Talk:Geert Hofstede

Old discussion
Geert Hofstede originally put the cat amongst the pigeons (on the subject of the international relevance of American management theory - I'm sure there have been other cats, and other flocks of pigeons) in 1980 when he published a paper titled "Motivation, Leadership, and Organisation: Do American Theories Apply Abroad?".

In that paper, the result of an *astonishingly* large research effort, he asserted that there were four dimensions of national culture. Those four dimensions were 'power distance', 'uncertainty avoidance', 'individualism/collectivism' and 'masculinity'.

He probably didn't realise it when he 'posted', but his paper opened a big can of worms, lots of people got stuck right into him, many argued the toss with him (Australian English here, I hope I make some sense!!!)

Anyhow, in 1993, he published another paper on the same subject (actually, he has been a pretty prolific author, there is a *lot* of other stuff by him in the journals)....

... back on track... another paper called 'Cultural constraints in management theories'. Same deal. A natural extension of the first paper, far more entertaining though - he quotes Alice in Wonderland, and Tolstoy... :-) - Who is to be credited with the fifth dimension is dependent somewhat on interpretation. He attributes a Michael Bond with doing the research that highlighted the fifth dimension, so I'm not entirely sure whether we get to call all five as being 'owned' by Geert, or by someone else.... Food for thought I guess.

I have the papers here if anyone wants 'em. geoff wiki - at - sonic blue bear dot com

Masculinity IS on Hofstede's list - it's quality vs quantity of life that he doesn't include as one of the "five".

Geert Hofstede Article
In his books "Culture's Consequences"(2nd, fully revised edition, 2001) and Cultures and Organizations, Software of the Mind (2nd, revised edition 2005) Professor Hofstede, as stated in the article, identifies the five dimensions of culture. What I am a little confused about is that only two of the dimensions is represented in the article about Hofstede and his work. The other three links to other articles that deals with the same subjects, but not necessarily from Hofstedes perspectives. To make the confusion even worse, only 4 of the 5 dimensions has hyperlinks, whereas one of them links to the exactly same page the link is present in the first place. I think that someone (me?) either should write more about Hofstedes perspectives and research on those dimensions on the Hofstede article, or remove those two that currently are present. — Bagdad-Bob 18:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: -Fixed the looplink. -Added capital letters to dimensions.

Uncertainty avoidance
Myself, being from a "high uncertainty avoidance" culture (Portugal), resent this generalization: "Xenophobia is common and foreigners/minorities tend to be ostracized." I know this is false in my country from personal experience with many foreigners, however I can even supply a quote from the net : "The Portuguese are extraordinarily and charmingly self-critical. Almost everything foreign is viewed as being better. They are extremely welcoming to foreigners: it is the most xenophilic culture I know". Maybe the guy exagerates a bit, but I'd like this generalization to be substantiated, or be removed.193.136.128.14 19:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

+1 (being Portuguese myself)

- No rule without exceptions...Bagdad-bob

Country Scores
Should we add the country scores? or is that protected content from his website? Tekjester 10:40, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Quality of Life vs. Quantity of Life defnition bullet
Both definitions are said to be for Quality of Life. Obviously, this is a typo. Someone who knows which is which should correct it. Unfortunately, that someone is not me.

Unsourced criticism
I removed a paragraph that criticized Hofstede's work. The criticism was valid, but I didn't think it belonged in the section that describes his work.

Also -- just as an FYI -- Hofstede is a descriptive social scientist in the traditional sense. He's not trying to get people riled up, he's simply describing what he found in this HUGE amount of data. He was working for IBM, and discovered a huge amount of data they had gathered on their employees. He took the data, analyzed it and published his findings. Simple as that.

If you actually take the time to read what he's written, he makes it quite clear that the dimensions are generalizations and shouldn't be applied to individuals. He also welcomes criticism and has actually encouraged people to disprove his theories.

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~culture/hofstede.htm

Robko626 01:18, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

"scored higher than...", etc. in the last two bullet points of the "Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture" section
Speaking of uncertainties to avoid, the statements towards the end of the last two bullet points are infuriatingly ambiguous. This reader is left looking for a writer to strangle instead of being left with a better understanding of what said writer MEANT by "x scored higher than y" in a category when it was never established which value is at the "lower" and which at the "higher" end of each spectrum! - 75.17.149.251 00:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

some thoughts....
It'd be nice to start the article with Hofstede's cv, or basic bio info. Also, I came to this page looking for a topic on "power distance" - does anyone besides me think that that concept deserves its own page at Wikipedia? Me, I came across it in a scholarly article referencing the concept, so it must be notable in its own right, no? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 20:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.78.64.105 (talk) 05:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

japan
why the hell would he say japan is the most masculine country? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.172.154.194 (talk) 17:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Slovakia
In the section on "masculinity", I removed the passage that questioned Hofstede's research on Slovakia. The only evidence it used in support was the fact that Slovakia, although close to the Czech Republic, and having been part of the same state, was said by Hofstede to have a different score in masculinity and power distance. That evidence was not sufficient: there is nothing to suggest that countries geographically close to one another will have similar cultures; Slovakia and the Czech Republic are in fact no longer part of the same state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.0.241 (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

minor edit
"Hofstede's work has [not just] also been criticized because he seems to identify cultures with nations based on the supposition that within each nation there is a uniform national culture. Other types of cultures are acknowledged to exist but allowed little, if any, influence."

Apparently, the two little words 'not just' above represent someone's effort to describe the criticism as unjust. I am removing them; if the person resents the criticism, he/she needs to provide some expanded remarks. I.e., a complete sentence or so.74.62.170.95 (talk) 21:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Split of "Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture"
I wonder if the contents of the "Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture" section shouldn't be split to a new article? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Splitting Biography of Geert Hofstede and his Framework for Assessing Culture
I have cleaned up this article, and added more sections about Professor Hofstede's biography. Another article about the Framework for Assessing Culture is being created. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prernas15 (talk • contribs) 18:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

This is reply to Piotr's post about possibly splitting this article into two new articles, one which is a life biography of Geert Hofstede itself, and another into the framework he developed for assessing culture. This might be a better fit because there is a lot of information about his framework that does not really pertain to his life and vis versa. Also, his framework for assessing culture really belongs with a different set of wiki articles in organizational culture. We would like to begin to work on splitting these two articles as soon as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prernas15 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Israel
The idea that Israel accepts anything that it does not want to accept is ludicrous, largely because it enjoys the protection of the US and the approval of the Great Powers (euphemistically known as the International Community). Pamour (talk) 19:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This is irrelevant, inappropriate, and should go away from the talk page. Ψν Psinu 06:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

New material - origin?
The stuff added in recent days is great (if it's correct). But there's no indication of where it came from. Is this sourced/sourceable or unreferenced (original research) material? If the former, please get the refs in here. thx Ψν Psinu 06:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I've been updating this page as part of a class project. I will have the refs up in the next couple of weeks. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.2.247.150 (talk) 17:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Birthdate
His birthdate is listed as October 5 in the text, but October 2 in the profile box. Most likely only one of those is correct. -JP — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.32.165.65 (talk) 12:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

link needs changing or updating?
Hofstede, Geert (March 2002). "Dimensions Do Not Exist: A reply to Brendan McSweeney". Human Relations (Sage Publications) 55 (11). seems to be a bad link. Kdammers (talk) 06:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

details on the five measures
I reverted the removal of the details on the five measures. The removal was justified based on alleged promotionalism and redundancy. I don't see how it is promotional: it doesn't hype the mehtod:  jsut gives details of the categories, sort of operationalizing the terms. I couldn't find the same material elsewhere in the article, so I don't think it is redundant. Kdammers (talk) 05:15, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The source is unreliable and promotional in nature.
 * This article is about the person, not his research.
 * Much of this article already describes the research you want to expand even further.
 * The expansion was done with no regard to the related information already in this article, nor to the article describing his research. --Ronz (talk) 16:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

IBM data - Hofstede didn't collect it
Hofstede didn't create the questionaires or gather data himself. Prior to his employment, the original data had been sitting at IBM for a number of years -- unused.

Robko626 (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Source? --Ronz (talk) 21:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

"Reception" - GCHQ, NSA
Here, it is reported (in German) that the GCHQ and the NSA do targeted interventions in the Internet in the public opinion formation, in activities, information and environment of individual people/individual groups and in processes in companies. There are leaked film documents in the article, by GCHQ as classified secret and with the United States together used (identifiable by the note "REL[ation] TO USA"). These films graphically structure the strategies/tactics for the interventions, also the aspects and factors, which have to be heeded on principle for the strategies/tactics (especially slides 6, 7, 8, & 10; comprehensive and in English here). On these, it dives on several times the term "Hofstede Dimensions" (slides 7 & 8) and in the article is written, among other things: "In addition, the British [agency] uses insights of the social sciences to influence debates on the Internet and bring about a desired outcome/ending." I am of English not very powerful, but if someone feels obliged to make the effort to research a little bit to integrate something of WP-compliant source-based concrete into this WP-article, he would certainly find something here (there, take a look at the links (too)). --88.69.235.214 (talk) 00:55, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Gerhart and Fang's Criticism
This article reference (Gerhart and Fang, 2005)is a good one and the section is very well written. However, I think some mention of the fact that (apparently) Hofstede's 1980 work was based with ANOVA and therefore effect sizes ought to have be measured with Omega squared. That is, the work was a correlational study not a predictive study. The discussion involving the coefficient of determination R squared is good but it should be mentioned that Hofstede (apparently) did not use regression in the initial analysis (Omega squared is therefore appropriate, and it apparently was never analyzed). The issue is that a statistical procedure that showed statistically significant correlational differences is being used for prediction, but that cause and effect has not been determined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.78.254.128 (talk) 22:53, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Critiques subsection too large
This sub-section should simply and briefly summarize the critiques in Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. A single paragraph should be fine, rather than the current five. --Ronz (talk) 17:52, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think it is fine. No reason the critiques should be brief rather than substantive.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
 * We've a separate article on the topic. This article is about the person. The subsection is one of the largest in this entire article. That reeks of coatracking.
 * Granted, if the subsection focused on Hofstede specifically, then there wouldn't be a problem. But that doesn't appear to be the case. --Ronz (talk) 19:06, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

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