Geert Hofstede

"Cultures and Organizations" is a thoroughly worthwhile non-political and non-theoretical sociology text. The authors keep an open mind and allow social typologies to emerge statistically from international social surveys, such as the IBM survey of international employees, the World Values Survey and the Chinese Values Survey.

They had to find words and phrases that best described the "poles" that they found and usefully selected 1) power distance 2) masculinity 3) individualism 4) uncertainty avoidance 5) long term orientation and 6) indulgence. Each term deals with its opposite and can be mapped on a chart showing for instance a low power distance between managers and employees in Scandinavia (they're all together working on a project) or a high power distance in France (they are part of a table of ranks, giving and receiving orders).

The conclusions are very interesting, showing for example the historical tendency for individualism to grow in wealthy societies (a prediction for Asia?) and the clear link between long term orientation and economic development (most visible in the Chinese Value Survey).

The authors admit to having a harder job explaining the origins of cultural differences. In the last chapter they search for origins in the early history of mankind, particularly the appearance of high power distances in the first populous settled agricultural societies.

In the modern context, they see the dangers of a global marketplace that lacks a global village. They argue that it is essential to abandon tribalism and racism in favour a global village "all together in one world" and that this would be the next triumphant step in human cultural evolution. The new evolutionary path would benefit everyone in the long run and importantly protect the natural world.… (altro)