Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Research Articles

The effects of cultural dimensions on mobile commerce acceptance of Vietnamese consumers

The acceptance of mobile commerce (m-commerce) is different among countries, a principal cause of which is national culture. This study evaluates whether cultural aspects affect the m-commerce acceptance in Vietnam context. Hofstede's cultural dimensions (PDI, IDV, MAS, UAI and LTO) were adopted as influence factors to perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and social influence which has been known as the constructs of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). Research was conducted on 315 respondents. The structural equation model (SEM) was tested using SPSS and Amos 22. Lastly, a result comparison with a similar study carried out in the context of Indonesia was provided in order to draw implications about the validity and generality of the research model. Based on the findings, the paper offers some recommendations for businesses, telecom service providers, and m-commerce providers to attract more users.

Muhasebe Kültürü ve Entegre Raporlama Farkındalığı İlişkisi

Integrated reporting is type of corporate report in which both financial and non-financial data are presented together, and it is uncomplicated. Thanks to integrated reporting, investors are informed as a whole, and they can make the right decisions on the future performance of the enterprise.In 1988, S. J. Gray defined the dimensions of accounting culture values based on the cultural dimensions of Hofstede. These are: professionalism versus statutory control, uniformity versus flexibility, conservatism versus optimism and secrecy versus transparency. The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence on the impact of accountants’ accounting culture values on integrated reporting awareness. The data in this study were obtained by applying the questionnaire technique to accountants in Izmir. These data were analyzed from three different perspectives. When they were analyzed in terms of accounting culture values, it was concluded that accountants place more value on professionalism, uniformity, conservatism and transparency values. When analyzed in terms of integrated reporting, it was concluded that accountants have awareness about integrated reporting. As a result, it was demonstrated that the accounting culture values of the accountants do not have an impact on the awareness of integrated reporting. According to the independent two-sample t-test results, the integrated reporting awareness does not display a significant difference according to the values of accounting culture. In other words, according to two independent sample t-test results, it was revealed that the null hypotheses could not be rejected.

The COVID-19 pandemic effects on the hospitality industry using social systems theory: A multi-country comparison.

In the last few decades, there have been numerous crises and disasters that negatively affected the hospitality industry. Different countries around the world experienced natural disasters, financial crises, violent attacks, and public health crises, all of which were studied in detail, except for public health crises. Thus, this study focuses on the effects of the Covid-19 public health crisis on the hospitality industry from the viewpoint of a select group of hospitality leaders in the USA, Israel, and Sweden. The opinions and viewpoints of these leaders focused on the handling of the Covid-19 crisis through the lens of the social systems theory and Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions.

ROMA FİLMİ ÖRNEĞİNDE ELEŞTİREL SÖYLEM ANALİZİ VE KÜLTÜREL TEMSİLLER

The issue of which mechanisms are effective in determining people's behaviors in social life has been a subject that has been discussed for a long time. Consensual self presented during interactions, the self shaped as a result of the audience's practices and the player self are all at the same time inherent in each individual. Because as soon as the individual interacts with the other, s/he actually comes to a scene in front of the others and interacts by conveying some things in this scene and by not transmitting or covering some aspects. In this study, the Roma movie and the caharacters are analyzed according to critical discourse analysis method and the cultural representations presented in the movie are uncovered through the use of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. A historical background of Mexican history is provided in order to unravel the political instances in the movie. It turns out that the Roma movie skillfully brings together the experiences of Cleo, a Mexican native maid, in the light of both family conflicts and worrying social events in the complex political environment of the 1970s.

Understanding the Cultural Values at the Individual Level in Central Africa: A Test of the CVSCALE in Cameroon

In order to reduce the risk of failure, it is vital to learn about the different cultures around the world before doing business in other countries. The existing cross-cultural business literature dealing with culture assessment methods has been widely criticized (Sharma, 2010). For instance, most studies operationalize personal cultural orientations for individual consumers based on the national scores on Hofstede (1980, 1991) cultural dimensions. In response to these concerns, the Cultural Values Scale (CVSCALE) is a 26-item scale that has been developed by Yoo et al. (2011) to capture Hofstede’s (1991) five cultural dimensions at the individual level. However, previous studies have not investigated these dimensions in Central Africa in general and specifically in Cameroon, a country which has many different ethnic groups. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to test the reliability and validity of the CVSCALE in Cameroon. The sample of this study is based on 550 managers working in a French or English speaking context and belonging to six different ethnic groups. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are conducted by the authors. Results indicate that the CVSCALE exhibits appropriate reliability and validity. This study allows researchers and business practitioners to assess the cultural orientations of individuals and to use primary data instead of cultural stereotypes. As demonstrated, the CVSCALE is also very adequate to segment managers according to their individual cultural values.

Entrepreneurial success revisited: what Hofstede's dimensions and GEDI missed in evaluating the entrepreneurial potential in three pilot countries

This concept paper examines entrepreneurial culture and its national cultural fit according to Hofstede's dimensions and the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI). The authors compared expectations with the actual entrepreneurial outcomes in Pakistan, Egypt, and Zambia; three Global Entrepreneurship Program (or in-country partners) pilot beneficiaries. Although the three countries have lower GEDI rankings, they have shown considerable entrepreneurial potential based on their pertinent milestone reports. Using two of Hofstede's cultural dimensions to assess their openness for entrepreneurial initiatives, the three countries did not offer a cultural ecosystem conducive to entrepreneurship, yet the social, economic, and political contexts seemed to neutralise the cultural discord. Start-ups are seen as a counter-cyclical cushion in low-income countries to survive periods of economic downturn even when the culture does not support new ventures and risk-taking. The paper calls for an entrepreneurial construct that incorporates socio-cultural perspectives, and politico-economic factors into the innovation-led definition.

Cultural values, school innovative climate and organizational affective commitment: a study of Israeli teachers

PurposeResearch suggests that cultural dimensions affect teachers' perceptions and behaviors. Based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions and organizational innovation climate literature, we examined the effects of the cultural values of collectivism, masculinity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and short-term orientation on teachers' perceptions of school innovative climate and their affective commitment.Design/methodology/approachArab and Jewish Israeli teachers studying toward their MA degree (N = 268) were randomly selected from three colleges to fill out questionnaires pertaining to these cultural values, innovative climate and their affective commitment.FindingsOnly the cultural value of collectivism positively affected perceptions of innovative climate. Negative relationships were found between the latter and uncertainty avoidance, as well as masculinity. Perception of innovative climate, in turn, related positively to teachers' affective commitment.Originality/valueThis study adds to the body of research directed at identifying antecedents to affective commitment as well as to studies examining cultural effects on innovation.

The Impact of Culture on Impulse Buying Behaviour

Beatty and Ferrell (1998) define impulse buying as a sudden and immediate purchase without pre-shopping intention to either buy a specific product or fulfill a task. Several studies have been conducted to understand the factors that encourage/ affect impulse buying (Lim and Yazdanifard, 2015). Muruganantham and Bhakat (2013) state impulse buyers are influenced by several factors that could be either related to the shopping environment, shoppers' traits, situational factors, or cultural factors. Cultural aspects of impulse buying can help both practitioners and researchers to develop a better understanding of impulse buying (Muruganantham and Bhakat, 2013; Park and Choi, 2013; Kacen and Lee, 2008). Typically, the focus of marketers has been only on the individualism/collectivism or power distance dimensions at the cultural level (Zhang et al., 2010; Shoham et al., 2015); therefore consumer behavior researchers call for further research that includes several dimensions of Hofstede's cultural model which may reveal essential insights about the understanding of consumers' impulse buying behavior (Park and Choi, 2013; Shoham et al., 2015). This paper fulfills this gap and explores the impact of culture on impulse buying behavior in an emerging economy like Bangladesh. The study also expands the understanding of the insights gained by considering all six cultural dimensions of Hofstede, which has not been previously conducted in the context of an emerging economy. Bangladesh, with a GDP growth rate of more than 6% over the last decade along with an increasingly growing affluent middle-class consumers, has become a hotspot of global companies as more and more of these companies are expanding to the Bangladesh market. Thus marketers need to have some comprehension of the cultural context of the target market to formulate the right marketing strategies. Keywords: Impulse Buying Behaviour, Culture, Emerging Economy

Analyzing the role of national culture on content creation and user engagement on Twitter: The case of Indian Premier League cricket franchises

The content generation strategy of a sports franchise determines whether the user engagement increases or decreases on social media platforms. Thus, the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) is profound who generally decides and governs social media policies of the franchises. We show that the cultural differences between local-COO vis-à-vis foreign-COO-governed sports franchises reflect in their content generation strategy and are also associated with user engagement. We use Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory and extract relevant features from the tweets. Overall, the results show that user engagement is more when the content generation strategy is in alignment with fans’ national culture. The first contribution of our work is towards showing the incremental impact of power distance, individualism and collectivism on user engagement. The second contribution of our work is towards feature construction, feature selection and building authorship attribution classifiers to understand the content generation strategy. Prior literature shows that national culture impacts writing of online reviews. We investigate the role of national culture in social media content generation and user engagement and extend the literature. Our study is useful for organizations to understand the role of national culture in content generation and how it is related to user engagement.

What to Offer to the Newly Emerged Super Consumers! A Multimethod Approach in the Context of Wealthy Single Urbanites (WSUs)

What to Offer to the Newly Emerged Super Consumers! A Multimethod Approach in the Context of Wealthy Single Urbanites (WSUs)

Organizational Commitment Scale Validation in Tanzanian Context

The study was designed to investigate Constructs Independence; Normality; Reliability and Validity of Allen and Meyer’s Questionnaire (1990) three constructs namely Affective, Normative and Continuous Commitment in Tanzanian data. It was purposively planned and conducted in two separate phases (Study 1 and 2). In study 1; Tanzanian data were tested if Allen and Meyer’s Questionnaire (1990) yielded independent constructs. In study 2; tests for validity, reliability and normality levels were primary to the study. All tests came following solid theoretical background pertaining to how Hofstede (2001) cultural dimensions determine response styles, response bias and questionnaire response across cultures. A total of total of 104 and 214 respondents from Tanzanian Councils were involved in study 1 and study 2 respectively. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) indicated Meyers and Allen three scales were component of common constructs. Specified PCA models on the three scales showed significant results indicated by p< .05; and KMO greater than 0.6. and no loading variable was worse than 0.90. Similarly; Normality Analysis suggested data collected yielded normality; as combined graph produced Skewness (.265); Kurtosis (-1.427) and skewness value range between -.5 and +.5. Also; Cronbach Alpha Analyses indicated; data collected had Cronbach Alpha better than .70 the reliability minimum requirement scores in all three questionnaire constructs. Further; Confirmatory Factors Analysis revealed that Meyers and Allen Questionnaire yielded significant validity using fit indices RMR (Root Mean Square Residual), GFI (Goodness Fit Index), TLI (Tucker-Lewis Index), CFI (Comparative Fit Index) and RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation). Thus, it was concluded that Meyers and Allen Questionnaire is reliable and valid for organizational commitment studies in Tanzanian context. Recommendations for reducing or eliminating questionnaire response bias to have better statistical analyses and estimations were included. Keywords: Organizational Commitment; Cultural Dimension; Response Styles; Councils; Tanzania DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-22-09 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

Culture and capital structure: What else to the puzzle?

This paper investigates four of Hofstede's cultural dimensions –individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation– influence on firms' choices of short-term and long-term capital structures. Cultures influence on corporate risk-taking may drive their debt-to-equity mix based on the higher of their equity book or market value. We empirically test culture influence with a sample of 5968 firms from five industry sectors, across 33 countries, over 2009–2017. We find firms national culture influencing their choices of short-term and long-term debt to book and market value of equity. The influence is more significant on the short-term than the long-term capital structures. Furthermore, it is more significant on the short-term debt to market value of equity and on the long-term debt to book value of equity. Our robustness checks at the firm-level, country-level and sample-level confirm and reinforce our main results. These findings would provide financial analysts, investors, and creditors an in-depth understanding when comparing international firms' capital structures.

Cultural environments and the appointment of female directors on boards: An analysis from a global perspective

AbstractHofstede's six cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long‐term orientation and indulgence) has received little attention concerning the presence of female directors on boards. Moreover, past research has only focussed on four or five of these six cultural dimensions. Thus, this research aimed to analyse how gender diversity on boards is affected by all of the Hofstede cultural dimensions in a sample of firms operating in different countries. The data for this research were collected from Thomson Reuters database. The article draws on institutional theory, which suggests that firms are influenced by cultural aspects, as they are not separated from their environment but interact with their environment through relationships with stakeholders. The findings show that cultural dimensions, such as power distance, individualism and indulgence, have a positive effect on the proportion of female directors on boards. In contrast, the dimensions of masculinity and long‐term orientation affect the proportion negatively, and uncertainty avoidance does not seem to have an influence.

Trust, transparency, and openness: How inclusion of cultural values shapes Nordic national public policy strategies for artificial intelligence (AI)

Using textual analysis methodology with Hofstede's cultural dimensions as basis for cross-national comparison, the manuscript explores the influence of cultural values of trust, transparency, and openness in Nordic national artificial intelligence (AI) policy documents. Where many AI processes are technologies hidden from view of the citizen, how can public institutions support and ensure these high levels of trust, transparency, and openness in Nordic culture and extend these concepts of “digital trust” to AI? One solution is by authoring national policy that upholds cultural values and personal rights, ultimately reinforcing these values in their societies. The paper highlights differences in how Nordic nations position themselves using cultural values as organizing principles, with the author showing these values (i.e., trust through clear information and information security, transparency through AI literacy education and clear algorithmic decision making, and openness by creating data lakes and data trusts) support the development of AI technology in society. The analysis shows that three cultural values are upheld and influence Nordic national AI strategies, while themes of privacy, ethics, and autonomy are present, and democracy, a societal building block in the Nordics, is especially prominent in the policies. For policy development, policy leaders must understand that without citizen involvement in AI implementation or lacking citizen AI education, we risk alienating those for who these services are meant to utilize and improve access for.

National culture and capital structure of the Shariah compliant firms: Evidence from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan

Cultural dimensions have a significant impact on capital structure decisions, particularly in Islamic economies where unique personal, social and ethical values are closely integrated with culture. This study considers the relationship between four Hofstede cultural dimensions to explain their connection with the capital structure decisions of Shariah-compliant firms. Using a panel of 342 Shariah complaint companies from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the period 2013 to 2017, this study investigates the influence of cultural dimensions on short-term, long-term and total leverage in the presence of several firm- and country-specific variables. On average, Saudi Arabian firms witnessed comparatively higher percentages of all three debt classifications considered. Typically, determinants of debt do not otherwise differ significantly across the three countries. Firms also carefully consider asset structure and growth opportunities when raising debt capital. On the other hand, when tested alongside cultural dimensions, Islamic firms from countries with (a) higher power distance scores, (b) higher levels of individualism, (c) higher masculinity scores and (d) lower degrees of uncertainty avoidance exhibit a preference for long-term debt. This finding diverges from the existing literature on non-Islamic firms. Agency theory and pecking order theory predominate in explaining our findings.

Relationships of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions and Lactation Patterns in Lactating Mothers

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding is the best pattern for feeding infants in the first 6 months of life. On the other hand, lactation patterns may be influenced by cultural factors. The present study aimed to determine relationships of Hofstede's cultural dimensions and lactation patterns in lactating mother. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 452 mothers with infants 6 months old and younger in 2018. Eight centers were selected from all health centers in Isfahan, Iran through cluster random sampling. The samples were lactating mothers who referred to health centers for receiving self and infant care. Data was collected using two questionnaires. The first questionnaire examined personal and fertility characteristics and lactation patterns. The second questionnaire was a self-administered structured questionnaire for cultural dimensions. Content validity index and relative content validity coefficient were respectively 0.80 and 0.70 for the cultural dimension questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 18.0. Results: The majority of mothers (64.4%, n=291) had exclusive breastfeeding. In the masculinity-femininity dimension, the mean score of exclusive breastfeeding pattern was higher than the non-exclusive breastfeeding (3± 0.48, 2.48±0.50) and there were significant statistical differences between exclusive and non-exclusive breastfeeding groups (p = 0.03). In other cultural dimensions, despite there being a difference in mean of the dimensions in exclusive breastfeeding and non-exclusive breastfeeding groups, it was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Masculinity-femininity as a cultural dimension was associated with lactation patterns, so that mothers with greater orientation towards masculinity had higher focus on gender roles of a woman such as breastfeeding and they had greater exclusive breastfeeding. But others dimensions were not associated with lactation patterns.

The association between national culture, road safety performance and support for policy measures

There are considerable differences between countries when it comes to road safety performance, as indicated by the number of road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants. These discrepancies are strongly associated with differences in wealth and prosperity, as expected, but are also related to national culture. The overall objective of this exploratory study is to identify relationships between national culture, road safety performance and public support for policy measures. Using the revised version of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, we show the strong correlation between national culture and road safety performance, which exists even after controlling for the national level of wealth as measured by the gross national income. Furthermore, by combining the national cultural dimensions with data on 29 countries from the second stage of ESRA, the E-Survey of Road users' Attitudes, this study demonstrates that culture also affects the level of public support for policy measures related to road safety. Specifically, for many measures, the degree of individualism accounts for a considerable part of the statistical variation in the public support for policy measures across countries—except for those measures for which the support is very high in most countries. Possible explanations are given for the seemingly paradoxical finding that countries which witness high resistance to road safety policy measures have nevertheless managed to achieve better road safety performance.

Investigating the Relation Between Playing Style and National Culture

In this study we examine playing styles in four popular Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), namely Battlefield 4, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and Destiny. We investigate to what extent national culture influences these playing styles, and whether players from countries with similar cultures exhibit similar playing styles as well. We gathered playing style information from hundreds of thousands of players of these games, and applied correlation and clustering algorithms to relate playing styles to nationalities and to Hofstede cultural dimensions. We found that playing styles are influenced by nationality and cultural dimensions, and that there are clear similarities between the playing styles of similar cultures. In particular, the Hofstede dimension “Individualism” explained most of the variance in playing styles between national cultures for the games that we examined.

Culturally Sensitive Website Elements and Features: A Cross-National Comparison of Websites from Selected Countries

The goal of this case study is to compare websites from 9 different countries&#8213;Austria, Chile, China, Japan, Latvia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the US and the Czech Republic&#8213;and, based on this comparison, to provide the missing linking of website elements with cultural dimensions for better cultural adaptation of web content. Hofstede&#8217;s cultural dimensions were used for the selection of countries for this study. To examine the influence of culture on websites, countries with extreme values of cultural dimensions were selected. An important benefit is that this study takes into account all of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, including the latest one (indulgence vs restraint). For each country 50 websites were selected from areas that most closely reflect the culture of the country. The main focus was on the selection of an appropriate representative sample of websites for each state. A total of 450 pages was analyzed. For each website, 42 web elements determined as the most important were monitored. Moreover, the presence of various types of social networks and five general characteristics were monitored. The findings show that culture influences website design. The results of this study reveal a connection between website elements and Hofstede&#8217;s cultural dimensions. For example, headlines are important for countries with a high value of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and a low value of power distance and indulgence. Newsletters are associated with a high value of indulgence and a low value of long-term orientation and search option with a high value of power distance. Overall, about 20 culturally sensitive website elements were identified. The study also provides a comprehensive overview of website characteristics for each of the selected countries. For UX designers, web localization specialists, academicians, and web developers, this study provides an original view into culturally sensitive website elements and features.

Entrepreneurship – culture incentives

European commission has identified entrepreneurship as crucial for achieving the objectives of several European sectorial policies and as one of the main tools for overcoming the negative effects of the financial crisis of 2008. Despite the multitude of policies and tools to support entrepreneurship, there are still significant differences between member states regarding their entrepreneurial activity. Тhe present study offers an alternative approach for explaining those difference that takes into account the cultural context represented by cultural values. An empirical research is carried out using several indicators measuring entrepreneurial activity and comparing them with Geert Hofstede cultural dimensions indexes of EU member states via correlation analysis.