Is_National_Culture_A_Myth

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Is National CultureA Myth?

A critique of the claims of GeertHofstede

Research Seminar 12 November 2003 at RoyalHolloway

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


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The notion of the enduring uniqueness ofeach nation people has a long history

In 1797 the French counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistredeclared 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 "CollectiveUnconscious or Anima Mundi of the race" (1922)

Immigrants seem to be flooding into Germany nowadays; I dontknow why, because history suggests that if they wait around longenough, Germany will come to them Jay Leno, Tonight Show

The problem with Hitler was that he was GermanA.J. P. Taylor

(in Davies, 1999)


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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 monolithictotality is delusional and ridiculous (1970)

Benedict Anderson has vividly described nations as imagined communities(1991)

Anthropologists Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1992) have written: "weare now recognising that the territorially distinct cultures anthropologistsclaimed they were studying were never as autonomous as they imagined".

Philip Bock unhesitatingly states We must conclude that the uniformity

assumption is false (1999)


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Wider SignificanceIn most arenas attributing unity and continuity to race is no longeracceptable it has been replaced with the notion ofnational culture.

W. W. M. Eiselen the intellectual architect of apartheid - stated in 1929thatculture not race was the true basis of difference, the sign of destiny

The policy and analytical significance ofnational culture largely depends onwhat degree of causal power is attributed to it - from a mere epiphenomenon,a powerless superstructure to, at the other extreme, a supremely independentvariable, the superordinate power in society.

The homogenizing effects or notofglobalization 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


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Significance of Hofstede A National Cultural Determinist little or no causal role for

other cultural or non-cultural factors. It shapes everything Hickson andPugh (1995: 90).

Claims to have: Demonstrated the existence of, and measured, and compared enduring and

systematically causal national cultures in scores ofnations i.e. countries

Shown how multiple characteristics of those countries (educational systems,ways of doing business, architecture, cuisine, etc.) reflectand can beunderstood 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 thata true paradigm shift has occurred


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OVERVIEW

Briefly describe Hofstede's claims about national

cultures including the sense in which he uses thenotion ofculture and national culture specifically

Describe and critique his identification

Describe and critique his attempts to illustrate theexplanatory value/usefulness/predictive ability of hisnational cultural descriptions


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Hofstedes Conception ofNational Culture

Territorially Unique

Nationally Shared(common component or statistical average

(central tendency) inconsistently applied)

Subjective: software of the mind; mentalprograms

Determinate (not merely an influence, but the influence

Identifiable Characteristics and PredictableConsequences

Enduring (for many centuries past and to come)


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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 notHofstedes dimensions but thedimensions he uses

Discussed at length in the 1952 magisterial review ofthe anthropological conception of culture by AlfredKroeber (Berkley) and Clyde Kluckhohn (Harvard)(alegacy unacknowledged by Hofstede)

More extensive and subtle (not bi-polar) dimensions inthe literature (e.g. Schwartzs work)


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117,000 IBM questionnaires

Not as many used as is suggested

g Combined figure for two surveys

g

66 countries, but only 40

yielded

scoresg 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


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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 withoutconfidentiality safeguards

Respondents knew of possible consequencesof their answers for them thereforegaming

Blue collar workers responses excluded

marketing and sales staff only


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5 Crucial Assumptions (each

necessary each problematic)

1) Every micro-location is typical of the national

2) Every respondent had already been permanentlyprogrammed with three non-interactive culturalprograms

3) National culture creates response differences4) National culture can be identified through the

response differences

5) Its the same in every situation in a nation


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1. National Identifiable

from the local


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1. National Identifiable in the Local

b Version 1 (the national is uniform) presupposes thatevery national individual carries the same national culture - what isto be found is presupposed (catastrophic circularity): Something is

presupposed and imposed, and yet depicted as an empiricalachievement.

v Version 2 (an average tendency is the averagetendency)

In principle there is always an average tendency e.g. in the world,

continent, country, region, cycling club, brothel or whatever butwhy assume that an average tendency in one micro-location is thenational tendency? Would anyone seriously suggest that thecentral tendency in one of Australias 573 Aboriginal societies thesame as the Australian national culture (as measured in IBM

Australia by Hofstede)?

( Atypicality of IBM


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Assumption 2 Every respondent had alreadybeen permanently programmed with three non-

interactive cultureshOnly one organizational culture in any and every IBM subsidiaryh So a cultural monopoly, no harmonious, dissenting, emergent, contradictory, organizational

cultures in IBM

hOne global occupational culture for each occupation

hNo interaction between the three cultureshNo other cultural (or other) influences on the responses

(OrC + OcC + NC1) (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2


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(O

rC +O

cC + NC1)

(O

rC +O

cC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2

(OrC + OcC + NC1) (OrC + OcC + NC2) = NC1 - NC2

Very convenient! But reductive, mechanical, impoverished,and absurd


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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 occupationalculture (Hofstede). Matching desirable (mundane), but criticismof implications drawn; occupational culture ofTurkish 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.); differenttypes and significance of capital markets; post qualifying coursesand work;etc.;

Individuals as cultural

blotting paper

who have been immersedin homogeneous occupational fluid (Fraber, 1950)


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2. Three distinctive ComponentsCont.

Values are acquired in onesearly youth, mainly in thefamily and in the neighbourhood, and later atschool. By

the time a childis10 yearsold, mostofitsbasicvalueshave been programmedintoitsmind Foroccupationalvaluesthe place ofsocialisationistheschooloruniversity,andthe time isinbetweenchildhoodandadulthood (Hofstede, 1991:182)

My criticism is not of the possible enduring impact earlyinfluences but of the claims that (a) these experiencealone are significant, and (b) that the content andimpact ofoccupational experiences are globallyuniform and unchanging


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3. National Culture Creates Questionnaire

Response Differences

Classification: Nationally classified data isnot evidenceofnational causality.Almost every classification wouldproducedifference - but what is thatstatusofsuch differences?Where the unexplainedvariance isratherlarge we caneasilyfoolourselvesinto believingthatwe knowsomethingsimplybecause wehave aname forit JimMarch, 1966:69

e Dopes: Individuals as mere relays of national culture

Q. To whichone of the above types [described]would you say yoursuperior most closely corresponds?

Completion often in groups and with foreknowledge that managerswere expected to develop corrective actions. Would confidentialresearchundertaken by independent researchers have obtained thesame responses?


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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 theyare supposed to indicate are often unclear, sometimes bizarre.Robinson (1983) describes the dimensions as hodgepodge of items fewof 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 thanHofstedes (1994).

Bi-polarity of dimensions e.g. either individualism or collectivism butthe two can coexist and are simply emphasised more or lessdepending on the situation Harry Triandis, 1996:42


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5. Situationally Specific i.e. its the sameeverywhere within a nation

Claims to have identified national culture (or differences) thatare nationally pervasive in the family, at school, at work,

in politics

(1992) hence his claim that just about everyhuman construct (institution, architecture, etc.) areconsequences ofnational culture

Survey (with all its other limitations) was only of employees,indeed only some categories of employees; undertakenwithin 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


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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 todemonstrate 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


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If descriptions of historical/contemporary events are toserve 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 nocounter-events - in other countries withcomparable Hofstedeian cultural configurations;

and(c) no similar events in countries with very

dissimilar cultural configurations.

Hofstede did not apply these tests in conducting hisresearch and his stories fail these tests


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ExampleFreudwasanAustrian; andthere are goodreasonsinthe cultureprofile ofAustria inthe IBM data whyhistheorywouldbeconceivedinAustrianratherthanelsewhere Feelingsofguiltand

anxietydevelop [accordingtoFreud]whenthe egoisfelttobegivingintothe id. The Austrianculture ischaracterizedbythecombinationofaverylowpowerdistance withafairlyhighuncertaintyavoidance. The lowpowerdistance meansthatthere isnopowerfulsuperiorwhowilltake awayouruncertaintiesforus;One hastocarrythese oneself. Freudssuperegoisaninner

uncertainty-absorbingdevice,aninteriorizedboss

[Austria's]veryhighMAS [masculinity]score shedssome lightonFreudsconcernwithsex (Hofstede, 2001:385)(emphasisadded).


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No uniform attitude to authority in Austrian

writing

Some Austrian Writers were/are suspicious of authoritybut some are very supportive

The Austrian Hitler* urged complete submission to a

powerfulsuperior in Mein Kampf;

As did the Viennese born prolific and influential writer Guido vonList whom in Der Unbesiegbare (The Invincible) and otherbooks prohesised and unquestioningly supported the arrival ofthe 'strongman from above'.

In 1905 Freud published Three Essays on the Theory ofSexuality. Around the same time Austrian writer Leopold vonSacher-Masoch's novel Venus im Pelz (Venus in Furs) whichfocused on voluntary submission to humiliations administered byfur-clad women and the ultimate fantasy of submission to the allpowerful man - was re-published.

* Hitler lived in Austria until he was 24 years old longafter Hofstede claims that anindividual has indelibly acquired a national culture


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The [Austrian]lowpowerdistance meansthatthere isnopowerfulsuperiorwhowilltake awayouruncertaintiesforus (Hofstede, 2001:385)

90% ofAustriansvotedforunificationwithfascistGermanyinthe 1938 Anschlussandso

tobe underthe controlofapowerfulleader


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Sex Fellow Austrian, Felix Salten, wrote the pornographic best-seller Josefine

Mutzenbacher: Die Lebensgeschichte einer weinerischen Dirne, von ihrselbst erzhlt(Josefine Mutzenbacher: A Viennese Whore's Life Story, ToldBy Herself). This is further validation in Hofstede's terms, but like the restof his stories it's just an isolated untested anecdote.

Many Austrian writers - contrary to the implication in Hofstede's story - arenot 'concern[ed] with sex' (Hofstede, 2001:385). There is, for instance, littlemention of sex in Austrian Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampfor in the writings ofthe Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Felix Salten also wrote the

extremely successful asexual animal novelBambi

- later adopted by WaltDisney.

Countries with radically different Hofstedian MAS scores from Austria (2nd

most masculine) - such as Sweden (the least masculine) produce just asmuch literature about sex as does Austria.


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Seeking to explain the sources of someone's scholarly ideas ischallenging mechanically attributing them to some allegedcharacteristics in a national culture is startlingly stupid.

A genuinely open exploration of the conditions of possibility and thepossible 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 theCzech Republic); his family and school backgrounds; his latereducation; his class; his Jewishness; the extensive anti-Semitism inVienna, his relationship with his wife and children; those he analysed;his network of friends - Austrian and non-Austrian; the significant agegap between his parents; his non-religious upbringing in a turbulent

turn of the century imperial city (Vienna); the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; what he read; his mentors, and so on, and so on.

Linking a national cultural dimension with the views of a writer is aneasy but facile 'game' to play. It is as intellectually spurious andequally invalid as the statement that Freud developed his theories

because he was born on 6th May and therefore a Taurus.


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Another Example

In masculine cultures like the UK and the RepublicofIreland there isa feeling thatconflictsshouldbe resolvedbya goodfight ... Theindustrial relationsscene in these countriesismarkedbysuch fights.Ifpossible management tries to avoidhaving to deal with labor unions

at all, the labor union behaviour justifiesthisaversion Hofstede(1991:92)Rankingin HofstedesMasculinity Index: Ireland (joint 7th); GB (9th)

Only one section (labor unions) are said to influenced by that which issupposed to be national

Management is treated as immune to n.c. and influenced by something non-

cultural 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 co-operation.

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 thetop league for employee participation'.


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Working Days lost in industrial disputes

per 1000 employees (annual averages)

1961-65 1966-70 1971-75

Masculine Ireland 337.5 625.6 292.7

Masculine GB 127.0 222.6 538.6

Feminine Spain 14.1 37.1 95.6Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook

So Hofstede is correct!!!??Ranking: Ireland 7th

GB 8th

Spain 30th


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Working Days lost in industrial disputes

per 1000 employees (annual averages)1961-65 1966-70 1971-75


Masculine GB 127.0 222.6 538.6

Feminine Spain 14.1 37.1 95.6

1976-80 1981-85 1986-90


Masculine GB 521.7 387.4 117.5Feminine Spain 1,089.8 400.9 433.6

Source: ILO Labour Relations Yearbook


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Steps towards a real analysisEven a preliminary analysis of industrial relations'masculine' Ireland would need to consider: thecommon educational background of many of the

employees and managers; the dominant position ofone trade union; the series of national payagreements and partnership deals betweengovernment, employers and trade unions; employeeappointment of one third of the main board of state

companies; the effects of changes in fiscal policy ontake-home pay; the rivalries between craft unionswholly based in Ireland and those with continuingaffiliations to largely UK based trade unions; and so

forth.


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3 Further Criticisms

1)The influence of other cultures

2) Non-cultural influences

3) Change


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1. The influence of other

cultures Ifculture is theorized as influential

why should such influence be restricted

to national culture?

If other cultures are accepted aspotentially influential how can uniform

national actions/practices (across timeand space) be their consequence?


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2. Non-cultural influencesa Why should cultural-causation (national

or non-national) be privileged over

administrative, coercive means of socialaction? Hitlers NewOrder was an order(Gellner, 1987).

Would it [have been] meaningful, for example, to talk

of the religiosity of the Spaniards without adescription of the monopolistic position of the[Catholic] church in Spain [under Franco], or of theirreligiosity of the Russians without considering theattitude of the Soviet government towards religion

Maurice Farmer (1950:301)


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3. Temporal variabilityX Hofstede claims that the national cultural configurations he

found will last for a long time, at least for some centuries(1991:47)

X His Evidence to pronounce upon centuries past andfuture?: Comparison of two IBM surveys not for all of thecountries and maximum gap of 4 years i.e. BA

X Yet again, Hofstede just knows but thats not good enough! And thereare counter-indications, e.g.

X Is the national culture of Germany the same now as it was during theNazi period despite defeat, destruction, division and awareness of thehorrors of the Holocaust.

X The national culture of Ireland is the same as it was prior to the GreatFamine (pop. 9 m.) as it is now among the 3m. Celtic Tigers. In thedark 1950s Louis McNiece said that the Irish lacked commercialculture; by the late 1990s it had the highest growth rate in Europe


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Conclusion 1Extreme, singular, theories, such as

Hofstede's model of national culture are

profoundly problematic. His conflation anduni-level analysis precludes consideration of

interplay between macroscopic and

microscopic cultural levels and between the

cultural and the non-cultural (whatever wechose to call it).


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Conclusion 2Scholarship, requires of its practitioners avital minimum of intellectual independence -

the capacity to achieve some distance fromones prejudices; to discard previously heldinterpretations that do notpass tests ofevidence; the unwillingness to ignoreavailable counter-evidence; and the readiness

to enter into and openly engage with rivalviews. Hofstede's writings and hisantagonistic, partisan promotion of his workrepeatedly fail these tests.


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Conclusion 3

We may think aboutnational; culture; we may believe innational culture; we may act in the name ofnationalculture; but it has not been plausibly demonstrated thatnational culture is how we think.

Instead of seeking an explanation for assumed nationaluniformity from the conceptual lacuna that is the

essentialist notion of national culture, we need to engagewith and use theories of action which can cope withchange, power, variety, multiple influences - including thenon-national - and the complexity and situational variabilityof the individual subject.


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Is national culture a myth? Functionalist, symbolist and structural uses

Yes in the performative sense that as an inventedtradition it has been central in the construction andmaintenance of national identity

Yes in the sense that it is unreal or its existence has notbeen validly demonstrated

In this presentation I have sought to show that

Hofstedes claims to have identified and measureddistinctive, enduring, and systematically causal nationalcultures rely on fundamentally flawed assumptions andthe evidence of the predictive capacity of those depictionsis contrived (confirming not validating).


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Further readingMcSweeney, B., 'Hofstede's Identification ofNational Cultural Differences and Their

Consequences: A Triumph of Faith - A Failure ofAnalysis, 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: AReply to Hofstede' Human Relations, 55(11),

2002 1363-1372

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