Assignment 3

The 6-D model of national culture

Geert Hofstede, assisted by others, came up with six basic issues that society needs to come to

term with in order to organize itself. These are called dimensions of culture. Each of them has

been expressed on a scale that runs roughly from 0 to 100.

Dimension maps of the world: Individualism

Each dimension has been derived by comparing many, but not all, countries in the world. The findings can be summarized into six world maps of the distribution of that dimension. Of course, in reality there can be quite a bit of within-country variation; these maps should be seen as rough 'climate maps' of culture.

The last two dimensions

The last two dimensions were found later, and in different studies, than the first four. This is why different countries appear on the world maps. These maps are taken from the 2007 book "Why we are different and similar" by Michael Minkov. In our 2010 book they are re-scaled to a 0-100 format. Remember, the numbers do not really 'mean' anything. They are just there for convenience.

Dimension maps: Long-term Orientation