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"An important, sophisticated and complex monograph. . . . Both the theoretical analysis and the empirical findings constitute major contributions to cross-cultural value analysis and the cross-cultural study of work motivations and organizational dynamics. This book is also a valuable resource for anyone interested in a historical or anthropological approach to cross-cultural comparisons."
(PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY )Product Description
The long-anticipated Second Edition of a true classic is thoroughly updated with an expanded coverage and scope. This excellent work explores the differences in thinking and social action that exist between members of more than 50 modern nations and will be the new benchmark for scholars and professionals for years to come. It argues that people carry `mental programmes' which are developed in the family in early childhood and reinforced in school and organizations, and that these mental programmes contain a component of national culture. They are most clearly expressed in the different values that predominate among people from different countries.
This introductory chapter deals with the definition and measurement of mental programs in people in general, and values and culture in particular. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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This book is potentially amongst the most important reads for the 'dislocated' International families; we often refer to as Expatriates. It is, however, equally important to International HR managers, teams and possibly even to, for instance, exchange students and other open minded individuals.
The book covers one of the best longitudinal, global research studies that have ever been conducted. This brilliant and most valuable extensive research is presented in such a way that is that it resembles a 600 page manual, or even worse; a resemblance of a phone book.
I have, however, both as a professor, as well as a coach or consultant directed people towards research finding, and observation, of issues they were struggling with. Reading the findings and observations of large groups of people in similar situations has often times brought enormous understanding and resolve. I have had client's tell me that they learned a more valuable lesson concerning their expatriate situation from reading a few pages than they learned from their multiple management training courses.
That is way I still rate the book with a 5 start review.
Drs. Govert Doedijns MSc. Adjunct Professor in the Behavioural and Social Sciences and Senior Partner and M.D. of The Paris Institute
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.
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.
At every level--whether at clan level within a small Native group such as the one we worked with in Canada, whether it is at a village level in the rural setting I grew up, whether it is at urban level, whether it is at regional or provincial level, whether it is at ethnic or subcultural level, or whether it is at national or other macro-geographic regional level--we can generalize certain culture traits. This is not an exact science, but helpful nevertheless. Hofstede's research infers such generalities through the aggregate of responses from individuals (quantitative research) who all work in the same multinational company. It is just a way to analyze a glimpse of reality. (Perfect it is not, but it is immensely helpful.)
I read Hofstede's material after I had read Brendan McSweeney's full rejection of Hofstede's research, methodology and conclusion. McSweeney's article, which appeared in Human Relations Vol. 55(1), goes well beyond constructive academic critique, but I bought into his reasoning and consequently was thoroughly prejudiced against Hofstede's approach... until I actually started to read his material and discovered that McSweeney, though scoring some points, made Hofstede into a caricature. It is easy to shoot heavy artillery at hugely inflated monsters -- monsters McSweeney unjustifiably pumped up out of Hofstede's material. Did he hit the target? Absolutely. How can one miss inflated distortions? As for me, I find Hofstede's approach helpful as giving another view of the hugely complex reality of people and their behavior.
Does Hofstede's approach give a complete picture? No, nor does it claim to be--it gives culture traits in broad strokes, and that within a context of work. The massive project of House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2004) with the involvement of numerous peers builds and improves on Hofstede in Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies. At the very least one can say that Hofstede's research has been broadly accepted and validated by peers. True, this does not make a theory and methodology infallible, but at the very least one has to give it considerable more respect than Nemesis can muster.
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