‘Looking forward by looking back'

Abstract

Hofstede’s landmark study of IBM (1980), which originally identified four cultural dimensions of ‘national culture’, remains the dominating framework for cultural research in the general field of ‘culture and business’ (Caprar 2011; Chapman 1997). The Hofstedeian research tradition continues to monopolise cultural research as the mainstream proper within the business-school academe. This position can be argued to be symptomatic for disciplinary isolationism. Triandis (1993) promulgates that ‘the present book [Hofstede 1991] makes no attempt to link with recent social science literature’ (p. 133). For example, Hofstede’s study with its firm foothold in the functionalist paradigm (Chapman 1997; Williamson 2002) was published after major intellectual advancements had transpired in the more mature classical social sciences; such as in the 1960s when shifting its epistemological focus from positivism (function) to interpretivism (meaning), and where Social Anthropology largely abandoned attempts at quantifying cultural research during the 1960s and 1970s (Chapman 1997).