Bio: (1928-2020) Dutch social psychologist and management scientist. Geert Hofstede studied engineering at Delft University and later got his PhD in social psychology at the University of Groningen in 1967. After working as an engineer, he became manager of personnel research at IBM. Following work in industry, he moved to academia and taught at several European universities, finally moving to the University of Maastricht to teach organisation anthropology and international management. 

During his work at IBM, Hofstede started a study of 117,000 employees of the IBM company worldwide. He continued to work on this study even after leaving IBM, and the results of this massive study were presented in his book Culture’s Consequences (1980). Hofstede identified four dimensions as most relevant for understanding differences in values across the world. Those dimensions are: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity. After the publication of the book, Hofstede co-founded and became the first Director of the Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation. Through this institution, he and his colleagues continued to research values in over 90 countries, both on the cultural and individual levels. Of his four dimensions, one that relates to opposition between individualistic and collectivistic values has proven to be the most important for further studies of cross-cultural differences. When researching values on the level of individuals, Hofstede uses the concepts of “idiocentrism” (individualism) and allocentrism (collectivism). He found that the collectivistic self is interdependent and relational, stresses the importance of harmony, respectfulness, cooperation, and conformity, and is susceptible to strong emotional responses relating to positive and negative feedback from others. Conflicts and completion are seen unfavorably within the group but are seen as acceptable in dealings with outsiders.

Main works

Culture’s Consequences (1980).