The Hofstede Model in Context

The dimensional paradigm can be applied at other than the national level as well, in particular at the organizational and occupational levels. A research project similar to the IBM studies but focusing on organization rather than national differences was carried out by this author and a team of collaborators in the 1980s. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in twenty work organizations or parts of organizations in the Netherlands and Denmark. The units studied varied from a toy manufacturing company to two municipal police corps. The study consisted of three phases: open-ended interviews with a selection of informants, forced-choice questionnaires with all, or random samples of, employees, and collecting measurable characteristics at the organization level. The questionnaires included the items used for calculating national culture dimensions in the IBM cross- national survey, but added a large number of questions collected by the 18 interviewers in the interview phase. This study found large differences among units in perceptions of daily practices but only modest differences in values, beyond those due to such basic facts as nationality, education, gender and age group.

Six independent dimensions, resembling distinctions known from organization sociology, were identified that describe the larger part of the variety in organization practices. These six dimensions can be used as a framework to describe organization cultures, but their research base in twenty units from two countries is too narrow to consider them as universally valid and sufficient. For describing organization cultures in other countries and/or in other types of organizations, additional dimensions may be necessary or some of the six may be less useful. The six dimensions found in our research were: 

1. Process-oriented versus results-oriented

Process-oriented cultures are dominated by technical and bureaucratic routines, results- oriented by a common concern for outcomes. This dimension was associated with the culture's degree of homogeneity: in results-oriented units, everybody perceived their practices in about the same way; in process-oriented units, there were vast differences in perception among different levels and parts of the unit. The degree of homogeneity of a culture is a measure of its 'strength': the study confirmed that strong cultures are more results- oriented than weak ones, and vice versa. 

2. Job-oriented versus employee-oriented

The former assume responsibility for the employees' job performance only, and nothing more; employee-oriented cultures assume a broad responsibility for their members' well- being. At the level of individual managers, the distinction between job orientation and employee orientation has been popularized by Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid. The Hofstede et al. study shows that job versus employee orientation is part of a culture and not (only) a choice for an individual manager. A unit's position on this dimension seems to be largely the result of historical factors, like the philosophy of its founder(s) and the presence or absence in its recent history of economic crises with collective layoffs. 

3. Professional versus parochial

In the former, the (usually highly educated) members identify primarily with their profession; in the latter, the members derive their identity from the organization for which they work. Sociology has long known this dimension as 'local' versus 'cosmopolitan', the contrast between an internal and an external frame of reference. 

4. Open systems versus closed systems

This dimension refers to the common style of internal and external communication, and to the ease with which outsiders and newcomers are admitted. This is the only one of the six dimensions for which a systematic difference was found between Danish and Dutch units. It seems that organizational openness is a societal characteristic of Denmark more than of the Netherlands. This shows that organization cultures also contain elements from national culture differences.

5. Tight versus loose control

This dimension deals with the degree of formality and punctuality within the organization; it is partly a function of the unit's technology: banks and pharmaceutical companies can be expected to show tight control, research laboratories and advertising agencies loose control; but even with the same technology some units may still be tighter or looser than others. 

6. Pragmatic versus normative

The last dimension describes the prevailing way (flexible or rigid) of dealing with the environment, in particular with customers. Units selling services are likely to be found towards the pragmatic (flexible) side, units involved in the application of laws and rules towards the normative (rigid) side. This dimension measures the degree of 'customer orientation', which is a highly popular topic in the marketing literature. 

The research grounding of these dimensions is documented extensively in Hofstede et al. . Applications and implications can be found in Hofstede et al. .