Hofstede Cultural Difference Critiques
Contents
Introduction: Etic or Emic? At what extent are McSweeney’s critiques valuable? 4
Research Validity 5
Research Reliability: 5
Research Sample 5
Back to Culture 7
Questionnaire and Dimensions 8
History and Research Validations 9
Conclusion 10
Bibliography 12
Introduction: Etic or Emic? At what extent are McSweeney’s critiques valuable?
Arguably, Hofstede’s work (1980, 1997) represents a pioneering approach of culture as a way of comparing international management frameworks. First of all, prior to offering any evaluations in regards to McSweeney’s criticism (2002a/b), it is crucial to identify the nature of Hostede’s work within the entire sphere of the culture approach itself.
In contrast to the guarantors of the emic approach , whose main concepts tend to discard the equalization and standardization of dimensions in national cultures’ comparisons, the pillars of Hofstede’s work, which belong to the etic approach , are based on 5 dimensions whereby national differences are then measured. In other words, from the emic standpoint it is also arguable that the etic research methodology, as aiming to identify equalities among national differences, would risk throwing out the baby with the bath water . On the other hand, from the emic perspective, dividing the culture into a set of defined scopes stands as the only way to actually enable researchers to compare cultures .
Having briefly introduced the shortcomings related to both approaches, McSweeney’s critiques can now be narrowed down to a specific scope, which is mainly encompassed with Hofstede’s research methodology.
Research Validity
In light of the importance for any researches to provide clear definitions on the specific research concepts and key words, the first part of this essay will evolve on contextualizing the meaning of culture within Hofstede’s work, thus, giving ground to McSweeney’s relevant sources of criticism.
Geert (1980) has defined culture as "the collective
Introduction: Etic or Emic? At what extent are McSweeney’s critiques valuable? 4
Research Validity 5
Research Reliability: 5
Research Sample 5
Back to Culture 7
Questionnaire and Dimensions 8
History and Research Validations 9
Conclusion 10
Bibliography 12
Introduction: Etic or Emic? At what extent are McSweeney’s critiques valuable?
Arguably, Hofstede’s work (1980, 1997) represents a pioneering approach of culture as a way of comparing international management frameworks. First of all, prior to offering any evaluations in regards to McSweeney’s criticism (2002a/b), it is crucial to identify the nature of Hostede’s work within the entire sphere of the culture approach itself.
In contrast to the guarantors of the emic approach , whose main concepts tend to discard the equalization and standardization of dimensions in national cultures’ comparisons, the pillars of Hofstede’s work, which belong to the etic approach , are based on 5 dimensions whereby national differences are then measured. In other words, from the emic standpoint it is also arguable that the etic research methodology, as aiming to identify equalities among national differences, would risk throwing out the baby with the bath water . On the other hand, from the emic perspective, dividing the culture into a set of defined scopes stands as the only way to actually enable researchers to compare cultures .
Having briefly introduced the shortcomings related to both approaches, McSweeney’s critiques can now be narrowed down to a specific scope, which is mainly encompassed with Hofstede’s research methodology.
Research Validity
In light of the importance for any researches to provide clear definitions on the specific research concepts and key words, the first part of this essay will evolve on contextualizing the meaning of culture within Hofstede’s work, thus, giving ground to McSweeney’s relevant sources of criticism.
Geert (1980) has defined culture as "the collective
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