Criticism on Hofstede's Concept

Although Hofstede conducted and repeated several surveys and the outcome was significantly the same, there is a general discussion going on whether or not culture is changing. Hofstede takes culture as something fixed (2006) whereas Weber sees culture as a always changing process between pre-modern, modern and post-modern times (Inglehart, 2005). Denying influential, relevant factors like a changing political system, changing family structures, the media or globalisation may result in unclear and vanished cultural dimensions. Indeed, Hofstede differs between different manifestations of culture. Whereas symbols, heroes and rituals are more likely to change, values are quite stable (2006, p. 15). Weber on the other side represents the idea, that we live how we think, therefore values are not separable from practices as rituals or symbols. Nethertheless Weber’s theory starts hundreds years ago and results in the post-modern, western times. For him just these three kinds of times exists. Hofstede on the other hand holds consistent survey outcome but just for the last fifty years, therefore ongoing research may provide informations about changing cultures, too. Researchers as Wu (2006), who conducted a restudy of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in Taiwan and the United States, already says that work-related cultural values are not static and do change over time. Hence Wu suggests to rework all kind of cultural theories from time to time.

For the majority of countries the cultural dimensions are based on employees of the company IBM. Even though these employees are mainly from the originate country, there might be a distortion regarding which kind of people work for a global company like IBM. Is the average employee representative for the average Dutch, American  or Vietnamese? Especially in countries e. g. with a high rate of illiteracy, the average IBM employee may be more representative for the intellectual bourgeoisie. Hofstede recommends different levels of culture. Depending on the participation, there might be different and sometimes contradictory cultures unified in one person. Nethertheless if it’s coming to represent national cultural dimensions there are no differentiations to levels.  

Regarding the theory on which the cultural dimensions are based on, the base is an advantage as well as a disadvantage. Referring to the advantage, the items which build the dimensions deriving from a factor analysis. Thus the used items are empirically checked throughout years. Therefore the theory of the cultural dimensions should be seen as reliable, valid and objective. Blodgett, Bakir and Rose (2008) conducted a study to check validity and reliability on individual level. Outcomes show a lack of construct validity as well as the items show a lack of face validity. Besides this the original four dimensions show low values in reliability. Factor analysis did not result in the wanted structure. Therefore extra research is needed to complete the dimensions in a quality criteria consistent way.

On the other hand there may be items missing which are crucial and yet not thought. Therefore throughout the years new dimensions, as Indulgence - Restraint are created. Nethertheless it is only a current state of the art not the complete truth. Furthermore, as the construct of intelligence, the consisting items are human made and represent an quite western way of definition. Other national scientist may have develop different dimensions with different emphasis. In summary the construct of cultural dimensions should be seen as a human made instrument and not as the indisputable truth.

One problem is the division in different dimensions. The dimensions are based on different items. Nethertheless connections and correlations between the dimensions exist. Hofstede (2006, p. 111) proposes a negative correlation between collectivism and power distance. That means, that countries, which are scoring high in collectivism, probably score low in power distance and vice versa. This makes it difficult to distinguish between the different dimensions.

Heuristically the outcomes of the dimensions may surprise. As an example Argentina, Germany and Russia are scoring quite different in Masculinity with Germany being rather masculine (score= 66), Argentina neither masculine nor feminine (score= 56) and Russia being rather feminine (score= 36). Although this represents Russia in exemplaric items as homosexuality is seen as something integrated and woman and men can be sensitive, responsible and ambitious, women and men study the same subjects, both genders can chose their jobs and so on. On the other hand the German culture rather represents the opposite. Taking the Spartacus Gay Travel Index 2018 (Spartacus, 2018) Argentina represents the 34. place, Germany the third and Russia the 157.place out of 197. Concerning the Gender Gap Index 2014, Argentina ranks 31, Germany 12 and Russia 75 out of 142 (World Economic Forum, 2018). The Gender Gap Index unifies economic participation and opportunities, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment. Nevertheless the focus on specific items on the dimensions might not be useful but show at the same time, that it is very difficult to get the whole significance of one dimensions. A score of 65 from one country might mean something completely different than the score of 65 from another country.

The probably most discussed dimension of Hofstede’s 6D-Model is the one of Masculinity and Femininity. It was in fact so debatable, that Hofstede felt the need to publish a book about this two key words, explaining background and  misconceptions of the dimension. In “Masculinity and Femininity - The Taboo Dimension of National Culture” he talks about how equality between the sexes is not automatically gives in feminine cultures: “Femininity is not the same as feminism. Feminism is an ideology taking different form in masculine and feminine cultures; there is masculine and feminine feminism (Hofstede 1998, S. 18)”. It is moreover already stated in “Culture’s Consequences”, that this dimension is referring more to the social Gender role, than to the biological Sex. But although Hofstede explains how he wants the terms to be understood, the problems regarding this dimension seem to continue. The reason therefore can be seen in the actual name itself. While the other dimensions are labeled after what they actually express and stand for (e.g. a Long-Term oriented culture is oriented in Long-Terms, a individualistic culture values the individual, etc.), the terms “masculinity” and “femininity” are only descriptive. One problem that occurs here is that there is sort of an international agreement what is stereotypically feminine and what is stereotypically masculine, but still the interpretations of the exact substance differ. The highly equality fixated German society might see a personal flaw in being titled “masculine” as it is also a very modest society, that doesn’t necessarily wants to be connected with economic fights and grim achievement obsession. On the other hand the Russian image of women is a more traditional and more “feminine” compared to Germany. A Russian Supervisor might therefore feel insulted when told his cultures behaves rather feminine. So the actual problem with this dimension might not even be about the content but about the naming. Regardless of the above-mentioned criticism of the scientific approach of the IBM-survey, Hofstede and his team found certain data about what they thought could best be described with “Masculinity” and “Femininity”. The search for a fitting generic term seems more than understandable, but to generalize stereotypical traits of a biological sex is something that would be frowned upon nowadays. One has to keep in mind, that the terms of the 6D-Model haven’t changed since the 80ties. And although the Model claims to be universally valid, irrespective of the time it is used, the image of women changed and is changing rapidly within a increasingly short amount of time. That being said, one might concede that there are things in our society that can’t be said now, due to political correctness, but could be said 35 years ago. The deduce that “this is typically feminine” and “this is typically masculine” is something like that. We don’t know if the problem could be solved by changing the names e.g. into “Harmony-driven vs. Performance-driven”, but it might be a attempt worth trying.