An interview with Geert Hofstede

Abstract

Geert Hofstede received an M.Sc. in mechanical engineering from Delft Technical University in 1953 and earned his Ph.D. in social psychology, cum laude, from Groningen University in 1967. He worked for six years for IBM Europe where he founded and managed the Personnel Research Department. He first entered academics in 1971 when he assumed a visiting lecturer position at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. Subsequently Professor Hofstede held faculty positions at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management in Brussels and at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. In 1980 he returned to industry as a director of human resources of Fasson Europe in Leyden, the Netherlands. Just previously, he had published Culture's Consequences, the book which is the subject of this Retrospective, and opened wide the door of comparative cultural analysis in business and elsewhere, as a tool for both academics and practitioners. He returned to academics in 1983 to serve as dean of the Semafor Senior Management Program in ...