Intercultural/Cross-Cultural Training: Rejecting Hofstede and Trompenaars
By Rosina Hassoun, Ph.D.
A number of businesses have adopted the concepts of the influential Dutch expert Geert Hofstede and another
approach by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner for their intercultural or cross-cultural training that
includes examining differences in international cultures and organizational cultures. But many other
anthropologists, sociologists, and social scientists have grave misgivings and are highly critical of the analysis
used by Hofstede. An article critical of the methodology used by Hofstede is available at: http://geert-hofstede.
international-business-center.com/mcsweeney.shtml
This article, entitled, Hofstade's Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A Triumph of
Faith-A Failure of Analysis, by Dr. Brendan McSweeney states that Hofstede’s work is based on fundamentally
flawed assumptions.- that Hofstade over generalizes the influence of national culture to every micro-location within
a nation and places too much emphasis or an average character. While McSweeney points to the creation of
cultural categories and the subsequent limitation or reduction of all the diversity in Hofstade's IBM subsidiaries
studies to three discreet cultural groups, an anthropologist following Steven Jay Gould's arguments in his classic
text, The Mismeasure of Man, might call this an error of reification. The diversity in IBM is therefore reduced or
simply ignored. Worst of all is the assumption that a set of limited questions asked in his surveys can adequately
and comprehensively depict and provide an in-depth understanding of the values of a culture. In addition, these
are incomplete and perhaps inaccurate depictions of complex cultures. Lastly, Hofstede is criticized as failing to
recognize the impact of the local and the location on the organizational culture (and also at the national cultural
level).
Hofstede's five dimensions of culture have an eerie resemblance to the national character studies of the 1940's
and WWII that were also badly flawed and poorly researched that were deeply influenced by researcher bias and
easily created stereotypes of other cultures. We should not equate Hofestede's and Trompenaars and Charles
Hampden-Turner's work to the WWII studies- and yet we need to be mindful of the lessons of history. Most
anthropologists today would be uncomfortable reducing the complexity of culture to "5 dimensions of culture” that
we can then score.
Likewise, Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner have developed a model of culture with seven
dimensions, which appears to be a variation on the same theme of reducing cultural complexity. Most
anthropologists today define culture as “all that is learned and passed from one generation to the next” (see
Margaret Mead) and/or the framework through which we view the world that cannot easily be reduced into a group
of simplistic parameters. While Hofstede’s and Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s perspectives may be
widely accepted in business circles, few anthropologists that have made a lifelong study using ethnographic
methods can be entirely comfortable with five or seven simplistic dimensions to culture. It is natural that most
anthropologists have not ventured into cross- cultural training without some misgivings. When we train students to
understand culture in the classroom, we have a semester to expose them to other cultures and usually cover 16 to
20 major chapters in a book, outlining hundreds of dimensions to culture. The first and foremost issues we address
are the issues of ethnocentrism and cultural relativity. It is very easy for these to be lost in the easily judgmental
dimensions of Hofstade and Trompenaars. Granted that they state and one must give them the benefit of their
sincerity of their purpose to create better cross-cultural communication (albeit for capitalistic gains for a few), the
worry remains concerning how the application may lead to stereotypes and offence. Challenges to their system of
classification of cultures abound.
For example, with the recent terrible Arab/Israeli war raging -how is it that a group that is classified as “a past-
oriented, internally oriented, communitarian, high power distant, masculine focused, uncertainty avoiding, and
long-term or traditionally oriented” such as the Arab Hezbollah sub-culture been able to multi-task and to be future-
oriented enough to take on the world’s fifth largest military, Israel, in a protracted war (eighteen years in Lebanon
and now in its second war with over a week of heavy bombardment)? This is not praise for Hezbollah, but rather a
criticism of the simplistic system of ranking cultures. The 5 and 7 dimension models utterly fail to explain this and
many phenomena within cultures and cannot address one of the most pressing tragedies of our time, let alone the
cultural dimensions involved.
Many of the issues or dimensions raised by Hofstede and Trompenaars and Hampden–Turner are addressed in
the anthropological method, but the difference is that the anthropological method focuses on a holistic
understanding of cultures and their subcultures. But trying to present an anthropological approach to diversity in
inter-cultural or cross-cultural training that will create real cultural competency in a short training or series of
trainings is a serious challenge. The issue here is not providing a scorecard for cultures the one can tick off and
then claim culture competency, but rather providing a mental framework for viewing cultural complexity. The latter
requires understanding that real cultural competency is a process that takes time and homework after the training
is finished. Deep cultural competency requires listening skills, patience, an understanding of intra-cultural diversity,
and the willingness to be open to other cultures and ways of doing things.
By Rosina Hassoun, Ph.D.
A number of businesses have adopted the concepts of the influential Dutch expert Geert Hofstede and another
approach by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner for their intercultural or cross-cultural training that
includes examining differences in international cultures and organizational cultures. But many other
anthropologists, sociologists, and social scientists have grave misgivings and are highly critical of the analysis
used by Hofstede. An article critical of the methodology used by Hofstede is available at: http://geert-hofstede.
international-business-center.com/mcsweeney.shtml
This article, entitled, Hofstade's Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A Triumph of
Faith-A Failure of Analysis, by Dr. Brendan McSweeney states that Hofstede’s work is based on fundamentally
flawed assumptions.- that Hofstade over generalizes the influence of national culture to every micro-location within
a nation and places too much emphasis or an average character. While McSweeney points to the creation of
cultural categories and the subsequent limitation or reduction of all the diversity in Hofstade's IBM subsidiaries
studies to three discreet cultural groups, an anthropologist following Steven Jay Gould's arguments in his classic
text, The Mismeasure of Man, might call this an error of reification. The diversity in IBM is therefore reduced or
simply ignored. Worst of all is the assumption that a set of limited questions asked in his surveys can adequately
and comprehensively depict and provide an in-depth understanding of the values of a culture. In addition, these
are incomplete and perhaps inaccurate depictions of complex cultures. Lastly, Hofstede is criticized as failing to
recognize the impact of the local and the location on the organizational culture (and also at the national cultural
level).
Hofstede's five dimensions of culture have an eerie resemblance to the national character studies of the 1940's
and WWII that were also badly flawed and poorly researched that were deeply influenced by researcher bias and
easily created stereotypes of other cultures. We should not equate Hofestede's and Trompenaars and Charles
Hampden-Turner's work to the WWII studies- and yet we need to be mindful of the lessons of history. Most
anthropologists today would be uncomfortable reducing the complexity of culture to "5 dimensions of culture” that
we can then score.
Likewise, Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner have developed a model of culture with seven
dimensions, which appears to be a variation on the same theme of reducing cultural complexity. Most
anthropologists today define culture as “all that is learned and passed from one generation to the next” (see
Margaret Mead) and/or the framework through which we view the world that cannot easily be reduced into a group
of simplistic parameters. While Hofstede’s and Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s perspectives may be
widely accepted in business circles, few anthropologists that have made a lifelong study using ethnographic
methods can be entirely comfortable with five or seven simplistic dimensions to culture. It is natural that most
anthropologists have not ventured into cross- cultural training without some misgivings. When we train students to
understand culture in the classroom, we have a semester to expose them to other cultures and usually cover 16 to
20 major chapters in a book, outlining hundreds of dimensions to culture. The first and foremost issues we address
are the issues of ethnocentrism and cultural relativity. It is very easy for these to be lost in the easily judgmental
dimensions of Hofstade and Trompenaars. Granted that they state and one must give them the benefit of their
sincerity of their purpose to create better cross-cultural communication (albeit for capitalistic gains for a few), the
worry remains concerning how the application may lead to stereotypes and offence. Challenges to their system of
classification of cultures abound.
For example, with the recent terrible Arab/Israeli war raging -how is it that a group that is classified as “a past-
oriented, internally oriented, communitarian, high power distant, masculine focused, uncertainty avoiding, and
long-term or traditionally oriented” such as the Arab Hezbollah sub-culture been able to multi-task and to be future-
oriented enough to take on the world’s fifth largest military, Israel, in a protracted war (eighteen years in Lebanon
and now in its second war with over a week of heavy bombardment)? This is not praise for Hezbollah, but rather a
criticism of the simplistic system of ranking cultures. The 5 and 7 dimension models utterly fail to explain this and
many phenomena within cultures and cannot address one of the most pressing tragedies of our time, let alone the
cultural dimensions involved.
Many of the issues or dimensions raised by Hofstede and Trompenaars and Hampden–Turner are addressed in
the anthropological method, but the difference is that the anthropological method focuses on a holistic
understanding of cultures and their subcultures. But trying to present an anthropological approach to diversity in
inter-cultural or cross-cultural training that will create real cultural competency in a short training or series of
trainings is a serious challenge. The issue here is not providing a scorecard for cultures the one can tick off and
then claim culture competency, but rather providing a mental framework for viewing cultural complexity. The latter
requires understanding that real cultural competency is a process that takes time and homework after the training
is finished. Deep cultural competency requires listening skills, patience, an understanding of intra-cultural diversity,
and the willingness to be open to other cultures and ways of doing things.
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