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Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions
Geert Hofstede gathered extensive data on the world's cultures and we have generated our impressions of that data into charts and graphs that help to better understand the many sublet implications contained in his raw data. See the links to each country on the left hand side.
Research
Books
Discussions
Geert Hofstede's Websites Geert Hofstede's personal Website with an overview of all his publications
* * * Power Distance Index (PDI) that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'.
Individualism (IDV) on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word 'collectivism' in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.
Masculinity (MAS) versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other. The assertive pole has been called 'masculine' and the modest, caring pole 'feminine'. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men's values and women's values.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions.
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Click on country
Argentina
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Hofstede,
Geert. Culture's Consequences, Comparing
Values, Behaviors, Institutions,
and Organizations Across Nations
Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2001 - for every detail on Hofstede's research.
Hofstede, Geert and Hofstede, Gert-Jan. Cultures
and Organizations: Software
of the Mind. New York: McGraw-Hill U.S.A., 2004 - for a more easy-read on Hofstede's research 
Hofstede, Geert, Hofstede, Gert Jan & Pedersen, Paul B, Exploring Culture. Exercises, stories and sythetic cultures Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press 2002 – This book is full of practical examples and small case studies
299 pages. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 1994, hardcover - A collection of 17 chapters around the topics: I. The impact of jobs on people; II. Power and control in organizations; and III. Studies in training settings. All chapters are based on Geert Hofstede's research, and all present counter-intuitive outcomes. Chapters are suitable for classroom use in a course of Organizational Behavior.
238 pages. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 1998, hardcover - An introduction and consequences for gender roles, sexual behavior and religion.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
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