UNDERSTAND WORLD CULTURE

BY KIDENDEI SEGERETI S

Mc sweney’s (2002) rejects Hofstede’s model and finds national culture implausible as a systematically causal factor of behavior .his critique is examined for its useful warnings to those who follow Hofstede’s research and for its logical consistency .a paradigmatic perspective identifies where Mc Sweeney argues against Hofstede’s logic and premises. This indicates that both functionalist and other paradigms are needed for understanding social behavior in different cultures

The way it was developed for example when Hofstede began research his questnaire was not designed to measure employee satisfaction, morale and perception of work .he developed his dimensions of culture s an afterthought to the original purpose for the data collection in addition his research was not initially grounded in any theoretical framework based on cultural theory(Robert &Boyacigiller,1984)

Another critic of Hofstedes research is that he used an explanatory factor analysis as his statistical technique to develop the cultural dimensions .this approach s not considered statistically valid because it is based on trying a variety of options until one appears to fit rather than the more rigorous statistical approach of testing a specific set of parameters based on specific hypothesis (Fink and Monge ,1985)

In addition ,the results of the factor analysis as computed ,raise questions about  strength and interrelationship  of the factors that were isolated the results only demonstrated which factors could be lumped together in particular cluster rather than establishing construct validity or the reasonable certainty  that is possible to understand what the factors actually measure

In looking at various ,items used by Hofstede in his survey there is little apparent similarity or face validity between the operational definition s of individual and collectivism and the questionnaire items  that Hofstede claimed measured these category(the items seem not to match what is supposed to be measured)

Also Hofstede only studied employees in one company ,IBM this is major company that had a very strong corporate culture and was predominantly male at the time of data collection .it is uncleare  if the research now almost thirty five years old ,would generate the same results today ,given the changes within IBM and other factors .one study suggests that the results would probably be different today involved students from ten European countries and founded that different work goals were endorsed in mid-1990’s that had been identified in Hofstede’s earlier IBM based data

Using indigenous knowledge of Chinese culture and philosophy ,critiques Geert Hofstede’s fifth national culture dimension also referred as long term orientation the basic premise on which the dimension is founded is scrutinized and the way in which this indx has been argued that there is  philosophical flaw inherent in this  ‘new’ dimension ,given this fatal flaw and other methodological weaknesses the usefulness of Hofstedes fifth dimension is doubted .the article concludes by calling for new visions and perspective in our cross cultural research.

As long as it is remembered that Hofstede’s variable are general trends averaged across large numbers of individuals rather than predictors of individual behavior his approach does provide an interesting framework  for research and theorizing about  organizations and cultural differences while the issue of whether individualism and collectivism are two ends of a continuum remains unclear this particular aspect of cultural difference has frequent been used with success in a variety of research settings.