Executive Summary
This paper reviews the civilizational conception of national culture and advances arguments in favor of using the civilization level of analysis as the basis for highest-order cultural studies. In this context, a civilization usually consists of a cluster of nation-states with a common regional history, language family, or religious tradition. Recent research has demonstrated the feasibility of validating models of national culture against civilizational membership, using the Toynbee-Huntington civilizational model. This validity is arguably the product of Toynbee’s (1946) inference of the existence of a civilization-level culture, which supports the higher-order identity of the people that make up the civilization.
Keywords: civilizations, cultural dimensions, national culture
Table of Contents
Page
Executive Summary 2
Introduction 4
Literature Review 5
The Attitudinal School 5
The Human-Values School 6
Civilizations 6
Main Thesis 7
Recommendations 8
Discussions 9
References 11
Appendix A: SWOT Analysis 16
Appendix B: Images Referenced in Text 17
Civilizational Culture: Assessment of the Conception of National Culture as a Civilization-Level Construct via Hofstede, GLOBE, Minkov, and Schwartz
The practice of engaging in cultural description by reference to scores from quantitative models has long been a source of criticism in some circles, while nevertheless becoming quite widespread in practice (Chang, 2003). In fact, cultural dimensions represent the etic approach to comparative cultural analysis, in contradistinction to the emic approach advocated by the opposing school of thought (e.g., Hill, 2000). The chief complaint among critics seems to be a combination of incredulity over the feasibility of asking questions of members of a population to draw accurate inferences about their culture and the sheer belief that different national cultures may be directly comparable on any level at all (Ailon, 2008). Moreover, difficulties have always existed on the matter of trying to predict specific examples of cultural behavior based on cultural dimensions alone. As observed by Voss and Murphy (2012), “Cultural dimensions per se are insufficient by which to predict cultural rites, rituals, and practices” (p. 80).
Accordingly, the present study will review recent work in validating cultural-dimension models and demonstrate how the civilization level of analysis in this regard may provide superior answers to such questions as the counterintuitively negative correlations between certain variables in the GLOBE model of cultural practices and the analogous dimensions in Hofstede’s model (cf. Maseland & Van Hoorn, 2009). Indeed, having a civilization-level model available as the common criterion across all models of cultural dimensions affords the notable advantage of escaping from the need to rely on one cultural-dimension model to validate another. It also gives researchers the opportunity to test the relative strength of individual variables in each model, to see which individual cultural dimensions succeed in predicting differences in civilizations, and which fall short.
Literature Review
National culture refers to human culture as understood at a level that usually corresponds to entire nations. Quantitative models of national culture constitute the etic approach to drawing conclusions from studies of comparative culture, an approach that leaves important qualitative or emic differences absent from the analysis (Chang, 2003; Morris, Leung, Ames, & Lickel, 1999; Osland, Bird, Delano, & Jacob, 2000). Nevertheless, they have demonstrated sufficient utility in both practical and theoretical applications. On the practical front, corporate trainees in anticipation of expatriate roles find it helpful to use quantitative models of cultural dimensions to make sense of the cultural differences that they observe in their target countries (Voss & Murphy, 2012). In these applications, the trainee’s focus on etic thinking helps increase the comprehensibility of the new environment, while the trainee proceeds to learn the emic qualities over a longer period (Morris et al., 1999). On the theoretical front, many studies have found it useful to correlate cultural differences, construed quantitatively, against other phenomena of interest, as a way to assess whether a phenomenon is more likely to occur under particular cultural conditions.
The Attitudinal School
Hofstede (1980) introduced the first model of cultural dimensions in the form of a discrete taxonomy, using survey results in a standard Likert format. The survey items were in the form of statements of fact reflecting possible beliefs about the expectations that one’s society places on oneself. This first effort produced four cultural dimensions, in the form of clusters of survey items that varied primarily by country, rather than by individual respondent. These included the now famous power distance, individualism-collectivism (also called simply individualism), masculinity-femininity (also called simply masculinity), and uncertainty avoidance.
The Human-Values School
On a completely separate research track, the 38-item Rokeach Value Survey mutated into the 58-item Schwartz Value Survey over time, starting with Schwartz and Bilsky’s (1987) initial study, which extended the Rokeach Value Survey with several supplementary items that seemed to fit the needs of empirical cross-cultural application. The result, using smallest-space analysis to visualize how the multiple variables organized themselves with respect to one another in Euclidean space (Guttman, 1968), was a depiction of 10 motivational domains, each consisting of a cluster of human values that tended to emerge reliably across cultures. The authors of that study interpreted the motivational domains as fitting prior models of personality, as opposed to culture, so the emergent factors included personality-oriented labels such as hedonism, self-direction, stimulation, and benevolence, in addition to others that could just as well apply to culture, namely, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, and universalism. Within just a few years, the potential of the Schwartz model of human values to serve as a measure of national culture became evident, and Schwartz redefined the foregoing motivational domains into a more concise, 7-dimension taxonomy of cultural orientations, applicable to entire nations rather than to individuals (Schwartz, 1993).
Civilizations
To elaborate on part of the discussion prior to this section, valid models of cultural dimensions that operate at the nation-state level of analysis should predict civilizational affiliation, insofar as civilizations consist of clusters of countries with common histories, hence similarities of social outlook from centuries of common experience. Toynbee (1946) proposed a model of civilizational growth, ascendancy, and decline based on deep qualitative analysis of historical events. Among his observations was the expectation that the members of a civilization would share general similarities of culture (cf. Martz & Myers, 1983; Moaddel, 2002; Wax, 1993). Huntington (1993) expanded on Toynbee’s civilizational conception with reference to studies in international conflict, emphasizing the potential for conflict between civilizations, especially in countries in which populations from different civilizations contended for cultural primacy.
Main Thesis
Points of distinction between Toynbee (1946) and Huntington (1993) include choices relating to the placement of Korea, Spain, Poland, and Slovenia. First, the table associates Korea with Japan, following Toynbee’s (1946) reasoning, which highlights the historical antecedents of Japanese culture as emanating from Paekche, one of the three Korean kingdoms that antecede modern Korea. Huntington’s (1993) rationale for labeling Japan a civilization in its own right lacked sufficient development to place any greater confidence in his conclusion than in Toynbee’s much more thoughtful approach to the same topic. Next, placing Spain in Latin America (hence, Ibero-America) is partially a product of doing the same for Portugal (cf. Voss & Murphy, 2012). Although Portugal falls outside the range of the present study, the strength of its manifest cultural similarities to Latin America, as opposed to Europe north of the Pyrenees, suggests this choice. To be sure, Spain seems to have approximately the same degree of cultural affinity to Europe as to Latin America, depending on the cultural dimensions under consideration, but the Portuguese case creates a more compelling argument for the choice made here. Finally, the question of whether to associate Slavic nations outside the Orthodox tradition with the Slavic-Orthodox civilization is similarly a product of observed cultural affinities.
Following the pattern of the validation study of Voss and Lucas (2013), which tested the Hofstede, GLOBE, and Minkov models against civilizational membership, the present study will compare all variables in these models, in addition to those in both of the available Schwartz models, to identify those that predict civilizational membership independently of one another. In view of the success of Voss and Lucas (2013) in demonstrating the utility of the civilizational criterion as a way to validate cultural-dimension models, the argument underlying the present study is that it is equally feasible to test individual cultural dimensions for their viability as true differentiators of civilizations. While all variables in the noted models should reasonably show significant bivariate correlations with civilizational membership, it will be important to judge those cases that fall short in this respect based on whether they might logically belong in a truly nation-level model or alternatively suffer from inadequate clarity of wording to capture the cultural variance that they purport to reflect.
Recommendations
In each GLOBE reference above, there is both a practice and a value version (e.g., PDP and PDV). The nomenclature used herein for the Schwartz models consists of two-letter symbols for the Schwartz-10 variant (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) and three-letter symbols for the Schwartz-7 cultural typology (Schwartz, 2006). The predictions exclude Minkov’s IVR and MON, because Hofstede adopted these and therefore simply transformed the scores from Minkov’s published data. The predictions also exclude other cultural dimensions where the correspondence is less certain. As for the expected similarities between IDV and IS/IG (i.e., GLOBE institutional and in-group collectivism, respectively), the premise is that all measures are bipolar, due to the construction of the data (see below). Thus, just as an individualism dimension should predict civilizational membership, so should collectivism, as its diametrical opposite. Accordingly, this study advances the following recommendations for business practice:
1. Use a full quantitative culture model when creating any culture training program.
2. Supplement the training program with the civilizational model, to show higher-order similarities and contrasts between cultures.
3. Include in any training program ample opportunity for reflective practice, in which trainees observe culturally specific behavior and then try to make sense out of it based on cultural dimensions.
Discussion
This study set out to argue that cultural dimensions, as construed in the major models of Hofstede, GLOBE, Minkov, and Schwartz, actually operate at the civilization level of analysis. As such, they may inform estimates of cultural dimensions in countries that currently lack published estimates, as long as it is feasible to define the appropriate civilizational grouping, which would permit adopting the civilizational average for the respective construct as the correct estimate for the new country. This is the same method as that employed by Voss and Murphy (2012), which used only Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. However, the present study further undertook a comparison among all cultural dimensions in the six principle models (noting that GLOBE and Schwartz each have advanced two models), to highlight where each model may fall short in terms of presenting a full model relevant to the civilization level of analysis. In every case except that of Minkov, at least one variable fell out of each model as lacking any statistical power to predict civilizational membership. The analysis concluded with a proposed array of cultural dimensions that might represent the most complete available model, based on a logistic regression analysis including all surviving variables with civilizational membership as the criterion. In this array, it is uncertain whether all listed variables belong in each row as depicted, but the analysis affirmatively retained nine variables, approximately as depicted in the table.
Future research should naturally seek to consolidate a full model of civilization-level cultural dimensions, as a preliminary step toward advancing a proper method for estimating cultural dimensions for countries whose cultural dimensions remain unpublished. It would seem that the step of identifying analogous cultural dimensions properly is essential to this task. The present authors have already confirmed that certain common statistical techniques that may seem available as candidates to aid in this endeavor, notably factor analysis, are insufficient to this end. However, if it is possible to argue, as in the case of Voss and Lucas (2013), that each cultural dimension in a coherent model must contribute unique value to its total power to predict civilizational membership, then it should be feasible to apply straightforward logistical regression to the task, in the same manner as in producing Table 3 in this study. Nevertheless, it is important to work through the theoretical parameters properly before being confident in the outcome, to ensure that combining all cultural dimensions into a single model in that way is indeed the correct approach.
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APPENDIX A
SWOT Analysis
Table 1
SWOT Analysis for Company XYZ
Apollo Capone
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