Question

Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social scientist, attempted to answer the following question: if culture is the sum of the learned and shared patterns of thought and behaviors that are characteristic of a given people, how are national cultures around the world different from another? To answer the question, Hofstede embarked on a multi-national study examining national cultures in more than 40 countries and examined the different countries along four axes – power distance; individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity; and avoidance of uncertainty.

Why was Hofstede’s work criticized? Even though Hofstede’s work was criticized, did it a make a significant contribution to research?

Answer 1

culture is a continuous process, the people learned from their ancient people. for example take Indians and their culture, it is not developed or established in one day. It takes thousands of years, the Vedas we carried, Itihasas we developed, Puranas we created, and so on are there in each nerve of the Indian. so that the lifestyle of Indians are builded and developed.

Yes, culture is the sum of the learned and shared values pattern of people only. But also impacted by the society where we live, the social, economical, geographical, community, traditions, values, ethics, religion, nationalities, climatic, natural and many other factors show impact on these learned values. For example, Indian women are more matured and psychologically stronger than any other nationalities. Carrabian people have strong physic with muscle than any others etc.

culture is unique, it differentiates from one to another like every human is unique and special. The world is filled with many cultures, traditions, ethical and moral values. but every one is different from others as i said earlier. again one more example: Respect the women and elders is part of Indian tradition irrespective of any other aspect. similarly, one life, one marriage is the rich tradition of Indian culture and tradition. All these can not copied or occupied by someone else in easy manner. From the childhood, from the birth points, we observe all these from our elders and unknowingly follows the same.

we know that parents are the first teachers to child and family is the first school to them. we, as small kids and child, we come across all these and inculcate the same in our mind and heart.

Yes, the factors like, power distance, individualism& coolectivism, masculinity-faminity and avoidance of uncertainty definitely shows impact on the living style and nature of people and society. But there are many other factors deeply needed to study the reasons for these many cultures for these many regions.