Nation culture

International Journal of Intercultural Relations
25 (2001) 89±107
Do organizations re¯ect national cultures?
A 10-nation study
Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven*
Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS, Netherlands
Abstract
The main purpose of this study was to cross-validate Hofstede's classi®cation of national
cultures. An additional aim was to investigate the relationship between culture as perceived
and culture as desired. Over 800 advanced students of economics, business administration and
management from 10 countries participated in the study. They gave free descriptions of an
organization they knew well and they rated their native companies on Hofstede's dimensions
of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity. In addition, they
indicated how they would like their native companies to be on the same dimensions. Both the
data concerning the free descriptions and the data concerning the ratings of native companies
show considerable support for Hofstede's four dimensions. Remarkably, there was hardly a
relation between culture as perceived and culture as desired. The latter ®nding has important
implications for the interpretation of the literature on national cultures. # 2001 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: National cultures; Organizational cultures; Individualism; Power distance; Uncertainty
avoidance; Masculinity
The increasing integration of the global market has urged national enterprises to
cooperate internationally. However, many attempts towards international coopera-
tion have not been successful so far. Quite often, a mis®t of cultures is mentioned as
a cause of the failure (Cartwright & Cooper, 1993, 1996; Olie, 1994). Managers have
indeed a strong preference for culturally similar cooperation partners, in particular,
when they have to deal with intensive forms of cooperation (Van Oudenhoven & De
Boer, 1995). In the case of cross-border cooperation, chances of a clash of cultures
are higher than if cooperation takes place within the borders of one nation, since
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-50-3636386; fax: +31-50-3636304.
E-mail address: j.p.l.m.van.oudenhoven@ppsw.rug.nl (J. P. van Oudenhoven).
0305-1978/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 4 7 - 1 7 6 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 4 4 - 4

90 J. P. van Oudenhoven / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 25 (2001) 89±107
discrepancies in national cultures have to be added to the normal variety of
organization cultures. Hence, the term ``double layered acculturation'', which
indicates adjustment to both an alien organization culture and an alien national
culture. Knowledge of national cultures is important, so that if cultures differ
considerably, suitable forms of cooperation may be sought (Olie, 1994). Moreover,
adequate awareness of international variations in cultural systems can help to avoid
expatriate failure (Tung, 1987).
There are hundreds of de®nitions of culture, but almost all of them refer to
culture as a set of shared values, beliefs, and practices. According to Hofstede
(1991), culture is: ``the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the
members of one group from another''. Collective programming takes place at the
national and at the organizational level. National cultures distinguish members of
one nation from another, and organization cultures distinguish the employees of
one organization from another. There is a clear distinction between national
cultures and organization cultures. National cultures refer to profound beliefs and
values, and practices that are shared by the vast majority of people belonging to a
certain nation. They are re¯ected in the ways people behave at school, in the
family, on the job, etc., and they are reinforced by national laws and governmental
policies with respect to education, family life, business, etcetera. Organization or
corporate culture refers to the values, beliefs and practices that are shared by most
members of an organization. These values, beliefs, and practices may stem from
regional or occupational groups or from common organizational experiences and,
consequently, may not be applicable outside that organization. Cultures as found
within organizations will, therefore, differ to some extent within one nation, but
they are supposed to differ even more from nation to nation, because } in addition
} they re¯ect their national cultures to a certain degree. For instance, a national
culture in which the persons in power, such as teachers, parents or managers, are
highly respected and deferred to, will lead to a form of organizational
communication in which subordinates hesitate to express disagreement with their
bosses.
Most research on national cultures has been limited so far to descriptions of
individual } or relatively small samples of } national cultures. Two important
exceptions are Schwartz's study on cultural values which was originally done in 20
countries (Schwartz, 1992), but has continuously been expanded (Smith & Schwartz,
1997), and Hofstede's research which originally included data from 40 nationalities
(Hofstede, 1980). Subsequently, he enlarged his sample to cover 53 countries
(Hofstede, 1991). The two studies show considerable convergence; the survey of
values by Schwartz has sustained and ampli®ed Hofstede's conclusions rather than
contradicted them (Smith & Bond, 1998). We will focus on Hofstede because his
study has most relevance for cross-national organizational functioning. His main
source of information were data from a survey which was conducted twice,
producing a total of 116,000 questionnaires on work-related attitudes of IBM-
employees. Applying factor-analyses to these data (the mean scores per country),
Hofstede found that there were four basic dimensions on the basis of which national
cultures can be characterized:

J. P. van Oudenhoven / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 25 (2001) 89±107 91
1. Power distance, e.g. the degree of freedom in decision-making a superior leaves
to his or her subordinate. This dimension resembles Fiske's (1992) Authority
ranking which refers to cultural patterns which vary according to the degree
of rank and hierarchy. It also corresponds to Schwartz's Hierarchy value
(Schwartz, 1994).
2. Uncertainty avoidance, e.g. the strictness of rules used to deal with uncertain and
ambiguous situations. This concept is the opposite of Schwartz's Intellectual
Autonomy (Schwartz, 1994).
3. Individualism±collectivism, e.g. the degree to which people have freedom to adopt
their own approach to their job. Triandis de®nes individualism versus collectivism
as follows: ``People in individualistic cultures often give priority to their personal
goals, even when they con¯ict with the goals of important in-groups, such as the
work group; conversely, people in collectivist cultures give priority to in-group
goals'' (Triandis, 1994).
4. Masculinity±femininity. The extent to which highly assertive values predominate
(e.g., acquiring money and goods at the expense of others) versus showing
sensitivity and concern for others' welfare. This dimension corresponds to a great
deal with Schwartz's Mastery versus harmony value (Schwartz, 1994).
Hofstede's study has made a major contribution to contemporary cross-cultural
psychology. He has offered an empirically based classi®cation of cultures and his
coverage of nations is impressive. Although more recent, but less extensive studies,
have supported Hofstede's conclusions (e.g. Hoppe, 1990; Sfndergaard, 1994), there
are other studies that failed to ®nd the patterns as predicted by Hofstede or found
considerable shifts in value classi®cations (e.g. Fernandez, Carlson, Stepina, &
Nicholson, 1997).
There are several factors which may explain the failure to ®nd the same patterns in
these studies. A major diculty is that Hofstede's conclusions are primarily based on
data from } predominantly male } IBM-employees. Employees recruited by IBM
may well be different from the `average national' and may originate from quite
different segments of society from country to country. Consequently, respondents
from IBM are not representative for their nations so that there is a selection
problem. Secondly, his data were collected 25±30 years ago in a world which has
changed tremendously politically and economically. A third problem is that the
items used by Hofstede did not suciently discriminate between the actual or
perceived culture and the desired culture. They may partly re¯ect the culture as the
employees found it to be (e.g. a power distance item: ``How frequently, in your
experience, does the following problem occur: employees being afraid to express
disagreement with their managers?'') and partly how they would like it to be (e.g. an
uncertainty avoidance item: Agreement with the statement: ``Company rules should
not be broken } even when the employee thinks it is in the company's best
interest''.). Although, according to Hofstede (1991, p. 27), ``... from one country to
another there is a close relationship between the reality one perceives and the reality
one desires'', there may well be a discrepancy between value and practice, for
instance, between the desired level of power distance and the level actually perceived.

A ®nal issue is whether Hofstede's dimensions are ``on people's mind'' if they are not
made salient by explicitly referring to the dimensions. As a matter of fact,
when questions are asked concerning Hofstede's dimensions, these dimensions
become salient. But, would they also be used in people's spontaneous descriptions?
These four issues are all good reasons for a cross-validation study of Hofstede's
®ndings.
The basic assumption in this study was that the culture as found in companies
within a country should partly re¯ect the national culture. This implies that if
Hofstede's four dimensions really characterize national cultures, then actual
companies from a particular country would on the average have to resemble the
description of that particular national culture more as compared to companies from
other countries. Concrete, real companies, however, consist of many elements of
which the national cultural ¯avor is only one aspect. Differences in size,
organizational culture, branch, region, etc., may neutralize the in¯uence of national
culture. This means that national cultures may not easily be recognized at the
concrete company level, but do exist in the images respondents have of the overall
typical characteristics of companies in their country. This implies that national
cultures will more clearly be identi®ed if we ask respondents from different countries
to score their national companies in general. In order to test Hofstede's model, we
presented statements directly related to Hofstede's dimensions and then asked
respondents from different countries to indicate to which degree these statements
applied to the national companies that they knew. In this case, Hofstede's
conclusions would be supported to the extent in which a positive relation is found
between the national scores on the four dimensions by the respondents of this study
and Hofstede's scores.
By presenting stimuli using Hofstede's dimensions we make these dimensions
salient. It is important to know whether respondents also make use of Hofstede's
dimensions when they describe a company without such speci®c instructions.
Therefore, we let respondents think freely of cultural and structural aspects of an
existing company in order to ®nd out whether the dimensions of power distance,
uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and individualism are important ``spontaneous''
dimensions to describe organizations. Naturally, such a description task had to be
done before the four dimensions were made salient. Therefore, this task had to
precede the questions in which the respondents were asked to rate the statements
concerning the dimensions.
Summarizing, we tried to test the following two hypotheses:
1. Respondents use Hofstede's dimensions when they ``spontaneously'' describe
organizations.
2. Companies within a country re¯ect the corresponding national cultures as
described in Hofstede's terms.
Apart from testing the validity of Hofstede's dimensions, this study aimed to ®nd
out whether there is a relationship between the actually perceived and the desired
national culture. This was done in the following way. We not only asked the

respondents to indicate to what degree the statements measuring Hofstede's
dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculi-
nity/femininity actually applied to the national companies as far as known to them,
but also to what degree they would desire that they did.
1. Method
1.1. Subjects
As respondents 817 advanced (higher education) students of business
administration, management, industrial economics, and related disciplines
participated. The students came from universities or comparable high-level
education institutions in Belgium (N=102; Dutch-speaking group), Canada
(N=60; English-speaking group), Denmark (N=76), France (N=88), Germany
(N=75), Great Britain (N=87), Greece, (N=79), Spain (N=72), United States
(N=62), and The Netherlands (N=116). In all countries except Greece students
from several schools/ universities participated. Although all respondents were
students, most subjects of this study, due to their business orientation, had
organizational experience in addition to their academic experience: Sixty-eight
percent had more than one year of work experience and many of them were working
part-time: only 11% indicated to have no working experience. The advantage of this
sample is that they form a fairly comparable group across countries. Because the
sample's work experience covered a wide range of organizations, the risk of
registering the culture as perceived within only one single company is avoided. A
further advantage of this group is that they are the kind of people that, much more
than their average countrymen, are trained to look at organizations with a certain
amount of intellectual distance. Sixty-one percent of the students were male, 39%
were female. Forty-seven percent were younger than 23 years. Thirty-four percent
were 23±27 years of age; a substantial group of 19% were older than 27. In order to
be able to rate national companies on Hofstede's four dimensions, respondents need
to have been able to observe a number of organizations. For that reason the 104
respondents that were younger than 21 years were excluded from some of the
analyses. They were assumed to have had too little working experience to be
suciently experienced observers. The average age of the remaining 713 students of
21 years and older was 25.32 years.
When asked to think of a concrete company, the respondents mentioned com-
panies from different branches: agricultural and food industry (14%), ®nancial
sector (12%), metal industry (12%), consultancy and services (11%), commercial
sector (11%), health and government sector (8%), chemical industry (8%),
electronics and information technology (7%), transport (6%), construction (4%),
media (3%), and miscellaneous (4%). Seventeen and a half percent of the companies
were small (25±50 employees), 12% were medium sized (51±100 employees), and the
remaining 70.5% were large companies.

1.2. Instruments
The questionnaire started with a general description of the research project,
explaining that it dealt with `increasing international cooperation'. Next, there were
some questions about the school to which the students belonged, their gender,
nationality, age and work experience. The ®rst part of the questionnaire induced the
respondents to give ``free descriptions of organizations'' (see Appendix A for the
version given to the US students). They were asked to imagine an existing company
and to make a description of it with a maximum of 10 adjectives with respect to its
cultural and structural aspects. It should be a national company of at least 25
employees, preferably the company they had worked in (as was stressed in oral
instructions), but they could also choose a company they knew from family, friends,
a summer job, or from practical work. Asking them to describe a company forced
them to think of a company as concretely as possible which would prevent
them from using stereotypes of national companies to describe that particular
organization.
In order to ®nd out whether companies within a country re¯ect the corresponding
national cultures as described in Hofstede's terms the questionnaire included four sets
of statements1 (see Appendix B). There was one set for each of Hofstede's
dimensions (®ve statements per dimension, indicating a very low to a very high
position on that dimension). The respondents had to indicate which of the ®ve
statements applied most to the organizations in their country as far as known to
them, and to choose the statement that concurred most with their preference. These
two different questions were used to distinguish between the culture as perceived and
the culture as desired.
In each country respondents received the questionnaire in their native language.
The English and Dutch versions were developed simultaneously by a bilingual team.
Since Hofstede has published the items in both languages, it was possible to use his
formulations to a great extent. Both versions were extensively reviewed by native
English and Dutch-speaking persons. For the other versions the questionnaire was
always translated by a native speaker and than translated back into Dutch.
1.3. Procedure
Over 90% of the questionnaires were administered to groups at the end or at the
beginning of a lecture that formed a part of the ordinary curriculum. During a very
short oral introduction the students were asked by the researcher to participate } as
future business experts } in an international survey on organizational climates.
Filling out the questionnaire by the whole group never lasted more than 25 min. The
remaining 10% of the subjects was approached individually by a colleague of the
author.
1 I am grateful to Geert Hofstede who was as kind as to check whether the questionnaire correctly
re¯ected the four dimensions and to give some suggestions for improvement.

There were several versions of the questionnaire due to variations in the order in
which reference was made to the four dimensions. The different questionnaire
versions were randomly given to the students.
Ninety-eight percent of the respondents who were asked to collaborate did so. The
task dealt with international cooperation, a topic which most students found
interesting. Moreover, it did not take much of the students' time. These factors may
have motivated the students to ®ll out the questionnaire seriously.
1.4. Design and analysis
To answer the question whether respondents ``spontaneously'' used Hofstede's dimen-
sions to describe organizations we had to put in order the over 3000 descriptions
collected in seven different languages. All non-Dutch words and expressions were
translated into Dutch by linguists. Descriptions that were (almost) synonymous (e.g.
``small'' and ``reduced size'') were brought together. Next, a group of ®ve judges
(advanced students of organizational psychology) combined groups of descriptions
that were very much related into categories. Combinations of groups of descriptions
were made, provided that all ®ve judges agreed that they formed a meaningful and
coherent category. The next step was to dichotomize the category descriptions, like
``young±old'' or ``regional±international''. All ``idiosyncratic'' (e.g. ``The plant was
founded in a former school'' or ``My Dad worked there'') and neutral (e.g. ``nor
modern nor old-fashioned'') descriptions that could not be subsumed in one of these
dichotomized categories were left out of the analysis. To ®nd out whether Hofstede's
dimensions are used when respondents spontaneously describe concrete companies we
looked at the categories, but excluded the infrequently mentioned categories from the
analysis. Categories had to be referred to at least 50 times in order to be included in the
analysis. According to this criterium nine categories, representing 1925 descriptions
were included in the analysis. The remaining 35% of the descriptions were mentioned
with too low a frequency or were neutral descriptions.
In order to test whether companies within a country re¯ect the national cultures as
characterized by Hofstede we ®rst applied a multivariate analysis of variance of the
effects of nationality on the scores on the four dimensions as perceived and as
desired. Univariate analyses of variance were then carried out to ®nd out which
variables contributed to the signi®cant effects. Because of the relatively large number
of respondents and, consequently, the relatively high power of analysis, all
differences between nations were tested at a 1% probability level. Next, we
calculated the correlation between the country scores in this study (the average score
per dimension as perceived and as desired) and Hofstede's country scores.
2. Results
The ®rst research question dealt with whether respondents used Hofstede's
dimensions at all when they ``spontaneously'' describe a concrete organization. There
were nine categories which were referred to at least 50 times. The dichotomized

categories with their frequencies were: ¯at/non-bureaucratic versus hierarchical/
bureaucratic (389); innovative versus traditional (368); pro®table versus non-
pro®table (295); good versus bad work ambiance (248); international versus regional
(195); small versus large (176); informal versus formal (101); young versus old (90);
and individualistic versus teamwork (63). For the analysis, dyads of judges scored all
descriptions of the companies given by the respondents on the nine categories. For
each of the nine categories a ``1'' or ``2'' was scored according to the company
description given (e.g. young=1; old=2) or a ``0'' was scored if the descriptions were
not applicable to the category or if no information with respect to that category was
available. The amount of scoring accordance between two independent judges with
respect to the use of the three different scores was relatively high (Cohen's
Kappa=0.84).
The most frequently mentioned category included descriptions like `hierarchical',
`bureaucratic', `centralistic' versus `¯at', `non-bureaucratic' etc. This category, which
we called `bureaucracy', refers at the same time to the power distance and the
uncertainty avoidance aspects of organizations. Interestingly, country scores } for
the 10 countries (see Table 1) } on this category correlated 0.66 with Hofstede's
power distance and 0.63 with his uncertainty avoidance scores (see Table 2). The
category `individualistic' versus `teamwork' clearly corresponds to individualism
versus collectivism. The correlation with Hofstede's score was 0.47. The category
`work ambiance' which refers to social relationships at the work ¯oor is conceptually
related to Hofstede's femininity. ``Having a good working relationship with your
direct supervisor'' and ``Working with people who cooperate well with one another''
are indicative for femininity (Hofstede, 1991; p. 82). The correlation with Hofstede's
score was 0.49. Together these three ``Hofstedean'' categories formed 36% of all
categories that were mentioned frequently enough to be included in the analysis.
That is a considerable part of the descriptions, if we take into account that almost
Table 1
Country scores on bureaucracy (1=low; 2=high), individualistic versus team work (1=team work;
2=individualistic), work ambiance (1=bad; 2=good) and on Hofstede's classi®cation
Bureaucracy Individualistic
work
Work
ambiance
Power
distance
Uncertainty
avoidance
Individualism Masculinity
Belgium 1.74 1.12 1.79 65 94 75 54
Canada 1.58 1.00 1.97 39 48 80 52
Denmark 1.58 1.00 2.00 18 23 74 16
France 1.82 1.67 1.65 68 86 71 43
Germany 1.70 1.40 1.73 35 65 67 66
Greece 1.70 1.00 1.91 60 112 35 57
Spain 1.77 1.00 1.86 57 86 51 42
The Netherlands 1.72 1.62 1.87 38 53 80 14
United Kingdom 1.79 1.40 1.74 35 35 89 66
United States 1.80 1.44 1.76 40 46 91 62
Total 1.74 1.29 1.81
(N ˆ 389) (N ˆ 63) (N ˆ 248)

Table 2
Correlations between Hofstede's scores and country scores on bureaucracy, individualistic (versus team)
work and work ambiance
Hofstede's dimensions
Power distance Uncertainty avoidance Individualism Femininity
Bureaucracy 0.66 0.63 ÿ0.36 ÿ0.41
Individualistic
(versus team) work
0.05 ÿ0.14 0.47 ÿ0.02
Work ambiance 0.42 0.22 0.24 0.49
40% of all descriptions referred to fairly neutral aspects of organizations such as the
size, age, pro®tability, and regional versus international character of the organiza-
tion. The remaining 24% of descriptions referred to traditional versus innovative,
and formal versus informal aspects of organizations. Apparently, Hofstede's
dimensions are important ``spontaneous'' dimensions to describe organizations.
Moreover, the respondents' descriptions of their native companies show national
differences which correspond to a large extent to what would be predicted on the
basis of Hofstede's national culture scores.
The second research question was whether companies in a country re¯ected the
national cultures as characterized by Hofstede. Therefore, the ideas that respondents
had of their native companies were related to Hofstede's scores on the four
dimensions. Only the respondents that were 21 years or older (87% of the students)
were included in this analysis. First, a multivariate analysis of the effect of nation on
the perceived and desired levels of power distance, uncertainty avoidance,
individualism, and femininity was carried out. This analysis including 10 countries
yielded a signi®cant effect of nation, F (72,5624)=5.23; p50.001. All eight variables
contributed to this effect. In Figs. 1±4 the average scores on the perceived and desired
levels of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and femininity for the
10 countries are graphically presented and the corresponding univariate F-values and
p-values are given).
Next, the correlations were calculated between Hofstede's scores and the
perception scores obtained in this study. As can be seen from Table 3 for the 10
countries there are moderate to moderately high correlations between Hofstede's
scores on power distance, uncertainty avoidance and femininity, and the perception
scores obtained in the current study. Only with respect to the perceived level of
individualism a high negative correlation was found, opposite to what was expected.
There was, however, a high correlation between the desired level of individualism in
this study and Hofstede's scores on individualism. These remarkable results can
easily be explained if we take into account that the questions used in Hofstede's
study also measured the desired level of individualism. There, respondents were
asked to disregard the extent to which individualism related factors were contained
in their job, but to answer instead how important they would be in an ideal job
(Hofstede, 1991, p. 51). We will elaborate on the differences between desired and
perceived level of individualism in the discussion section.

Fig. 1. Average scores of perceived and desired level of power distance for 10 countries (1=low-power
distance; 5=high-power distance).
In almost all cases there were large differences between the perceived and the
desired culture, as Figs. 1±4 clearly show. The differences are particularly large with
respect to power distance. In all countries the respondents would like to have much
less power distance as compared to what they perceive in the companies. When
measures were analyzed at the individual level there was virtually no relation
between the perceived and the desired levels of power distance, uncertainty
avoidance, individualism and femininity. Not a single correlation between the
individually measured perceived and desired levels of the four dimensions was higher
than 0.14, which indicates that culture as perceived and as desired are largely
independent variables.
Additional analyses: Apart from the effect of nation on the perceived and desired
levels of Hofstede's dimensions, the data from this study allow us to assess the
possible effects of gender, age and working experience. Multivariate analyses were
carried out on all eight dependent variables (the perceived and desired levels of
power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and femininity). In this case
all respondents were included in the analysis. Signi®cant multivariate effects were
found of gender, F(8,808)=2.92; p50.01, and of age, F(8,808)=4.51; p50.001.
Univariately, only a few signi®cant effects were found. Women desire less power
distance than men (M=2.03 versus M=2.17), F(1,815)=6.66; p=0.01; and
respondents younger than 28 prefer a higher level of femininity than respondents

Fig. 2. Average scores of perceived and desired level of uncertainty avoidance for 10 countries (1=low
uncertainty avoidance; 5=high uncertainty avoidance).
of 28 and older (M=2.98 versus M=2.79), F (1,815)=12.21; p50.001, and they
perceive their national companies as more individualistic than their older colleagues
do, M=3.35 versus M=3.22, F (1,815)=13.05; p50.001. In contrast to the just
mentioned variables, the factor nation had highly signi®cant effects on all dependent
variables which suggests that nation is a much stronger source of variance.
Because the respondents in this study were students who generally have broader
career perspectives than the average employee, they may show different perceptions
of the culture and different desires when compared to ordinary employees who may
have sought and found the culture they like in their current job. To ®nd out whether
ordinary employees think differently from student employees, the questionnaire was
also applied to a sample of 58 Dutch lower and middle-level employees from eight
different organizations and three different sectors (the chemical, energy, and
construction sector). When these employees were compared to Dutch students on the
perceived and desired culture dimensions no signi®cant differences were found
between the groups with respect to their perceptions of the culture, but they did differ
signi®cantly with respect to their preference for uncertainty avoidance, F(1,170)=
35.84; p50.001 and femininity F(1,170)=17.98; p50.001. Ordinary employees
desire less uncertainty (M=3.24 versus 2.61) and a higher level of femininity
(M=3.40 versus 2.97) as compared to business students.

Fig. 3. Average scores of perceived and desired level of individualism for 10 countries (1=low
individualism; 5=high individualism).
3. Conclusions
Two decades ago Hofstede published his ``Culture's consequences'' which stated
that national cultures can be distinguished on the basis of four dimensions. The
purpose of this study was to ®nd out whether his classi®cation is (still) valid. The
answer is quite armative. Not only do students of business and economics use
categories which are conceptually close to Hofstede's dimensions when they
spontaneously describe companies, but their descriptions of native companies are
to a considerable degree related to what would be predicted on the basis of
Hofstede's classi®cation. The evidence from the spontaneous descriptions should be
interpreted with caution, however, because the descriptive data were analyzed ``post
hoc'' and the category ``individualistic versus teamwork'' was too infrequently used
to allow ®rm conclusions.
Further evidence comes from the ratings of native companies. First, we found
indeed signi®cant differences between the countries with respect to all four of
Hofstede's dimensions which were more convincing than the effects of other relevant
factors, such as gender, age, and working experience. Moreover, there is quite some
correspondence between the scores as found in this study and Hofstede's scores. The
support is even stronger if we interpret the positive correlation of desired
individualism with Hofstede's individualism scores as support for his individualism
scores. Actually, as we indicated in the results section, the individualism scores in

Fig. 4. Average scores of perceived and desired level of femininity for 10 countries (1=low femininity;
5=high femininity).
Table 3
Correlations between Hofstede's scores and the perceived and desired levels of power distance, uncertainty
avoidance, individualism and femininity in this study (N ˆ 713)
Hofstede's dimensions
Power distance Uncertainty avoidance Individualism Femininity
Perceived power distance 0.38
Desired power distance ÿ0.08
Perceived uncertainty avoidance 0.22
Desired uncertainty avoidance 0.46
Perceived individualism ÿ0.69
Desired individualism 0.59
Perceived femininity 0.68
Desired femininity 0.00
Hofstede's study were based on what the IBM-employees wished and not on how
they actually perceived it in their organization, so that it is not surprising that we
found a considerable correlation between his country scores on individualism and
the scores on desired levels of individualism in this study. The spontaneous
description data with respect to the dichotomy ``individualism/teamwork provided

further support for Hofstede's individualism dimension. But how can we explain the
striking differences between perceived and desired levels of individualism found in
this study? A plausible explanation is that the frames of reference about what is an
acceptable level of privacy may differ from country to country according to the level
of desired individualism, and thus in¯uence people's perceptions of individualism.
Consequently, the same amount of privacy may be perceived as much by collectivists
(Greeks for instance), but as little by individualists (Americans and Canadians, for
instance). In the individualism part of the questionnaire items such as ``Work and
personal life are separated to a great extent'' were used. Such items are probably
more subject to subjective interpretations than if the items were formulated in terms
of concrete behavior.
In this study, a short questionnaire was used in order to enhance the participation
of respondents. The success of survey research, in particular of cross-national
studies, depends on their willingness to collaborate. A risk of using relatively few
questions is that it makes it dicult to assess the reliability of the instrument. The
fact, however, that two totally different methods of testing Hofstede's dimensions
(the spontaneous descriptions of concrete companies and the rating of national
companies in general by statements regarding the four dimensions) support the
validity of Hofstede's classi®cation suggests that the results are suciently reliable.
Moreover, the fact that the two genders totally replicate each others' perception
scores further indicates that the questions led to reliable results.
To conclude, this study means substantial support for Hofstede's dimensions:
Respondents appear to use ``Hofstedean'' dimensions spontaneously. Moreover,
both the results obtained with the spontaneous categories and the perception ratings
of national companies show a considerable correspondence with Hofstede's scores.
An interesting question is whether differences in national cultures remain
unaffected over time or tend to converge. The convergence position holds that as
a result of common industrial experiences } in particular, of technological origin }
organizational patterns and structures and management structures are converging
(e.g. Levitt, 1983). By contrast, others } e.g. Hofstede (1993) and Laurent (1983) }
argue that organizations are culturebound and that effective ways of management
depend on the culture involved. The data from this study did not test the
convergence versus divergence controversy, but the pattern of the differences
between the culture as perceived and as desired suggests some support for the
convergence hypothesis: the respondents from all nations show consensus in their
preference for a lower power distance as compared to the perceived level of power
distance; the same holds with respect to uncertainty avoidance and } almost in all
cases } with respect to individualism and masculinity. Taken together this pattern
of results may be seen as a sign of a growing convergence of national organization
cultures. Global market integration and internationalization (Americanization) of
management literature lead to a reduction of national differences of organization
cultures. In other important ®elds of live (e.g. in family or religious life areas) such a
convergence may not (yet) be taking place or may occur more slowly.
There is little if any relation between the culture as perceived and the culture as
desired. In addition, there are considerable differences between the perceived and the

desired levels of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and
femininity. The pattern of preferences may be affected by the academic career of
the respondents. Students of economics and business administration get to know and
are probably in¯uenced by American management techniques. There is indeed quite
some correspondence between the values of Organizational Development and the
preference scores by the respondents of this study. According to Jaeger (1986)
Organizational Development is characterized by low-power distance, low uncer-
tainty avoidance, low masculinity and medium individualism. This pro®le is quite
similar to the desired levels of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism
and masculinity as found in this study.
Remarkably, a sample of Dutch ordinary lower and middle-level employees do
not differ from Dutch students in their perceptions, but they do differ in their
preferences: First, they value clear instructions more than students do. In contrast to
these employees, students are starting their career and are trained to take initiatives
and to follow general outlines instead of clear instructions. It may also be a
consequence of age differences. The only aspect of the IBM-population which
Hofstede (1991, p. 117) found to be related with uncertainty avoidance was average
age. In countries were IBM employees tended to be older he found higher stress and
more rule orientation. The average age of this sample of Dutch employees was
approximately 40 years, whereas the students were in their early twenties on average.
Secondly, the employees ®nd good relationships with their co-workers more
important and making a career less important than students do. This result also
corresponds with Hofstede's (1991, p. 86) ®ndings. He found that oce workers and
unskilled or semiskilled workers were the most ``feminine'', and professional workers
were the most ``masculine''.
Interestingly, the Spanish, Greek, and German groups, in particular, show large
differences between the desired and perceived levels of power distance, individualism,
and masculinity. All these three nations had authoritarian political systems in recent
history. Authoritarian systems are characterized by high-power distance and high
masculinity. The current data indicate that respondents from these three nations
want to dissociate themselves from that pattern. One might speculate that differences
between desired and perceived levels suggest that a national culture is the process of
being transformed.
On the basis of the liking and the perception scores it must be concluded that it is
important to make a distinction between the culture as perceived and the culture as
desired. Across nations we found some differences in preference scores, such as a
lower desired level of power distance by women, and the higher preference for
femininity of young respondents. Probably, the culture as desired varies more
according to the group to which one belongs than the culture as perceived. Students
and employees, or men and women may differ with respect to their preferences, but
they all have common experiences when working in the same organization or in the
same country. Therefore, it is understandable that their perceptions do not differ
within one nation.
One might speculate that culture as desired may gradually in¯uence the culture as
perceived. If we take into account that women increasingly participate in

organizational life and that they have a stronger preference for low power distance
than their male colleagues it is to be expected that organizational cultures will, in
general, tend towards lower power distance. It would be interesting in future
research to put this speculation to a test.
Acknowledgements
Many colleagues of mine helped me enormously with the collection of the data
from 11 countries. Without their help this study would not have been possible. I
would like to thank the following persons, in particular: Belgium: Eddy van
Avermaet, Piet Van den Abeele, and Frank van Overwalle; Canada: Ben Sugloski
and Titia Sietsma; Denmark: the late Harald Vestergaard and Heather Hazard;
France: Francoise Askevis and Denis Hilton; Germany: Peter Hammann, Bettina
Hannover, and Ulrich Wagner; Greece: Marina Bastounis, Alexandra Hantzi, and
Andreas Nikolopoulos; Portugal: Elisabeth Sousa, Spain: Francisco Javier Montero
and Ana Puy Rodiguez; The Netherlands: Akkie Bootsma, Jan-Willem Gehrels,
Anne-Marie Jeunink, Ursula Jonge Baas, Judith Keser, Robert Kleen, Peter
Koopman, Theo Postma, Ad Pruyn, Frances Roest, Hans van Uitert, Luan
Uitenwerf, Maarten van Opstal, Marcel Verheijen, Josiane Wiersma, and Harm
Zuil; United Kingdom: Peter Harris; United States: George Cvetkovich, Joe Garcia,
Chris McCusker, Julie Olson, and Larry Sherman.
I am also very grateful to Bram Buunk and Evert van de Vliert and
two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this
paper.
Appendix A. Organization description task
We ask you to imagine an existing company and to make a description of it in a
maximum of 10 adjectives.
It should be an American company (e.g. not Sony Electronics) with a minimum of
25 employees.
Choose a company you know from family, friends, a summer job, or from
practical work.
We are especially interested in cultural and structural aspects of organizations and
less interested in juridical and economical aspects.
The company is:
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-

7-
8-
9-
10-
In what line of business does the company of your description operate?
}
Company size
1. 25±50 employees
2. 51±100 employees
3. >100 employees
Appendix B. Ratings of national companies
Finally, four sets of statements (referring to Power Distance, Uncertainty
Avoidance, Femininity, and Individualism) with regard to organizations were
presented in random order to the respondents. They were ®rst asked to indicate
which statement applied most to American organizations as far as known to them by
circling one of ®ve letters (``Which statement applies most to the American
organizations that you know? Complete by circling the appropriate letter''.). Next,
they were asked to choose the statement that re¯ected most the situation they
preferred (``Which statement concurs most with your preference? Complete by
circling the appropriate letter''.).
(Power Distance)
(a) Decision making within the organization always takes place after consulting
with employees involved.
(b) Managers regularly consult their employees before they make decisions.
(c) When decisions are being made, employees can express their opinion.
(d) Employees have little opportunity to express their opinion with regard to
important decisions.
(e) All decisions are made by the top of the organization.
(Uncertainty Avoidance)
(a) One can hardly speak of organization rules: employees work autonomously.
(b) Strict rules hardly exist and they may be broken if necessary. One adheres only
to general rules of behaviour.
(c) Clear organization rules do exist. However, it is possible to complete tasks in
your own way provided that this is in accordance with the organisation's policy.
(d) Within the organisations there exist clear instructions which have to be
followed.
(e) Organization rules are very strict and have to be adhered to rigorously.

(Femininity)
(a) Employees are very career-oriented; good relationships with co-workers are less
important.
(b) Making a career is important, even more important than good relationships with
co-workers.
(c) Making a career is important. However, it may not damage good relationships
with co-workers.
(d) Making a career is less important than good relationships with co-workers.
(e) Having good relationships with co-workers is highly important; making a career
plays hardly a role.
(Individualism)
(a) Work and personal life are hardly separated; one likes to do work which serves
the organisation's interest.
(b) Although work and personal life are intertwined, employees do appreciate a
certain degree of privacy. Their behaviour is very much oriented towards the
organization's interest.
(c) Employees want a considerable degree of privacy. They pursue their own
interests but not at the expense of the organization.
(d) Work and personal life are separated to a great extent. Employees pursue their
own interest; that of the organization is of minor importance.
(e) Work and personal life are strictly separated. Employees only pursue their own
interests; the organization's interest hardly plays a role.
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