THE NORDIC CULTURAL CLUSTER: A RELATIVE COMPARISON USING VSM 94

Abstract

ABSTRACT National culture has been the topic of many papers and many researchers have attempted to explain the relative homogeneity of the Nordic countries. In this paper the research question is: “In relation to Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions where does Iceland differ in relation to the other Nordic countries?” A questionnaire was sent to students at the University of Iceland, School of Social Sciences. The total number of responses was 344 and since over 73% of participants were women the answers from men were weighted equal as the total number of answers from women. As a result the total number of answers was 498. The five dimensions of national culture were measured using VSM 94 and for relative comparison perceptual mapping was used. Iceland scored highest on all the dimensions except one where Finland had the highest score. Perceptual mapping shows that the Nordic countries are different from cultural perspective in relation to Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions. Sweden, Denmark and Norway seem to have more in common than Iceland and Finland and there is a difference between Iceland and Finland based on IDV on the one hand and MAS on the other. What Finland and Iceland have in common is the UAI dimension. Keywords Hofstede´s Cultural Dimensions, Nordic culture, VSM 94, Perceptual mapping.