Replicating Hofstede in Jordan: Ungeneralized, Reevaluating the Jordanian Culture

Abstract

Hofstede was credited with completing the largest cross-cultural study applicable to international management theory and a review of the literature indicates that the dimensions identified by Hofstede capture the essence of many dimensions and value orientations proposed by other researchers. The effect of culture on people’s life is so great that it will even affects the motives and choices of people’s behavior. The aim of the study is to update the Hofstede cultural value dimensions. We argue that scores (findings) obtained by Hofstede in his previous studies conducted in Arab countries and then generalized to Jordanian culture are not scientifically valid. This study replicates Hofstede’s study with data obtained from students studying for their master degrees in different universities in Jordan. Throughout the history of studying national cultures, a number of researchers, through their intense investigation of cultures, explored different cultural frameworks. This paper begins by reviewing the literature on culture and cultural frameworks. In the section after that, a replication of Hofstede’s study was conducted and findings were obtained. The final section concludes with a discussion of findings, and why findings obtained differ from those found earlier by Hofstede himself in previous research.