During 1978-83, the Dutch cultural
anthropologist Geert Hofstede conducted detailed interviews with hundreds of
IBM employees in 53 countries. Through standard statistical analysis of fairly
large data sets, he was able to determine patterns of similarities and
differences among the replies. From this data analysis, he formulated his
theory that world cultures vary along consistent, fundamental dimensions. Since
his subjects were constrained to one multinational corporation's world-wide
employees, and thus to one company culture, he ascribed their differences to
the effects of their national cultures. (One weakness is that he maintained
that each country has just one dominant culture.)
In the 1990s, Hofstede published a
more accessible version of his research publication in Cultures and
Organizations: Software of the Mind [Hofstede]. His focus was not on defining
culture as refinement of the mind (or "highly civilized" attitudes
and behavior) but rather on highlighting essential patterns of thinking,
feeling, and acting that are well-established by late childhood. These cultural
differences manifest themselves in a culture's choices of symbols, heroes/heroines,
rituals, and values.
Hofstede identified five
dimensions and rated 53 countries on indices for each dimension, normalized to
values (usually) of 0 to 100. His five dimensions of culture are the following:
• Power-distance
• Collectivism vs. individualism
• Femininity vs. masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long- vs. short-term orientation
Power distance (PD) refers to the
extent to which less powerful members expect and accept unequal power
distribution within a culture.
Hofstede claims that high PD
countries tend to have centralized political power and exhibit tall hierarchies
in organizations with large differences in salary and status. Subordinates may
view the "boss" as a benevolent dictator and are expected to do as they
are told. Parents teach obedience, and expect respect. Teachers possess wisdom
and are automatically esteemed. Inequalities are expected, and may even be
desired.
Low PD countries tend to view
subordinates and supervisors as closer together and more interchangeable, with
flatter hierarchies in organizations and less difference in salaries and
status. Parents and children, and teachers and students, may view themselves
more as equals (but not necessarily as identical.) Equality is expected and
generally desired.
There are some interesting
correlations for power distance: low PD countries tend to have higher
geographic latitude, smaller populations, and/or higher gross domestic product
(GDP) per capita than high PD countries.
Hofstede notes that these differences
are hundreds or even thousands of years old. He does not believe they will
disappear quickly from traditional cultures, even with powerful global
telecommunication systems. Recent research has shown that the dimensions have
remained quite stable for the last twenty years.
Based on this definition, we
believe power distance may influence the following:
·
Access to information: highly (high PD) vs. less-highly (low
PD) structured.
·
Hierarchies in mental models: tall vs. shallow.
·
Emphasis on the social and moral order (e.g., nationalism or
religion) and its symbols: significant/frequent vs. minor/infrequent use.
·
Focus on expertise, authority, experts, certifications,
official stamps, or logos: strong vs. weak.
·
Prominence given to leaders vs. citizens, customers, or
employees.
·
Importance of security and restrictions or barriers to
access: explicit, enforced, frequent restrictions on users vs. transparent,
integrated, implicit freedom to roam.
·
Social roles used to organize information (e.g., a managers'
section obvious to all but sealed off from non-managers): frequent vs.
infrequent
Individualism in cultures implies
loose ties; everyone is expected to look after one's self or immediate family
but no one else. Collectivism implies that people are integrated from birth
into strong, cohesive groups that protect them in exchange for unquestioning
loyalty.
Hofstede found that
individualistic cultures value personal time, freedom, challenge, and such
extrinsic motivators as material rewards at work. In family relations, they
value honesty/truth, talking things out, using guilt to achieve behavioral
goals, and maintaining self-respect. Their societies and governments place
individual social-economic interests over the group, maintain strong rights to
privacy, nurture strong private opinions (expected from everyone), restrain the
power of the state in the economy, emphasize the political power of voters,
maintain strong freedom of the press, and profess the ideologies of self-actualization,
self-realization, self-government, and freedom.
At work, collectivist cultures
value training, physical conditions, skills, and the intrinsic rewards of
mastery. In family relations, they value harmony more than honesty/truth (and
silence more than speech), use shame to achieve behavioral goals, and strive to
maintain face. Their societies and governments place collective social-economic
interests over the individual, may invade private life and regulate opinions,
favor laws and rights for groups over individuals, dominate the economy,
control the press, and profess the ideologies of harmony, consensus, and
equality.
Based on this definition, we
believe individualism and collectivism may influence the following:
·
Motivation based on personal achievement: maximized (expect
the extra-ordinary) for individualist cultures vs. underplayed (in favor of
group achievement) for collectivist cultures.
·
Images of success: demonstrated through materialism and
consumerism vs. achievement of social-political agendas.
·
Rhetorical style: controversial/argumentative speech and
tolerance or encouragement of extreme claims vs. official slogans and subdued
hyperbole and controversy.
·
Prominence given youth and action vs. aged, experienced,
wise leaders and states of being
Importance given individuals vs. products shown by themselves or with groups.
·
Underlying sense of social morality: emphasis on truth vs.
relationships.
·
Emphasis on change: what is new and unique vs. tradition and
history.
·
Willingness to provide personal information vs. protection
of personal data differentiating the individual from the group.
Masculinity and femininity refer
to gender roles, not physical characteristics. Hofstede focuses on the
traditional assignment to masculine roles of assertiveness, competition, and
toughness, and to feminine roles of orientation to home and children, people,
and tenderness. He acknowledges that in different cultures different
professions are dominated by different genders. (For example, women dominate
the medical profession in the Soviet Union, while men dominate in the USA.) But
in masculine cultures, the traditional distinctions are strongly maintained,
while feminine cultures tend to collapse the distinctions and overlap gender
roles (both men and women can exhibit modesty, tenderness, and a concern with
both quality of life and material success). Traditional masculine work goals
include earnings, recognition, advancement, and challenge. Traditional feminine
work goals include good relations with supervisors, peers, and subordinates;
good living and working conditions; and employment security.
The following list shows some
typical masculinity (MAS) index values, where a high value implies a strongly
masculine culture:
95 Japan
79 Austria
63 South Africa
62 USA
53 Arab countries
47 Israel
43 France
39 South Korea
05 Sweden
Since Hofstede's definition
focuses on the balance between roles and relationships, we believe masculinity
and femininity may be expressed on the Web through different emphases.
High-masculinity cultures would focus on the following user-interface and
design elements:
·
Traditional gender/family/age distinctions
·
Work tasks, roles, and mastery, with quick results for
limited tasks
·
Navigation oriented to exploration and control
·
Attention gained through games and competitions
·
Graphics, sound, and animation used for utilitarian purposes
Feminine cultures would emphasize
the following:
·
Blurring of gender roles
·
Mutual cooperation, exchange, and support, (rather than
mastery and winning)
·
Attention gained through poetry, visual aesthetics, and
appeals to unifying values
People vary in the extent that they
feel anxiety about uncertain or unknown matters, as opposed to the more
universal feeling of fear caused by known or understood threats. Cultures vary
in their avoidance of uncertainty, creating different rituals and having
different values regarding formality, punctuality, legal-religious-social
requirements, and tolerance for ambiguity.
Hofstede notes that cultures with
high uncertainty avoidance tend to have high rates of suicide, alcoholism, and
accidental deaths, and high numbers of prisoners per capita. Businesses may
have more formal rules, require longer career commitments, and focus on
tactical operations rather than strategy. These cultures tend to be expressive;
people talk with their hands, raise their voices, and show emotions. People seem
active, emotional, even aggressive; shun ambiguous situations; and expect
structure in organizations, institutions, and relationships to help make events
clearly interpretable and predictable. Teachers are expected to be experts who
know the answers and may speak in cryptic language that excludes novices. In
high UA cultures, what is different may be viewed as a threat, and what is
"dirty" (unconventional) is often equated with what is dangerous.
By contrast, low UA cultures tend
to have higher caffeine consumption, lower calorie intake, higher heart-disease
death rates, and more chronic psychosis per capita. Businesses may be more
informal and focus more on long-range strategic matters than day-to-day
operations. These cultures tend to be less expressive and less openly anxious;
people behave quietly without showing aggression or strong emotions (though
their caffeine consumption may be intended to combat depression from their
inability to express their feelings.) People seem easy-going, even relaxed.
Teachers may not know all the answers (or there may be more than one correct
answer), run more open-ended classes, and are expected to speak in plain
language. In these cultures, what is different may be viewed as simply curious,
or perhaps ridiculous.
Based on this definition, we
believe uncertainty avoidance may influence contrary aspects of user-interface
and Web design.
High-UA cultures would emphasize
the following:
·
Simplicity, with clear metaphors, limited choices, and
restricted amounts of data
·
Attempts to reveal or forecast the results or implications
of actions before users act
·
Navigation schemes intended to prevent users from becoming
lost
·
Mental models and help systems that focus on reducing
"user errors"
·
Redundant cues (color, typography, sound, etc.) to reduce
ambiguity.
Low UA cultures would emphasize
the reverse:
·
Complexity with maximal content and choices
·
Acceptance (even encouragement) of wandering and risk, with
a stigma on "over-protection"
·
Less control of navigation; for example, links might open
new windows leading away from the original location
·
Mental models and help systems might focus on understanding
underlying concepts rather than narrow tasks
·
Coding of color, typography, and sound to maximize
information (multiple links without redundant cueing)
In the early 1980s, shortly after
Hofstede first formulated his cultural dimensions, work by Michael Bond
convinced him that a fifth dimension needed to be defined. Long-Term
Orientation seemed to play an important role in Asian countries that had been
influenced by Confucian philosophy over many thousands of years. Hofstede and
Bond found such countries shared these beliefs:
·
A stable society requires unequal relations.
·
The family is the prototype of all social organizations;
consequently, older people (parents) have more authority than younger people
(and men more than women)
·
Virtuous behavior to others means not treating them as one
would not like to be treated
·
Virtuous behavior in work means trying to acquire skills and
education, working hard, and being frugal, patient, and persevering
Western countries, by contrast,
were more likely to promote equal relationships, emphasize individualism, focus
on treating others as you would like to be treated, and find fulfillment
through creativity and self-actualization. When Hofstede and Bond developed a
survey specifically for Asia and reevaluated earlier data, they found that
long-term orientation cancelled out some of the effects of
Masculinity/Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance. They concluded that Asian
countries are oriented to practice and the search for virtuous behavior while
Western countries are oriented to belief and the search for truth.
Of the 23 countries compared, the
following showed the most extreme values:
118 China (ranked 1)
80 Japan (4)
29 USA (17)
0 Pakistan (23)
Based on this definition, high LT
countries would emphasize the following:
·
Content focused on practice and practical value
·
Relationships as a source of information and credibility
·
Patience in achieving results and goals
Low LT countries would emphasize
the contrary:
·
Content focused on truth and certainty of beliefs
·
Rules as a source of information and credibility
·
Desire for immediate results and achievement of goals
Hofstede notes that some cultural
relativism is necessary: it is difficult to establish absolute criteria for
what is noble and what is disgusting. There is no escaping bias; all people
develop cultural values based on their environment and early training as
children. Not everyone in a society fits the cultural pattern precisely, but
there is enough statistical regularity to identify trends and tendencies. These
trends and tendencies should not be treated as defective or used to create
negative stereotypes but recognized as different patterns of values and
thought. In a multi-cultural world, it is necessary to cooperate to achieve
practical goals without requiring everyone to think, act, and believe
identically.
Appendix 1: Indexes
from: Hofstede, Geert, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind:
Intercultural Cooperation and its Importance for Survival, McGraw Hill, New
York, 1997, ISBN:0-07-029307-4.
PDI: Power distance index
IDV: Individualism index
MAS: Masculinity index
UAI: Uncertainty avoidance index
LTO: Long-term orientation index
|
|
PDI |
|
IDV |
|
MAS |
|
UAI |
|
LTO |
|
|
|
rank |
score |
rank |
score |
rank |
score |
rank |
score |
rank |
score |
|
Arab
Countries |
7 |
80 |
26/27 |
38 |
23 |
53 |
27 |
68 |
|
|
|
Argentina
|
35/36 |
49 |
22/23 |
46 |
20/21 |
56 |
10/15 |
86 |
|
|
|
Australia
|
41 |
36 |
2 |
90 |
16 |
61 |
37 |
51 |
15 |
31 |
|
Austria |
53 |
11 |
18 |
55 |
2 |
79 |
24/25 |
70 |
|
|
|
Bangladesh
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
11 |
40 |
|
Belgium |
20 |
65 |
8 |
75 |
22 |
54 |
5/6 |
94 |
|
|
|
Brazil |
14 |
69 |
26/27 |
38 |
27 |
49 |
21/22 |
76 |
6 |
65 |
|
Canada |
39 |
39 |
4/5 |
80 |
24 |
52 |
41/42 |
48 |
20 |
23 |
|
Chile |
24/25 |
63 |
38 |
23 |
46 |
28 |
10/15 |
86 |
|
|
|
China |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
118 |
|
Columbia
|
17 |
67 |
49 |
13 |
11/12 |
64 |
20 |
80 |
|
|
|
Costa
Rica |
42/44 |
35 |
46 |
15 |
48/49 |
21 |
10/15 |
86 |
|
|
|
Denmark |
51 |
18 |
9 |
74 |
50 |
16 |
51 |
23 |
|
|
|
East
Africa |
21/23 |
64 |
33/35 |
27 |
39 |
41 |
36 |
52 |
|
|
|
Ecuador |
8/9 |
78 |
52 |
8 |
13/14 |
63 |
28 |
67 |
|
|
|
Finland |
46 |
33 |
17 |
63 |
47 |
26 |
31/32 |
59 |
|
|
|
France |
15/16 |
68 |
10/11 |
71 |
35/36 |
43 |
10/15 |
86 |
|
|
|
Germany
FR |
42/44 |
35 |
15 |
67 |
9/10 |
66 |
29 |
65 |
14 |
31 |
|
Great
Britain |
42/44 |
35 |
3 |
89 |
9/10 |
66 |
47/48 |
35 |
18 |
25 |
|
Greece |
27/28 |
60 |
30 |
35 |
18/19 |
57 |
1 |
112 |
|
|
|
Guatemala
|
2/3 |
95 |
53 |
6 |
43 |
37 |
3 |
101 |
|
|
|
Hong
Kong |
15/16 |
68 |
37 |
25 |
18/19 |
57 |
49/50 |
29 |
2 |
96 |
|
India |
10/11 |
77 |
21 |
48 |
20/21 |
56 |
45 |
40 |
7 |
61 |
|
Indonesia
|
8/9 |
78 |
47/48 |
14 |
30/31 |
46 |
41/42 |
48 |
|
|
|
Iran |
29/30 |
58 |
24 |
41 |
35/36 |
43 |
31/32 |
59 |
|
|
|
Ireland
(Rep of) |
49 |
28 |
12 |
70 |
7/8 |
68 |
47/48 |
35 |
|
|
|
Israel |
52 |
13 |
19 |
54 |
29 |
47 |
19 |
81 |
|
|
|
Italy |
34 |
50 |
7 |
76 |
4/5 |
70 |
23 |
75 |
|
|
|
Jamaica |
37 |
45 |
25 |
39 |
7/8 |
68 |
52 |
13 |
|
|
|
Japan |
33 |
54 |
22/23 |
46 |
1 |
95 |
7 |
92 |
4 |
80 |
|
Malaysia
|
1 |
104 |
36 |
26 |
25/26 |
50 |
46 |
36 |
|
|
|
Mexico |
5/6 |
81 |
32 |
30 |
6 |
69 |
18 |
82 |
|
|
|
Netherlands
|
40 |
38 |
4/5 |
80 |
51 |
14 |
35 |
53 |
10 |
44 |
|
New
Zealand |
50 |
22 |
6 |
79 |
17 |
58 |
39/40 |
49 |
16 |
30 |
|
Nigeria |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
22 |
16 |
|
Norway |
47/48 |
31 |
13 |
69 |
52 |
8 |
38 |
50 |
|
|
|
Pakistan
|
32 |
55 |
47/48 |
14 |
25/26 |
50 |
24/25 |
70 |
23 |
0 |
|
Panama |
2/3 |
95 |
51 |
11 |
34 |
44 |
10/15 |
86 |
|
|
|
Peru |
21/23 |
64 |
45 |
16 |
37/38 |
42 |
9 |
87 |
|
|
|
Philippines
|
4 |
94 |
31 |
32 |
11/12 |
64 |
44 |
44 |
21 |
19 |
|
Poland |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
13 |
32 |
|
Portugal
|
24/25 |
63 |
33/35 |
27 |
45 |
31 |
2 |
104 |
|
|
|
Salvador
|
18/19 |
66 |
42 |
19 |
40 |
40 |
5/6 |
94 |
|
|
|
Singapore
|
13 |
74 |
39/41 |
20 |
28 |
48 |
53 |
8 |
9 |
48 |
|
South
Africa |
35/36 |
49 |
16 |
65 |
13/14 |
63 |
39/40 |
49 |
|
|
|
South
Korea |
27/28 |
60 |
43 |
18 |
41 |
39 |
16/17 |
85 |
5 |
75 |
|
Spain |
31 |
57 |
20 |
51 |
37/38 |
42 |
10/15 |
86 |
|
|
|
Sweden |
47/48 |
31 |
10/11 |
71 |
53 |
5 |
49/50 |
29 |
12 |
33 |
|
Switzerland
|
45 |
34 |
14 |
68 |
4/5 |
70 |
33 |
58 |
|
|
|
Taiwan |
29/30 |
58 |
44 |
17 |
32/33 |
45 |
26 |
69 |
3 |
87 |
|
Thailand
|
21/23 |
64 |
39/41 |
20 |
44 |
34 |
30 |
64 |
8 |
56 |
|
Turkey |
18/19 |
66 |
28 |
37 |
32/3 |
45 |
16/17 |
85 |
|
|
|
Uruguay |
26 |
61 |
29 |
36 |
42 |
38 |
4 |
100 |
|
|
|
USA |
38 |
40 |
1 |
91 |
15 |
62 |
43 |
46 |
17 |
29 |
|
Venezuela
|
5/6 |
81 |
50 |
12 |
3 |
73 |
21/22 |
76 |
|
|
|
West
Africa |
10/11 |
77 |
39/41 |
20 |
30/31 |
46 |
34 |
54 |
|
|
|
Yugoslavia
|
12 |
76 |
33/35 |
27 |
48/49 |
21 |
8 |
88 |
|
|
|
Zimbabwe
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
19 |
25 |
Aaron Marcus, President
Aaron Marcus and Asociates, Inc.
1144 65th Street, Suite F
Emeryville, CA 94608 USA
Tel: 510-601-0994, Ext. 19
Fax: 510-547-6125
Email: Aaron@AmandA.com
Web: www.Amanda.com
Emilie W. Gould, Adjunct
Lally School of Management
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
110 8th St.
Troy, NY 12180-3590
Email: goulde@rpi.edu