"Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy.
nuisance at best and often a disaster.
Geert Hofstede conducted perhaps the most comprehensive study of how.
Values in the workplace are influenced by culture. From 1967 to 1973, while.
working at IBM as a psychologist, he collected and analyzed data from over.
100,000 individuals from forty countries. From those results, and later.
additions, Hofstede developed a model that identifies four primary dimensions of.
differentiate cultures. These include: Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance,.
Masculinity-Femininity, Individualism-Collectivism, and Confucian Dynamism.
These dimensions were arrived in his 1980 publication, "Culture's consequences.
International differences in work-related values." The study took existing survey data.
(Sample size of 116,000) collected from a multinational corporation. The result was a .
score in each of the dimensions for 40 different countries. After a further study of the.
Asian culture, Hofstede added a fifth dimension in his theory, that of Long- and.
Short-term time orientation (LTO) .As with any generalized study, the results may or.
may not be applicable to specific individuals or events. In addition, although the.
Hofstede's results are categorized by country, often there is more than one cultural.
group within that country. In these cases there may be significant deviation from the.
study's result. An example is Canada, where the majority of English speaking .
Population and the minority French speaking population in Quebec has moderate.
cultural differences. Geert Hofstede's dimensions analysis can assist the business.
person or traveller in better understanding the intercultural differences within regions.
and between counties. Scores on the first four dimensions were obtained for 50.
countries and 3 regions on the basis of the IBM study, and on the fifth dimension for.
23 countries on the basis of student data collected by Bond.
