Title: Research on cultures: how to use it in training?

Authors: Gert Jan Hofstede

Addresses: Social Science Group, Wageningen University, Room 5046, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, P.O. Box 9109, 6700 HB Wageningen, The Netherlands; Man-Machine Interaction Group, Department of Mediametics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands

Abstract: This article targets researchers who use culture as a control variable and trainers or consultants who use it when they speak about leadership, communication, management or other aspects of working life. It briefly sketches the state of the art in the study of culture. By and large the dimensional paradigm first introduced by Hofstede and expanded upon by many others has proven very useful. It is unfortunately opposed by some who use dimensions at the level of the individual and thus confuse dimensions with stereotypes. The article then gives some advice to researchers of cross-cultural issues. In these, making a clear separation between the concepts of culture as something implicit and group identity as something conscious is important. Finally, a number of tips for trainers are presented.

Keywords: national culture; training; group identity; dimensional model; stereotypes; group-level selection; leadership; management; using theory; cross-cultural research; open-world assumption.

DOI: 10.1504/EJCCM.2009.026729

European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, 2009 Vol.1 No.1, pp.14 - 21

Published online: 24 Jun 2009 *

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