CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 Cultural dimensions
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In the description of tradition from Kagan and Graburm, Kagan argued that “traditions are practices and beliefs that are passed down between generations of a certain family, culture, or other group” (Kagan, 2010; Graburm cited in Nelson, 2001:6). As Graburm suggested, the use of tradition to name the cultural features is to keep the cultures, which are expected to be handed on generation by generation (Graburm cited in Nelson, 2001:6). He states, “Tradition is a reservoir to draw upon, a source of historically defined identity, and a source of a sense of safety, specialness, or difference” (Graburm cited in Nelson, 2001:9).
2.2.2The use of cultural dimensions
Van de Vijver and Leung pointed out that “Culture is too global a concept to be meaningful as an explanatory variable” (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997:3). Herein, it is essential to clarify the cultural differences from the application of the concept of culture, in which the components of the culture can be directly understood once unpacked. The origin comparing the cultures in anthropology is the application of dimensions with a limited number. As early as in 1951, Parson and Shills proposed the pattern of culture. Many classifications of culture based on this variable have been derived as follows: Typically there are emotions and emotional neutrality;
self-orientation and collectivity orientation; universalism and particularism; specificity and diffuseness as well as ascription and achievement. The definition of cultural patterns has greatly affected the research of modal personality, the core of which is the embodiment of character. In 1969, Inkeles and Levinson put forward the definitions of social character, national character, and also the basic personality structure:
“The concept of national character is an important but problematic one in the social sciences. It has been strongly rejected in the hereditarian or racist forms in which it was couched by earlier writers. Seen in more modern perspective, however, it poses fundamental problems for social-scientific theory and research:
To what extent do the patterned conditions of life in a particular society give rise to certain distinctive patterns in the personalities of its members? To what extent, that is, does the socio-cultural system produce its distinctive forms of ‘social character,’ ‘basic personality structure,’ or ‘modal personality’? Further, what are
the consequences, if any, of this patterning in personality for stability or change in the societal order?” (Inkeles & Levinson, 1969:118).
Furthermore, distinguishing dependable dimensions to synthesise major discriminating aspects of culture could become a main contribution to cross-cultural research. In cross-cultural research, culture is viewed as a comprehensive structure with multi-dimensions rather than a simple variable. However, using dimensions to acquire the culture construct of multidimensionality has not been without criticism (Briley et al., 2000:159). Usually, the identification of dependable dimensions of cultural diversification should be helpful in creating a nomological framework, which not only can integrate various phenomena with different attitudes and behaviours, but also is a base for generating hypotheses (Smith et al., 1996:232). Meantime, while keeping the unique character for a specific kind of culture, the additional emic dimension cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, for the purpose of parsimony, it is important for the researcher to establish that an ostensibly emic cultural diversification cannot be described adequately as a point in the universal dimension (Schwartz, 1994:88).
2.2.3Hofstede's cultural dimensions
During 1978 to 1983, the Dutch cultural anthropologist Geert Hofstede interviewed hundreds of IBM employees from 53 countries, acquiring a vast amount of data. In this research, the similarities and differences of patterns were determined by analyzing these data sets using the statistical method. A systematic theory, which described the world culture variation along with dimensions, was also set up by statistical analysis. Because the research of Hofstede only focused on world-wide employees from the same company, the differences mentioned in his theory, embodying one company’s culture, were only explained as the effects of national cultures on their own company (Hofstede, 1991:113).
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In the 1990s, Hofstede wrote another paper about his research published in Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (Hofstede, 1991:113). In prior studies, culture was defined as the refinement of the mind including "highly civilised" attitudes and behavior. However, in this new research, the patterns of thinking, feeling and acting were indicated as key points, which have been well established in later childhood. These differences of culture reflect themselves in choosing culture’s symbols, heroes, values, and rituals (Hofstede, 1991:115). Five dimensions were identified in this research, on each of which indices from 53 counties were rated and normalised to values of 0 to 100.
His five dimensions of culture are the following:
• Power-distance
• Collectivism versus individualism
• Femininity versus masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long versus short-term orientation
Hofstede’s framework is the most widely used national cultural framework in psychology, sociology, marketing, or management studies (Sondergaard, 1994:56).
Table 2.1 compares Hofstede’s dimensions to other approaches for unpacking the concept of culture. It manifests a high level of convergence through methods, supports the theoretical framework of Hofstede, and verifies further use of his dimensions (Steenkamp, 2001:30-44).
Table 2.1: Comparison of Hofstede’s cultural framework with other models Masculinity
/Feminity
Individualism /collectivism
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Long-term orientation
Other
Hofstede (1984)
Hofstede (1991, 2001)
Masculinity /Feminity
Individualism /collectivism
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Long-term orientation
Other
Inkeles and Levinson (1969)
Conceptions of self
Relation to authority
Primary dilemmas or conflicts
Triandis (1995) Chinese culture connection (1987)
Human heartedness
Integration Confucian
work dynamism
Moral discipline
Clark (1990) Relation to self
Relation to authority
Relation to risk
Trompenaar s (1997)
Neutral/
emotional
Universalism /
particularism Individualism /
communi- tarianism
Attitudes to time
Specific/diffu se
Achievement /ascription Attitudes to the
environment Dorfman and
Howell (1988)
Paternalism
Schwartz (1994)
Mastery/
harmony
Autonomy/
conservatis m
Hierarchy/
egalitarianism
Smith et al.
(1996)
Loyal involvement/
utilitarian involvement
Conservatism/
egalitarianism
Discussion of a third dimension 3 deferred Keillor and
Hult (1999)
National heritage/cult ure
homogeneity /
belief system/
consumer ethnocentris m
25 Masculinity
/Feminity
Individualism /collectivism
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Long-term orientation
Other
Steenkamp (2001)
Autonomy/
collectivism
Egalitarianism/
hierarch
Uncertainty avoidance
Mastery/nu rturance (Steenkamp, 2001:30-44)