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Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory

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Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior

Definition

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory refers to cross-cultural differences in organizational and national culture defined as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others” (Hofstede, 2011, p. 3). The current version of the Hofstede-Minkov model is composed of six dimensions: individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-femininity, long-term versus short-term orientation, and indulgence-restraint. Four initial dimensions are “classical.”

The Overview

Geert Hofstede (1928–2020), social psychologist and engineer, introduced his model of cultural dimensions in two seminal works: Culture Consequences (1980) and Culture and Organizations: Programming of the Mind(1991). Originally, Hofstede’s model was based on questionnaires collected between years 1968 and 1972 from the 116,000 workers of the IBM company in its 50 different national branches. Aggregated data were then...

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References

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Żemojtel-Piotrowska, M., Piotrowski, J. (2023). Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory. In: Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08956-5_1124-1

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