Title: Hofstede and learning in higher level education: an empirical study

Authors: Edward Dennehy

Addresses: Department of Business and Humanities, Institute of Technology Carlow, Carlow, Ireland

Abstract: Although the academic community (largely) seems to place a considerable degree of trust in Hofstede's claims regarding cultural differences and education, there has been relatively very little research conducted to test his claims. Where (valuable) critiques have been made, they have been based on rhetoric and references to other similar studies. To help fill this gap, this paper tests Hofstede's claims regarding his five dimensional cultural model and resulting pedagogical values using Likert-scales surveys on a sample of 327 students from 37 nationalities studying at a third level institute in Ireland. The results did not support the validity of any of the five dimension cultural values in an educational context. These findings are particularly relevant to HE management interested in the training and development of teaching staff working with international students and in general HE institute communication with those students.

Keywords: Hofstede; cross-cultural education; cross-cultural management; higher education; globalisation; Ireland; power distance; uncertainty avoidance; individualism; collectivism; masculinity; long-term orientation; cultural clusters; GLOBE; cultural differences; cultural values; management in education; international students; communications.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2015.070125

International Journal of Management in Education, 2015 Vol.9 No.3, pp.323 - 339

Published online: 27 Jun 2015 *

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