture as values theories claim to have identified suchgeneralisations and thus should be judged against that criterion.

Theory as a predictor: temperate or imperious versions some levelimportant if it is to be useful as a guide to action case-study of predictive

failure of Hofstedes claims.

Theory as narrative: an explanation (story) that describes the process, orsequence of events, that suggests a relationship between factors/variables.Distinct from stories/cases presented as evidence of a covering law.

Examine one of Hofstedes alleged cases.


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8 Tests of a Theory of Causality

1. Well Specified or Too Vague: Is its definition/description precise/demarcated? Oris it underspecified or a composite?

2. Internally Uniform or Heterogeneous: If causal, is it represented as a coherent(homogeneous) force or as incoherent (heterogeneous)?

3. Identified by Valid Methods or a Product of Inappropriate Processes:Assuming it exits, is it identifiable and with sufficient degrees of accuracy and/or by

justifiable means? Or are its descriptions imprecise and/or the product of unsoundprocesses ?

4. Causal at One Level or All levels: Assuming they are accurate, are thedescriptions accurate about/useful enough at one societal level only or valid for alllevels?

5. Strong, Weak, or Nil Causality: If causal (i) how strong is that influence; and (ii) isthat influence distinguishable from other causes? Or is action usually an outcome ofmultiple and complex factors?

6. Enduring or Changing: If causal, are outcomes stable or variable?

7. Uniformity or Diversity in a Domain: Is it uniform in content and consequencesacross its claimed domain (country, or whatever)? Or is there intra-domain diversity?

8. Strong or Weak Predictive Power: Do the depictions provide good predictions? Orare many false predictions observed?


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A broadly similar debate is taking place withinthe institutional, neo-institutional, community.

For an overview see: special issue ofEconomy and Society38, 4. 2009.

See also the journal Socio-EconomicReviewand books by Colin Crouch,Wofgang Streeck.


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Test 1:Well Specified or Too Vague?

1. From a particular academic/managementconsultancy firm, is the definition/description of

culture employed precise/demarcated enough?Or is it underspecified or a composite? and

2.

Generally, is there even a broad consensusabout what the term culture means or is therea multiplicity of meanings?


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Which notion of culture?

There is no consensual definition of culture.

As early as the 1950s, Alfred Kroeber and ClydeKluckhohn estimated in a survey of Englishlanguage sources only - that there were already over

160 definitions of culture (and its near-synonymcivilization) in use.

And those multiple definitions are usuallyunderspecified.


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Which/What Culture?

Widely used to indicate that societal context isinfluential.

Johns (2006), for instance, describes nationalculture as a contextual imperative.

Of course, context matters useful counter to purenotions of individuality - but that does not get usvery far. What are its/their properties, degree, andtype of influence?


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Identity

Also confused with the notion of identity.


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It is used in an objective sense: rituals of daily life,ceremonies, art forms, fashion, customs, means ofsocial differentiation, and so forth

And in a subjective (psychological) sense.

In the latter, views of the causal influence of cultureranges from that as a supremely independentvariable, the superordinate power in society to, atthe other extreme, a mere powerlessepiphenomenon.


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Subjective

A variety of implicit or explicit definitions of culture are employedby management/business academics/consultants, but the dominant

one is that of: (a) mental programming subjective values. A notion of culture long out-of-favour in most other disciplines,

including anthropology.

And as (b) highly influential even the exclusive causethus inappropriately neglecting other cultural and non-culturalinfluences.

And (c) reductive - the notion of mind is unclear and complex,and not reducible merely to values (of which, in any event, there isno consensual definition).

A notion of mind needs also to consider: preferences, desires,goals, needs, norms, traits, aversions, tastes, assumptions, and

attractions and their inter-relationships.


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That is not to criticise studies which focus exclusively onjust one of: values; preferences, desires, goals, needs,norms, traits, aversions, tastes, assumptions, attractions,or whatever.

Focus, parsimony, strategic reduction abstracting awayenough of the worlds complexity to develop pointedexplanations - are often necessary, BUT

... given the totalizing claims made for subjective cultureand its alleged comprehensive consequences, a narrowfocus of research which claims to explain so much is, to

say the least, questionable.


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Software of the Mind(Hofstede, 1980, 2010., etc.)

Aside from the unobserveability of Values,they are not the equivalent of MS-DOS orMac OS X


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Test 1 (Adequately Specified?)Conclusion

Culture is an over-used and under-specified term.

But in management it is often unjustifiably -

defined narrowly as endogenous, highly influential(even determinate) values.


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Test 2(Coherent or Incoherent?)

Internal Uniformity: Is the culture a stableuniformity (dammed up into a neat, separate,pond) or a dynamic cocktail (perhaps

containing some patterns, but overall a looseassemblage)?

Why does this matter? If the latter, uniformoutcomes are not possible.


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Uniform culture Uniformaction

The assumption of cultural determinism alone doesnot exclude the possibility of inconsistent, varying,actions within, or outside of, organizations.

What the culture as subjective values model alsosupposes is that for each specific arena or categoryof actors (civilization, country, ethnic group, or

whatever) culture is coherent, that is: uniform, non-contradictory.


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Coherent (unambiguous/non-contradictory)

The notion of cultural coherence probably has its roots in

romanticism with all of the variations of the idea of the Geist(spirit) of an age or a people (Appadural, 1988: 41).

Anthropologists, Pitrim Sorokin, the early Ruth Benedict, andGregory Bateson, all argued that each culture has a singleethos.

Hofstede describes each culture a whole (2001: 17).

In sum, as Carl Ratner (2005: 61) states individuals participate in a common, coherent culture that is structurally

integrated at the societal level.


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In contrast:

Edward Burnet Tyler characterized culture as a thing of shreds andpatches.

Bronislaw Malinowski states that human cultural reality is not a consistent or

logical scheme, but rather a seething mixture of conflicting principles.

A. L. Kroeber, described the notion of total [cultural] integration as an idealconditioninvented by a few anthropologists not well versed in history.

Richard Merelman describes culture in the US as a loosely bounded fabric,ill-organized, permeable, inconsistent.

Amitai Etzioni describes the myth of cultural coherence as: One of the mostdeep-seated fallacies in social science.


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Endogenous change is inconceivable.

As Margaret Archer states: The net effect of thisinsistence on cultural compactness [is to preclude] anytheory of cultural development springing from internaldynamics ... internal dynamics are surrendered to external

ones (1988: 6).

Bizarrely, Hofstede claims that on the very few occasionswhen there is an externally caused change in a national

culture, the change occurs not only across that country butalso within all countries throughout the world. Nationalcultures very rarely change, he states, but when they do,they change in formation across the globe, that is to saytheir relative position or ranking in his five national cultural

indices are unaffected (2001: 36).


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Studies

1. Many studies have found incoherence (incompleteness,illogicality, gaps, cracks, hybridity, remixing,

contradictions, ambiguity, slippages, conflicts, malleability)within cultures. (This is now the standard view in anthropology)(Kuper, 2003).

2. Even if individual cultures are supposed to be coherent itdoes not follow that there will be no contradiction, gaps,

frictions, ambiguities at cultural interfaces.

3. Cultural coherence allows no room for individuals toexploit it is a theory of cultural automatons. We are

social but not entirely socialized (Wrong, 1961).


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Hindu civilization?

In addition to multiple varieties of Hinduism the notion thatit is a single religion is a colonial constructed myth.

There are approximately 36,000 different Hindu gods andgoddesses.

The extent and ways in which religion influences socialaction varies enormously, and there are many otherinfluences.

In India, as well as Hindus and Muslims, there are also

Sikhs, Buddhists, Anglo-Indians, Christians, Parsis, Jains,Jews, Atheists, and Agnostics. And many ways of beingeach of these.

Si i /C f i (Chi )


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Sinic/Confucian (Chinese)Civilization

Confucianism - it is not a holistic framework or ahegemonic influence. Confucianism a term

invented by Jesuit missionaries consists of a largebody of work that is interpretable in multiple ways.

Explaining the values of the 4 billion Asians on thebasis of one persons writings is as absurd as

claiming to explain the behaviour of three quarters ofa billion Europeans from the bible.


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We all live with, engage with,paradoxes, contradictions

Look before you leap

Too many cooks spoil thebroth

He (or she) whohesitates is lost

Many hands make lightwork


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Test 2 (Internal Uniformity?)Conclusion

Each notion of culturally cohesive communitiesgreatly exaggerates the internal unity of cultures andtherefore, even if the causality of culture is

supposed, social uniformity and continuity cannotalso be logically supposed to be the outcome.

As the former president of the US Society ofPsychological Anthropology, Philip K. Bock,

unhesitatingly states: We must conclude that theuniformity assumption is false (1999).

T 3


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Test 3:Empirically Identified by Valid Methods orDepicted Through Inappropriate Processes?

Assuming it exits, is it identifiable and with

sufficient degrees of accuracy and/or byjustifiable means? Or, alternatively, are itsdescriptions imprecise and/or the product of

unsound processes?


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Identifiability/Measurability ofNational Culture as Values

Discussed at length inMcSweeney, B. HumanRelations, 55.1 (2002)

See Hofstedes replyand my response (bothin 55.11).

Many other critiques


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Hofstedes Dimensions

My criticism is not of the use of the depictionsor dimensions they can be usefully used.

But with Hofstedes claim to have used themto measure what he depicts as an enduringand causal (even deterministic) nationalforce.

Incidentally, the dimensions are not originalto Hofstede and have long history in thesocial sciences.


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Data Source: 117,000questionnaires

Not as many used as is implied Combined figure for two surveys

66 countries, but only 40 yielded scores

Unrepresentative In 15 countries - less than 200 respondents

First survey in Pakistan 37 employees and second 70

Only surveys in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore 88, 71, and58 respectively

All from one company: IBM.


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IBM questionnaires

Not designed to identify national culture.

Not independently administered.

Not confidential

Respondents knew of possibleconsequences for them of their answers.

Blue collar workers not surveyedmarketing and sales staff only.

Atypicality of IBM


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Deriving Descriptions of National Culturefrom Questionnaire Data: 5 Crucial

Assumptions(each necessary each, it isagued, is fatally flawed)

1) Every micro-location is typical of the national;

2) Every respondent had already been permanentlyprogrammed with three non-interactive culturalprograms;

3) National culture creates response differences;

4) National culture can be identified through the responsedifferences;

5) National culture is nationally uniform its acontextual.


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Assumption 2. Every respondent had already beenpermanently programmed with three non-interactive cultures

Only one and the same organizational culture in every IBM subsidiary So a cultural monopoly, no harmonious, dissenting, emergent, contradictory, organizational

cultures in IBM

One global occupational culture for each occupation No interaction between the three cultures

No other cultural (or otherinfluences) on the responses)

(OrC + OcC + NC1) (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2


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(OrC + OcC + NC1) (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2

Very convenient! But ridiculous.

M th iti f


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Many other critiques ofHofstedes methodology

There are many other critiques of Hofstedes

measurements see Gerhart & Fang, 2005,for instance.

T t 3 (Id tifi ti )


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Test 3 (Identification)Conclusion

The methods Hofstede used violate everypremise of opinion analysis I learned at thefeet of Lazerfeld and Hyman

Immanuel Wallerstein

(personal communication)

T t 4


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Test 4One Level or All levels?

Assuming a description is accurate at onesocietal level, is it also accurate/usefulenough at that level only or valid also at

other or all levels?

Hofstede captures the values that shape the

cognitive maps of individuals as a well associal systems and institutions(Greckhamer, 2011:87)

At h t l l( ) i lt


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At what level(s) is culturesupposed to be causal?

Civilizations?

Multi-country regions?

Nations (or rather countries)? Within country immigrant, indigenous, and

minoritycultural groups (plural mono-culturalism)(ethnicity, gender, etc.)?

Organizations?

Individuals?

One, some, or all?


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If a causal theory is represented as applyingonly to one high level only (civilization, country,or whatever) there would outside of the

research community be little interest as it asmore micro-levels we act, negotiate, etc.

If, for example, I meet a number of Japanesemanagers, Im not meeting Japan, but a fewpeople from Japan.

Do Hofstede et al.s descriptions apply to thisgroup and not just to an abstract average

(Japan)?


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Ecological Fallacy

Making direct translations of properties or relations at onelevel to another is unwarranted even it we suppose that thedepiction of first level is accurate.

Robinson (1950) originally described the attribution of viewsabout the characteristics of one level to other levels also asthe ecological fallacy (1950), Wagner (1964) called it thedisplacement of scope, and Galtung the fallacy of the

wrong level (1967)(see also Hofstede, 2001: 16, 463).

Drawing inferences about higher levels from individual leveldata is sometimes called the atomistic fallacy (Tsui et al.

2007: 466).


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The pattern of correlation found in nationalaverages is not(contra Greckhamer, 2011and a multitude of others) replicated at the

individual level. Gerhart and Fang (2005:977) estimate, based on Hofstedes data, thatonly somewhere between 2 and 4 percent

of the variance at the level of individualsanswers is explained by national differences a tiny portion.

Hofstedes own estimate of 4.2 per cent isonl mar inall hi her 2001: 50 .


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Furthermore, two of the four (later five)dimensions employed by Hofstede to depictnational culturespower distance andindividualism and collectivism were statistically

identified by him onlyin nationally averaged data.At the level of individuals they had near-zerointercorrelations (Bond, 2002) for thosedimensions and thus no* explanatory power atthat level.

* Oyserman et al.s (2002) meta-analysis of 52studies concludes that country explains 1.2% of

the variation in individualism-collectivism scores.


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Relationships identified at one level ofanalysis may be stronger or weaker at adifferent level of analysis, or may even

reverse direction (Klein and Kozlowski 2000;Ostroff 1993).

Disaggregation leads to misrepresentationwhenever populations are not whollyhomogeneous.


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But the ecological error may also occur when aproperty at one level are attributed to a homogeneousgroup at a lower level.

Schwartz (1994), citing, Zito (1975), gives theillustrative example of the discrepancy between ahung jury at two levels. As a group, a hung jury is an

indecisive jury, unable to decide the guilt or

innocence of the accused. However, attributing thatcharacteristic to the individual members of the jurywould be incorrect as the jury is hung because its

individual members are very decisive not indecisive.


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Test 4 (Level?) Conclusion

The ecological fallacy is rampant in the writings of causalsubjective culture devotees. Perhaps more so in users than

originators, but the error can readily be found in multipleplaces in the originators writings, including Hofstedes.

Even if we suppose that the national or civilization

descriptions are accurate, it is at lower levels (individuals,groups, etc.) that we, and business organizations, engagewith.


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Test 5Strong, Weak, or Nil Causality?

Does it have an influence on action, and if so: (i) howstrong is that influence; and (ii) is that influence

distinguishable from other causes? Or is actionusually an outcome of multiple and complexfactors?

A Management Question: when considering current orpossible activities in a specific country, how muchattention should be given to cultural descriptions of

that country a lot, a little?

Unjustified jump from


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Unjustified jump fromdescription to causality

Attitude surveys (based on questionnaires,interviews, or however) provide zero direct

evidence of an influence of culture onbehaviour.

As existing theoretical traditions provide little

guidance for understanding how values shapebehaviour, little more intellectually humility andless bombast from subjective cultural devotees

in management would be appropriate.


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Attributing causality to just one culture neglects the

independent role of other cultural influences

If cultures additional to, or other than, the singularculture are acknowledged, then the treatment of that

culture as the independent variable is possible only byillogically attributing causal power to one categoryof culture but effectively denying it to others.

Mere acknowledgement of other cultures withoutincorporating them in a theory of action is an emptygesture.

Excluding any independent


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Excluding any independentrole of non-cultural influences

Even if we suppose that within a defined area/group, isan influential even monopolistic culture - why suppose

that it alone or culture in general is the only cause ofactions there?

Why should cultural causality be privileged over

administrative, coercive, institutional, or other meansof social integration/control?

Myths for inexperienced


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Myths for inexperiencedteenagers

Tsui et al.s (2007:46) study of 93 papers in leadingjournals on cross-cultural organizational behaviourobserves that few studies considered non-culturalvariables, either theoretically as predictors or empirically

as controls and researchers have ignored the fact thatculture is not the only differentiator of nations.

I dont belittle such narrowly focused studies

development of technical skills etc. BUT the idea thatbehaviour at multiple levels within a country canexclusively be explained and predicted on the basis ofone narrow representation of culture is frankly ludicrous.


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Working Days lost in industrial disputes per1000 employees (annual averages)

1961-65 1966-70 1971-75

Masculine Ireland 337.5 625.6 292.7

Masculine GB 127.0 222.6 538.6

Feminine Spain 14.1 37.1 95.6

Data Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook


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1961-65 1966-70 1971-75


Masculine GB 127.0 222.6 538.6

Feminine Spain 14.1 37.1 95.6Data Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook

Considerable intra-country variation demonstrates that the cause of

action cannot be reduced to a single force.


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1961-65 1966-70 1971-75


Masculine GB 127.0 222.6 538.6

Feminine Spain 14.1 37.1 95.6

1976-80 1981-85 1986-90


Masculine GB 521.7 387.4 117.5

Feminine Spain 1,089.8 400.9 433.6

Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook

Spains Dictator: Franco died


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Spain s Dictator: Franco diedin 1975


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Massive decrease in Church attendance inSpain after Francos death.

Large increase in Russia after the end of theSoviet regime.


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Soccer separate teams


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One team for entire island

Test 5: Degree of Causality?


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Test 5: Degree of Causality?Conclusion

Even if cultural causality is supposed it is illogical todeny the possibility of the influence of other cultures

and non-cultural forces.

We need to (a) separate out the various processes

that are lumped together under the heading of culture;(b) not suppose a priorithe causal dominance of onetype of, or any type of, culture; (c) be open torecognising the influence of non-cultural factors.


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Test 6: Enduring or Changing?

The Claim:

[N]ational values are given facts, as hard as countrys

geographic position or its weather (Hofstede andHofstede, 2005: 13)

There is a stability to its essential nature ... regardless ofplace, time or regime (de Vries, 2001: 597).

As Renato Rosalso ironically states: If its moving, it isntcultural (1989: 208).
http://www.itusozluk.com/gorseller/waffen+ss/58684


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Persistent Heritage

The claim of unchanging culture:

Relies of a prioribelief not empiricalevidence.

Is inconsistent once the partitionedpopulation was active in creating a uniqueculture but somehow that creativity has

ceased. And supposes that each culture is coherent,

pure and impermeable.


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National Cultural Purity

But like an Apache rock and roll band, culturesare fusions, remixes, recombinants. They are

made and remade through exchange,imitation, intersection, incorporation,reshuffling, through travel, trade,subordination.

Geographical borders are not cultural borders.


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Examples of impurity

Winslow Homers Eight Bellsan exampleofdistinctly American art?

Tempura, an example of uniqueJapanese cuisine?


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Examples of impurity

Winslow Homers majestic Eight Bellswasdescribed by many contemporaries asdistinctly American, but cross-Atlanticinfluences can readily be discerned.

Tempura, from the Latin temporapractice copied from Portuguesemissionaries in Japan untilrecently popular only in SouthernJapan

T t 6 (E d i Ch i ?)


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Test 6: (Enduring or Changing?)Conclusion

Acceptance of specific legacies (and theircontestable interpretations) does not require

acceptance the notion of stasis (oruniqueness).

The claim that the cultures of nations,civilizations, or whatever do no change relieson essentialist myths not empirical evidenceand requires implausible suppositions suchas the coherence, purity, and impermeability

of culture.

T t 7


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Test 7:Cultural Uniformity or Diversity in a Domain

Is a culture uniform in content andconsequences across its claimed domain(country, or whatever)? Or is there intra-domain diversity?

A management question: Is it true thatwherever I locate the new factory in acountry, the culture will be the same?


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Evidence

The existence of uniformities within a domain, forexample, a national requirement to drive on theright-hand side of the road or to use snow-tyres inthe winter, is not evidence of domain uniformity.

Confirmatory Bias: The evidence in support ofdomain uniformity is anecdotal it relies on invalidstep of generalizing from small numbers and the

essentialist presupposition of national uniformity. Falsified: It is contradicted by multiple studies.

Confuses Domain: It conflates nation with state.


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Fons Trompeenars generalises from undisclosedinterviews with corporate executives

Kets de Vries generalizes from just one character ina novel!

Margaret Mead argued that the testimony of any

Samoan adolescent was representative of allSamoan adolescents.

Hofstede from one company


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Considerable diversity (heterogeneity,divergence, variety) has been observed, (e.g.

Burrin 2005; Camelo et al. 2004; Campbell,et al., 1991; Crouch, 2005; Goold andCambell 1987; Kondo 1990; Law and Mol2002; Lenartowicz et al. 2003; MacIntyre

1967; OSullivan, 2000; Streeck and Thelen2005; Thompson and Phua 2005; Tsurumi1988; Weiss and Delbecq 1987; Yanagisako

2002).

Even Values Studies have


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Even Values Studies haveShown Differences

For example:

Schwartz (1994)

Lenartowicz, Johnson & White (2003)

Peterson, Fanimokun, Mogaji & Smith (2006)

Peterson & Fanimoken (2008)


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National Culture

The notion of uniform national culture crucially presupposesnationalist myths of the primordiality of nations.

Nations may comprise part of a state or extend beyond the

borders of a single state. There are very few single-nation states.

Confuses notions of nation, state, and country

As Walker Connor states: "The prime fact about the world is thatit is not largely composed of nation-states" (1978:39).

He reports a 1971 survey of 132 entities generally considered tobe states which concluded that only 12 states (9.1%) could

justifiably be described as nation-states.


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Countries/States

The geographic position[s] of many countries arenot hard. They are not fixed and are ofcomparatively recent origin.

State boundaries may be unstable. Whole states orparts of states may be annexed. New states may beformed by seceding from other states. Somemultinational states are very stable, some are very

volatile. States may be formed by the voluntary orinvoluntary combination of multiple states. Statesmay fragment into multiple states, violently orpeacefully.

Test 7 (intra-domain diversity)


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est ( t a do a d e s ty)Conclusion

The fallacious assumption of culturalhomogeneity within nations (Tung, 2008:42),

Test 8


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Test 8:Strong or Weak Predictive Power?

Do the depictions provide goodpredictions? Or are many falsepredictions observed?


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Nothwithstanding, the issues of social levels, nationalculturalist assert that their favoured representations ofnational cultures (or national cultural differences) enable

effective predictions of social action at sub-national levels.

Hofstede peppers his books and articles with descriptionsof events which he employs to validate his

measurements of national cultures and to demonstratethat they affect human thinking, feeling, and acting, aswell as organizations and institutions, in predictable ways(2001: xix).

E l


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Example

In theUSAas well as in other masculine cultures like theUKand theRepublic of Irelandthere is a feeling that conflictsshould be resolved bya good fight... The industrial relationsscene in these countries is marked by such fights. If possible

management tries to avoid having to deal with labor unions at all,the labor union behaviour justifies this aversion ... In femininecultures like theNetherlands, Sweden, andDenmarkthere is apreference for resolving conflicts bycompromise andnegotiations(Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005: 143)(Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010),

and elsewhere.

Only one section (labor unions) are said to influenced by that which issupposed to be national.

Management is treated as immune to national culture and therefore(unlike workers) influenced by something non-cultural.

Can readily be seen to be


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yflawed

In Hofstede's 1980, 2002 'masculinity' index,Japan is the most masculine country and

Germany has the same score as GreatBritain, yet throughout the post-2nd WorldWar period their industrial relations has beenthe exemplar of co-operation.


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Tested at the most favourable level, thenational, both by:

(i) Non-ranked Dichotomy and (ii) a strongerComparative Ranking.

First against Hofstedes 6 (3:3) namedcountries;

Then against equivalent and larger groups(8:8).

More recent data for the six named countries


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More recent data for the six named countries weakest test (dichotomy) - fails


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Comparative ranking test - fails


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A necessary condition of valid comparison isthat the comparators are equivalents.

But the comparison in Hofstedes case studyis not equivalent: feminine countries are notcompared with countries with equivalentlevels of masculinity.


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The named feminine countries are at the extremefeminine end of the MAS Index but the named masculinecountries are not equivalent.

Sweden (most); Netherlands (3rd most); and Denmark(4th most).

Ireland (9th); Great Britain (joint 12th); USA (joint 19th)

Weakest test (dichotomy) -


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( y)fails

Comparative ranking test


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p galso fails

P-D Index instead of MAS


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Index - fails

Homicide predictions based on Hofstedes


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Homicide predictions based on Hofstede sP-D and MAS Indices - Fail

A post-Hofstedian notion of


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culture would:

Complexity and Richness: Be definitionally clear but without being over-reductiveconflating mind with just values is anorexic.

Incoherence: Recognise the incoherence/heterogeneity of cultures

Causal Plurality: Abandon the imperious claim that a specific culture is the sourceof just about everything and really acknowledge the causal roles of other culturesand non-cultural factors.

Level of Relevance: Be aware that what is accurate/useful at one level may not beat other levels.

Space: Cease being prisoner of the state or other defined space and concedethe reality of intra-country diversity.

Change: Acknowledge change avoiding nationalistic myths of essentialism.

Predictions: Admit that predicting is very difficult if its is really is about the futureavoid the myth of culture as an answering machine.

Identification: Concede that the complexity of culture makes identificationchallenging and avoid depictions that presuppose what it claims to have found.

Resonate: Be in line with current notions of culture in major disciplines.


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In short ...

unless we separate out the variousprocesses that are lumped together under theheading of culture, and then look beyond the

field of culture to other processes, we will notget very far in understanding any of it(Kuper, 1999: 247).


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Thank you

1. National Identifiable


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from the local
http://www.ibm.com/ukhttp://www.ibm.com/uk


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1. National Identifiable in the local

Version 1 (what is identified characterises everyindividual) presupposes that every national individual carries thesame national culture - what is to be found is presupposed

(catastrophic circularity). Contradicted even by his own data.

Version 2 (what is identified is the national average)Inprinciple there is always an average e.g. in the world, continent,country, region, cycling club, brothel, or whatever but why assume that

the average tendency in one micro-location is the national average?

Hofstedes data specifically: Employees not randomly selected andatypicality of IBM.

3. National Culture Creates Questionnaire ResponseDiff


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Differences

Immediate Circumstances:We suggest that much of the observeddifferences in values surveys scores are not in fact, cultural in nature,but simply reflect differences in circumstances between groups ofpeople (Maseland and van Hoorn, 2010).

Classification: Nationally classifieddata is not evidence ofnational causality. Almost every classification would producedifference - but what is that status of such differences? Hair colourculture?

Strategists not Dopes: Individuals are assumed to be mererelays of national culture:

As discussed earlier strategic answering would have occurred as thequestionnaire answers were not confidential.

4. National Culture Can Be Identified By Response


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y pDifference Analysis

Assumption 3 is a necessary but not sufficient condition of 4

The processes of producing national cultural depictions from thequestion answers is often unclear and sometimes bizarre. Robinson

(1983) describes the dimensions as hodgepodge of items few of whichrelate to the intended construct (See Dorfman & Howell, 1988; Bond, 2002,also)

Different questions have revealed different dimensions e.g. Schwartz

identified seven dimensions quite different than Hofstedes (1994).

5. Situationally unspecific i.e. its the sameh ithi ti


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everywhere within a nation

Claims to have identified national culture (or differences) that arenationally pervasive in the family, at school, at work, in politics(1992).

The IBM surveys (with all the other limitations described already) wasonly of employees,indeed only some categories of employees;undertaken within the workplace of a single company (of one industrial

type) which was in a specific location within each country; the questionwere almost entirely work-related; they were administered within theformal-workplace.

No parallel or repeat surveys were undertaken in additional workplacesor non-workplaces.


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Culture?

For a variety of complex reasons the idea of culture asa, or indeed the, key social driver has gained immensepopularity across a range of academic disciplines.

The popularity of the notion of culture as an explanation

and cure is not confined to the academy - manyinternational agencies, management consultants, and a

host of other groups and institutions have embraced it.

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