Hofstede's Cultural Framework

Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, developed a widely used platform that established the dimensions of culture. Read this chapter to better understand these dimensions and see how they can be applied to different countries and cultures.

Cultural Dimension 4: Masculinity

The fourth and final dimension we consider is masculinity, the degree to which a society emphasizes traditional masculine qualities such as advancement and earnings. In high masculinity societies, work tends to be very important to people, gender roles are clear, and work takes priority over other aspects of a person's life, such as family and leisure. In addition, masculine societies emphasize earnings and achievements, and employees tend to work very long hours and take very little vacation time.

(Table 5) shows the masculine scores for selected societies. As the table shows, Anglo cultures such as the U.S. and Canada tend to have high masculinity. This is not surprising given that both the U.S. and Canada tend to have some of the highest number of hours worked. In contrast, Latin European countries such as France and Spain have much lower masculinity as reflected in the importance of leisure in these societies. Scandinavian cultures also reflect low masculinity, a characteristic that is consistent with the preference for quality of life in such countries. We also see that many of the emerging nations have medium to high masculinity.

(Table 5) provides some more insights into the implications of masculinity differences for work-related issues. As you can see, companies in high masculinity societies can count on very work-oriented employees. Multinationals are therefore advised to motivate their employees through pay and security. In contrast, individuals in more feminine societies tend to prefer interesting work and more leisure. Strong motivational policies in these societies emphasize a balance between work and leisure, and multinationals in such societies tend to have stronger policies catering to both genders.

Table 5: Implications of Masculinity
Type of Work Activity	High Masculinity	Low Masculinity
Relationship with work	Live in order to work Preference for high pay Workers look for security, pay and interesting work	Work in order to live Preference for lower number of work hours Workers look for better working conditions and relationships in work
Managers' characteristics	Managers seen as cultural heroes Successful managers primarily exhibit male characteristics Managers need to be competitive, firm, aggressive, and decisive Managers are very ambitious Fewer women in management Managers prepared to move family for career reasons	Managers are employees like others Successful managers are seen as possessing both male and female characteristics Managers hold fairly modest career ambition More women in management Managers less prepared to uproot family because of career move
Other issues	Large pay gap between genders Job applicants oversell their abilities Absences due to sickness lower General preference for larger companies Conflicts are resolved through fighting until the best "man" wins	Low salary gap between top and bottom of company [what about gender gap?] Managers feel paid adequately and are satisfied Absences because of sickness higher Preference for smaller organizations Conflicts are resolved through compromise and negotiations

One of the underlying themes of cross-cultural research is that countries tend to cluster around cultural dimensions. For instance, we saw how Anglo cultures, Latin American cultures, and Scandinavian cultures countries tend to share similar cultural characteristics. Such categorizations are useful because they help managers simplify their organizational world.

Describe Hofstede's approach to defining national culture.
Describe power distance and its implications for managers in cultural contexts.
Describe individualism versus collectivism and its implications for managers in cultural contexts.
Describe uncertainty avoidance and its implications for managers in cultural contexts.
What is culture, and how can culture be understood through Hofsetde's cultural framework?

Given the importance of globalization, any serious international management students will need to be able to understand the cultural aspects of a society in which they may find themselves and will need to learn how to adapt to various cultural conditions. The most popular cultural framework, the Hofstede scheme, was developed by Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social scientist who surveyed over 88,000 employees in 72 countries in which IBM had subsidiaries. He developed this cultural model primarily on the basis of differences in values and beliefs regarding work goals. This effort resulted in four main dimensions: power distance (the degree to which societies accept power differences and authority in society), individualism (the degree to which a society focuses on the relationship of the individual to the group), uncertainty avoidance (the degree to which people in a society are comfortable with uncertainty and unpredictable situations), and masculinity (degree to which a society emphasizes traditional masculine qualities such as advancement and earnings).