Transcript Is ‘National Culture’ A Myth? A critique of the claims of

Is ‘National Culture’ A Myth?
A critique of the claims of Geert
Hofstede
Research Seminar 12 November 2003 at Royal
Holloway
Professor Brendan McSweeney
School of Management
Royal Holloway
University of London
“The data obtained from within a single MNC does have the
power to uncover the secrets of entire national cultures”
Geert Hofstede, 1980:44
“Tread softly for you tread on my dreams” W. B. Yeats
The notion of the enduring uniqueness of
each nation people has a long history



In 1797 the French counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre
declared “I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians. But for man,
I declare I have never in my life met him.”
W. B. Yeats claimed that there was a national "Collective
Unconscious or Anima Mundi of the race" (1922)
“Immigrants seem to be flooding into Germany nowadays; I don’t
know why, because history suggests that if they wait around long
enough, Germany will come to them” Jay Leno, Tonight Show
 “The problem with Hitler was that he was German” A.J. P. Taylor
(in Davies, 1999)
… so too has rejection





Samuel Beckett repudiated Yeats’ notion of "collective unconscious" as
"sanctimonious clap-trap".
Slater says that the idea of an individual or a group as a “monolithic
totality … is delusional and ridiculous” (1970)
Benedict Anderson has vividly described nations as ‘imagined communities’
(1991)
Anthropologists Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1992) have written: "we
are now recognising that the territorially distinct cultures anthropologists
claimed they were studying were never as autonomous as they imagined".
Philip Bock unhesitatingly states “We must conclude that the uniformity
assumption is false” (1999)
Wider Significance
In most arenas attributing unity and continuity to ‘race’ is no longer
acceptable – it has been replaced with the notion of ‘national culture’.











W. W. M. Eiselen – the intellectual architect of apartheid - stated in 1929
that “culture not race was the true basis of difference, the sign of destiny”
The policy and analytical significance of ‘national culture’ largely depends on
what degree of causal power is attributed to it - from a mere epiphenomenon,
a powerless superstructure to, at the other extreme, a supremely independent
variable, the superordinate power in society.
The homogenizing effects – or not – of ‘globalization
Potential for transnational developments e.g. EU
Basis for acceptance as a citizen
Education policy
‘Universal’ human rights
Conceptions of national identity
National ‘guilt’
Etc.
Multiple organizational management, locational, and marketing implications
Significance of Hofstede

A National Cultural Determinist – little or no causal role for

Claims to have:



other cultural or non-cultural factors. “It shapes everything” Hickson and
Pugh (1995: 90).
Demonstrated the existence of, and measured, and compared enduring and
systematically causal ‘national cultures’ in scores of ‘nations’ i.e. countries
Shown how multiple characteristics of those countries (educational systems,
ways of doing business, architecture, cuisine, etc.) reflect and can be
understood through the relevant national culture
To have done so scientifically (117,000 questionnaires, etc.)
Huge Following




Significant following in all management disciplines
Widely used by management training companies
The most cited non-US author in the entire Social Science Citation Index
By 1998 Hofstede was able to claim that ‘a true paradigm shift has occurred’
OVERVIEW



Briefly describe Hofstede's claims about national
cultures including the sense in which he uses the
notion of ‘culture’ and ‘national culture’ specifically
Describe and critique his ‘identification’
Describe and critique his attempts to illustrate the
explanatory value/usefulness/predictive ability of his
national cultural descriptions
Hofstede’s Conception of
National Culture






Territorially Unique
Nationally Shared (common component or statistical average
(“central tendency”) – inconsistently applied)
Subjective: software of the mind; mental
programs
Determinate (not merely an influence, but the influence
Identifiable Characteristics and Predictable
Consequences
Enduring (for many centuries past and to come)
The dimensions used by
Hofstede



The dimensions can be useful in structuring analysis –
they have a long history in the social sciences
They are thus not ‘Hofstede’s dimensions’ but the
dimensions he uses
Discussed at length in the 1952 magisterial review of
the anthropological conception of culture by Alfred
Kroeber (Berkley) and Clyde Kluckhohn (Harvard)(a
legacy unacknowledged by Hofstede)

More extensive and subtle (not bi-polar) dimensions in
the literature (e.g. Schwartz’s work)
117,000 IBM questionnaires
Not as many used as is suggested



Combined figure for two surveys
66 countries, but only 40 ‘yielded’ scores
As a result, the number of IBM employees whose
responses were used: less than one-third of 117,000
Unrepresentative




In only 6 (out of the 66) countries were there more than
1,000 in both surveys
In 15 countries reported on - less than 200 respondents
First survey in Pakistan 37 employees and second 70
Only surveys in Hong Kong, Taiwan (pop. 23m) and
Singapore 88, 71 and 58 respectively
IBM questionnaires





Not designed to identify ‘national culture’ but
by IBM for corporate purposes in response to
its concern with declining morale
Not independently administered
Often completed in groups without
confidentiality safeguards
Respondents knew of possible consequences
of their answers for them – therefore
‘gaming’
Blue collar workers’ responses excluded –
marketing and sales staff only
5 Crucial Assumptions (each
necessary – each problematic)
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Every micro-location is typical of the national
Every respondent had already been permanently
programmed with three non-interactive cultural
‘programs’
National culture creates response differences
National culture can be identified through the
response differences
It’s the same in every situation in a nation
1.
National Identifiable
from the local
1. National Identifiable in the Local

Version 1 (the national is uniform)

Version 2 (an average tendency is the average
tendency)


presupposes that
every national individual carries the same national culture - what is
to be found is presupposed (catastrophic circularity): Something is
presupposed and imposed, and yet depicted as an empirical
achievement.
In principle there is always an average tendency e.g. in the world,
continent, country, region, cycling club, brothel or whatever but
why assume that an average tendency in one micro-location is the
national tendency? Would anyone seriously suggest that the
central tendency in one of Australia’s 573 Aboriginal societies the
same as the Australian ‘national culture’ (as measured in IBM
Australia by Hofstede)?
Atypicality of IBM
Assumption 2 Every respondent had already
been permanently programmed with three noninteractive cultures
 Only one organizational culture in any and every IBM subsidiary
 So a cultural monopoly, no harmonious, dissenting, emergent, contradictory, organizational
cultures in IBM
 One global occupational culture for each occupation
 No interaction between the three cultures
 No other cultural (or other) influences on the responses
(OrC + OcC + NC1) – (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2
(OrC + OcC + NC1) – (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2
(OrC + OcC + NC1) – (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2
Very convenient! But reductive, mechanical, impoverished,
and absurd
2. Cont. Three distinctive
Components

Organizational: There is only one inter and intra subsidiary
organizational culture (not cultures) in IBM (Hofstede):
Plausible? Dogmatic! Pronounced to exist. Hofstede fails to
engage with extensive multiple organizational cultures literature


Occupational: Throughout the world members of the same
‘occupation’ share an identical world-wide occupational
culture (Hofstede). Matching desirable (mundane), but criticism
of implications drawn; occupational culture of Turkish laboratory
clerk same as Texan laboratory clerk; British accountant = German
accountant etc. Nil effect of different accounting: courses;
professions (ICAEW; CIMA, ACCA; CIPFA; ICAS, etc.); different
types and significance of capital markets; post qualifying courses
and work;etc.;
Individuals as cultural ‘blotting paper’ who have been immersed in
homogeneous occupational fluid (Fraber, 1950)
2. Three distinctive Components
Cont.
“Values are acquired in one’s early youth, mainly in the
family and in the neighbourhood, and later at school. By
the time a child is 10 years old, most of its basic values
have been programmed into its mind … For
occupational values the place of socialisation is the
school or university, and the time is in between
childhood and adulthood” (Hofstede, 1991:182)
My criticism is not of the possible enduring impact early
influences but of the claims that (a) these experience
alone are significant, and (b) that the content and
impact of ‘occupational’ experiences are globally
uniform and unchanging
3. National Culture Creates Questionnaire
Response Differences

Classification: Nationally classified data is not evidence
of national causality. Almost every classification would produce
difference - but what is that status of such differences?
‘Where the unexplained variance is rather large … we can easily fool
ourselves into believing that we know something simply because we
have a name for it’ Jim March, 1966:69

Dopes: Individuals as mere relays of national culture
Q. To which one of the above types [described] would you say your
superior most closely corresponds?
Completion often in groups and with foreknowledge that managers
were expected to develop corrective actions. Would confidential
research undertaken by independent researchers have obtained the
same responses?
4. National Culture Can Be Identified By
Response Difference Analysis


Assumption 3 is a necessary but not sufficient condition of 4
The links between the questions analysed and the dimension they
are supposed to indicate are often unclear, sometimes bizarre”.
Robinson (1983) describes the dimensions as “hodgepodge” of items “few
of which relate to the intended construct” (See Dorfman & Howell, 1988;
Bond, 2002, also)


Different questions have ‘revealed’ different dimensions e.g.
Schwartz ‘identified’ seven dimensions “quite different than
Hofstede’s” (1994).
Bi-polarity of dimensions e.g. either individualism or collectivism but
“the two can coexist and are simply emphasised more or less
depending on the situation” Harry Triandis, 1996:42
5. Situationally Specific i.e. it’s the same
everywhere within a nation
Claims to have identified national culture (or differences) that
are nationally pervasive “in the family, at school, … at work,
in politics” (1992) hence his claim that just about every
human construct (institution, architecture, etc.) are
“consequences of ‘national culture’
 Survey (with all its other limitations) was only of employees,
indeed only some categories of employees; undertaken
within the workplace which was in a specific location within
each country; the question were almost entirely work-related;
they were administered within the formal-workplace
 No parallel surveys were undertaken in non-workplaces
 Ironically Hofstede is committed to one situational specificity:
the nation, but blind about all others

SECOND TYPE OF
JUSTIFICATION
 Hofstede peppers his books and articles with
descriptions of events which he employs to “validate”
his measurements of ‘national cultures’ and to
demonstrate that they “affect human thinking, feeling,
and acting, as well as organizations and institutions, in
predictable ways” (2001: xix).
 ‘No part of our lives is exempt’ (1991:170)

Again methodological critique
If descriptions of historical/contemporary events are to
serve as validity tests of determining influence they
should meet the following criteria:
(a) no counter events in the same country;
(b) the occurrence of similar events - and no
counter-events - in other countries with
comparable Hofstedeian cultural configurations;
and
(c) no similar events in countries with very
dissimilar cultural configurations.
Hofstede did not apply these tests in conducting
his ‘research’ and his stories fail these tests
Example
“Freud was an Austrian; and there are good reasons in the culture
profile of Austria in the IBM data why his theory would be
conceived in Austrian rather than elsewhere … Feelings of guilt and
anxiety develop [according to Freud] when the ego is felt to be
giving in to the id. … The Austrian culture is characterized by the
combination of a very low power distance with a fairly high
uncertainty avoidance. The low power distance means that there is
no powerful superior who will take away our uncertainties for us;
One has to carry these oneself. Freud’s superego is an inner
uncertainty-absorbing device, an interiorized boss …
[Austria's] very high MAS [masculinity] score sheds some light on
Freud’s concern with sex” (Hofstede, 2001:385)(emphasis added).
No uniform attitude to authority in Austrian
writing
Some Austrian Writers were/are suspicious of authority
– but some are very supportive
The Austrian Hitler* urged complete submission to a “powerful
superior” in Mein Kampf;
 As did the Viennese born prolific and influential writer Guido von
List whom in Der Unbesiegbare (The Invincible) and other
books prohesised and unquestioningly supported the arrival of
the 'strong man from above'.
 In 1905 Freud published Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality. Around the same time Austrian writer Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs) which
focused on voluntary submission to humiliations administered by
fur-clad women and the ultimate fantasy of submission to the all
powerful man - was re-published.

* Hitler lived in Austria until he was 24 years old long after Hofstede claims that an
individual has indelibly acquired a national culture
“The [Austrian] low power distance means that there is no powerful
superior who will take away our uncertainties for us” (Hofstede, 2001:385)
90% of Austrians voted for unification with
fascist Germany in the 1938 Anschluss and so
to be under the control of a powerful leader
Sex



Fellow Austrian, Felix Salten, wrote the pornographic best-seller Josefine
Mutzenbacher: Die Lebensgeschichte einer weinerischen Dirne, von ihr
selbst erzählt (Josefine Mutzenbacher: A Viennese Whore's Life Story, Told
By Herself). This is further ‘validation’ in Hofstede's terms, but like the
rest of his stories it's just an isolated untested anecdote.
Many Austrian writers - contrary to the implication in Hofstede's story - are
not 'concern[ed] with sex' (Hofstede, 2001:385). There is, for instance, little
mention of sex in Austrian Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf or in the writings of
the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Felix Salten also wrote the
extremely successful asexual animal novel Bambi - later adopted by Walt
Disney.
Countries with radically different Hofstedian MAS scores from Austria (2nd
most masculine) - such as Sweden (the least masculine) produce just as
much literature about sex as does Austria.
Seeking to explain the ‘sources’ of someone's scholarly ideas is
challenging – mechanically attributing them to some alleged
characteristics in a ‘national culture’ is startlingly stupid.
A genuinely open exploration of the conditions of possibility and the
possible influences on Freud's theories would surely consider amongst many other possible factors - his birth and early years in
Moravia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but now in the
Czech Republic); his family and school backgrounds; his later
education; his class; his Jewishness; the extensive anti-Semitism in
Vienna, his relationship with his wife and children; those he analysed;
his network of friends - Austrian and non-Austrian; the significant age
gap between his parents; his non-religious upbringing in a turbulent
turn of the century imperial city (Vienna); the decline of the AustroHungarian Empire; what he read; his mentors, and so on, and so on.
Linking a national cultural dimension with the views of a writer is an
easy but facile 'game' to play. It is as intellectually spurious and
equally invalid as the statement that Freud developed his theories
because he was born on 6th May and therefore a ‘Taurus’.
Another Example
In masculine cultures like the UK and the Republic of Ireland there is a
feeling that conflicts should be resolved by a good fight ... The
industrial relations scene in these countries is marked by such fights.
If possible management tries to avoid having to deal with labor unions
at all, the labor union behaviour justifies this aversion” Hofstede
(1991:92)




Ranking in Hofstede’s Masculinity Index: Ireland (joint 7th); GB (9th)
Only one section (‘labor unions’) are said to influenced by that which is
supposed to be national
Management is treated as immune to n.c. and influenced by something noncultural
In Hofstede's 'masculinity' index, Japan is the most masculine country and
Germany has the same score as Great Britain, yet throughout the post-2nd World War period their industrial relations has been the exemplar of cooperation.
Roche and Geary (2000) found 'team-working in 57% of Irish workplaces;
direct employee participation in one-third of them; and that … Ireland is in the
top league for employee participation'.
Working Days lost in industrial disputes
per 1000 employees (annual averages)
Masculine Ireland
Masculine GB
Feminine Spain
1961-65
337.5
127.0
14.1
Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook
So Hofstede is correct!!!??
Ranking: Ireland 7th
GB
8th
Spain 30th
1966-70
625.6
222.6
37.1
1971-75
292.7
538.6
95.6
Working Days lost in industrial disputes
per 1000 employees (annual averages)
1961-65
337.5
127.0
14.1
Masculine Ireland
Masculine GB
Feminine Spain
Masculine Ireland
Masculine GB
Feminine Spain
1976-80
716.1
521.7
1,089.8
Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook
1966-70
625.6
222.6
37.1
1981-85
360.6
387.4
400.9
1971-75
292.7
538.6
95.6
1986-90
183.7
117.5
433.6
Steps towards a real analysis
Even a preliminary analysis of industrial relations
'masculine' Ireland would need to consider: the
common educational background of many of the
employees and managers; the dominant position of
one trade union; the series of national pay
agreements and partnership deals between
government, employers and trade unions; employee
appointment of one third of the main board of state
companies; the effects of changes in fiscal policy on
take-home pay; the rivalries between craft unions
wholly based in Ireland and those with continuing
affiliations to largely UK based trade unions; and so
forth.
Hofstede’s chronic a proiriism
Vindicating not Validating



He fails to look for counter-evidence. Consciously or
not he fits a very partial account of events to a
particular national culture depiction. His stories are
mere dogmatic fitting to what he already ‘knows’
Karl Popper states that ‘so long as a theory
withstands detailed and severe tests … we may say
that it has proved its mettle or that it is
corroborated.’ Hofstede’s stories cannot withstand
even the mildest testing
The only serious question left re Hofstede’s work is
why has his nonsense been treated seriously in the
management disciplines?
3 Further Criticisms
1)
2)
3)
The influence of other cultures
Non-cultural influences
Change
1. The influence of other
cultures


If ‘culture’ is theorized as influential
why should such influence be restricted
to national culture?
If other cultures are accepted as
potentially influential how can uniform
national actions/practices (across time
and space) be their consequence?
2. Non-cultural influences

Why should cultural-causation (national
or non-national) be privileged over
administrative, coercive means of social
action? Hitler’s New Order was an order
(Gellner, 1987).
 Would it [have been] meaningful, for example, to talk
of the religiosity of the Spaniards without a
description of the monopolistic position of the
[Catholic] church in Spain [under Franco], or of the
irreligiosity of the Russians without considering the
attitude of the Soviet government towards religion”
Maurice Farmer (1950:301)
3. Temporal variability
 Hofstede claims that the national cultural configurations he
found will last for ‘a long time, at least for some centuries”
(1991:47)
 His ‘Evidence’ to pronounce upon centuries past and
future?: Comparison of two IBM surveys – not for all of the
countries and maximum gap of 4 years i.e. BA
 Yet again, Hofstede just knows but that’s not good enough! And there
are counter-indications, e.g.
 Is the ‘national culture’ of Germany the same now as it was during the
Nazi period despite defeat, destruction, division and awareness of the
horrors of the Holocaust.
 The national culture of Ireland is the same as it was prior to the ‘Great
Famine’ (pop. 9 m.) as it is now among the 3m. ‘Celtic Tigers’. In the
‘dark’ 1950s Louis McNiece said that the Irish lacked ‘commercial
culture’; by the late 1990s it had the highest growth rate in Europe
Conclusion 1
Extreme, singular, theories, such as
Hofstede's model of national culture are
profoundly problematic. His conflation and
uni-level analysis precludes consideration of
interplay between macroscopic and
microscopic cultural levels and between the
cultural and the non-cultural (whatever we
chose to call it).
Conclusion 2
Scholarship, requires of its practitioners a
vital minimum of intellectual independence the capacity to achieve some distance from
ones prejudices; to discard previously held
interpretations that do not pass tests of
evidence; the unwillingness to ignore
available counter-evidence; and the readiness
to enter into and openly engage with rival
views. Hofstede's writings and his
antagonistic, partisan promotion of his work
repeatedly fail these tests.
Conclusion 3


We may think about ‘national; culture’; we may believe in
‘national culture’; we may act in the name of ‘national
culture’; but it has not been plausibly demonstrated that
‘national culture’ is how we think.
Instead of seeking an explanation for assumed national
uniformity from the conceptual lacuna that is the
essentialist notion of national culture, we need to engage
with and use theories of action which can cope with
change, power, variety, multiple influences - including the
non-national - and the complexity and situational variability
of the individual subject.
Is ‘national culture’ a myth?



Functionalist, symbolist and structural uses
Yes in the performative sense that as an “invented
tradition” it has been central in the construction and
maintenance of national identity
Yes in the sense that it is unreal or its existence has not
been validly demonstrated
In this presentation I have sought to show that
Hofstede’s claims to have identified and measured
distinctive, enduring, and systematically causal ‘national
cultures’ rely on fundamentally flawed assumptions and
the evidence of the predictive capacity of those depictions
is contrived (confirming not validating).
Further reading
McSweeney, B., 'Hofstede's Identification of
National Cultural Differences and Their
Consequences: A Triumph of Faith - A Failure of
Analysis, Human Relations, 55(1), 2002, 89-118.
Hofstede, G. ‘Dimensions Do Not Exist: A Reply to
McSweeney, Human Relations, 55(11), 2002
McSweeney, B., 'The Essentials of Scholarship: A
Reply to Hofstede' Human Relations, 55(11),
2002, 1363-1372.