Interpreting Hofstede Model and GLOBE Model : Which Way to Go for Cross-Cultural Research ?

This study focuses on the comparison between the cultural dimensions of Hofstede Model and GLOBE (the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) Model in data collection and countries (and regions) participating in both Models, different dimensions and methodology and analysis conclusion. The two models have similarities but still differ a lot. These differences in research design can cause different results when the two dimensional models applied to different research fields. The authors choose to compare the two cultural Models since both of them choose to measure cultural dimensions with scores. Finally a way forward in the future research is suggested, and some issues for further research into this fundamental area of international business are canvassed.


Introduction
Research into the international business (IB) has become a dynamic study area over the past four decades and is likely to become even more so as the process of economic globalization continues into the future (Brewer & Venaik, 2010).Culture-focused research is becoming more widespread now and understanding culture will be viewed as increasingly important (Mooij & Hofstede, 2010).Cultural models define patterns of basic problems that have consequences for the functioning of groups and individuals, e.g.(a) relation to authority; (b) the conception of self, including ego identity; and (c) primary dilemmas of conflict and dealing with them (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961;Inkeles, 1997).In order to understand cultural differences, several models have been developed, such as the Hofstede Model (Hofstede 2001, Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005;Hofstede, 2007), studies by Schwartz & Bilsky (1987), Trompenaars (1993), and GLOBE Model (House et al, 2004), of which the Hofstede Model has been applied most (Mooij & Hofstede, 2010).Among these studies, the cultural model developed by Hofstede and the much more recent GLOBE Model conducted by House et al., have both provided scholars with much-needed insights into the structure of national cultures.However, ever since the publication of House et al.'s GLOBE Model in 2004, debate between Hofstede and GLOBE team never comes to a halt and it upsurges to its climax in 2010 which reflects itself from the special issue on "Culture in International Business Research" in the JIBS (Journal of International Business Studies) by many IB scholars from 2006 and years after.While Hofstede's work was not the first systematic study on Cross-Cultural Research (CCR), his cultural dimensions succeeded in putting CCR at the forefront of IB research and his influence in the fields of IB and management remained undeniable despite the criticisms that have voiced against his study for so long time.The GLOBE cultural dimension Model is considered to be one of the most recent studies (Chhokar, Brodbeck & House, 2007) on organizational values and cultures (Pramila, 2009).GLOBE study is less criticized than Hofstede's work, possibly not because there are fewer controversial issues, but perhaps more because it is much more recent, and therefore researchers have not yet fully analyzed and tested it.Given the increasing globalization of industrial organizations and the growing interdependencies among nations, the need for a better understanding of cultural influences and cross-cultural management has become even greater.This paper begins with a brief description of the Hofstede and GLOBE Model, and then followed by the difference analysis of various aspects of the two models, which are the data collection, the countries (and regions) participating in both Models, and the decisions of cultural dimensions.Finally a way forward in the future research is suggested, and some issues for further research into this fundamental area of international business are canvassed.

Brief Introduction of Hofstede Model
While working in IBM, Professor Hofstede G. noticed that even though the company had a complete set of corporate culture, the great cultural differences among employees from different countries and regions varied a lot even within one company.Thus he explored the differences in thinking and social action that existed among members of more than 50 modern nations.The database complied paper-and-pencil survey results collected within subsidiaries of one large multinational business organization (IBM) in more than 70 countries and regions and covering many questions about values.The survey was conducted twice around 1968 and around 1972 producing a total of more than 116,000 questionnaires.Hofstede G. analyzed a large data base of employee values scores collected by IBM between 1967 and 1973, he first used the 40 largest only and afterwards extended the analysis to 50 countries and 3 regions.In the editions of his work since 2001, scores are listed for 74 countries and regions, partly based on replications and extensions of the IBM study on different international populations.Subsequent studies validating the earlier results have included commercial airline pilots and students in 23 countries, civil service managers in 14 counties, "up-market" consumers in 15 countries and "elites" in 19 countries.From the initial results and later additions, Hofstede developed a model that identifies four primary Dimensions to assist in differentiating cultures: Power Distance (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), and Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI).Hofstede G. added a fifth Dimension after conducting an additional international study with a survey instrument developed with Chinese employees and managers.The fifth dimension, based on Confucian dynamism, is Long-Term Orientation (LTO) and was applied to 23 countries.These five Hofstede Dimensions can also be found to correlate with other country, cultural, and religious paradigms.Thus we have got the scores of five dimensions of 23 countries (and regions) and the scores of four dimensions of the other 46 countries (and regions).His work was updated and expanded in 1991, 2001, and 2005 and now it continues to be widely cited and used by management scholars and practitioners.

Brief Introduction of GLOBE Model
GLOBE is a long-term programmatic research effort designed to explore the fascinating and complex effects of culture on leadership, organizational effectiveness, economic competitiveness of societies, and the human condition of members of the societies studied (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta, 2004).The GLOBE study was conducted in the mid 1990s.The major purpose of the Project GLOBE was to increase available knowledge that is relevant to cross-cultural interactions.The GLOBE researchers measured culture at different levels with both practices and values existed at the levels of industry (financial services, food processing, telecommunications), organization (several in each industry), and society (62 cultures).The results were presented in the form of quantitative data based on responses of about 17,000 managers from 951 organizations functioning in 62 societies throughout the world.The questionnaire reports of managers were complemented by interview findings, focus group discussions, and formal content analyses of printed media.The GLOBE study was designed to replicate and expand on Hofstede's (2001) work, and to test various hypotheses that had been developed, in particular, on leadership topics.GLOBE produced a set of nine dimensions, each measured twice, isometrically as practices and respective values.

Differences in Data Collection and Countries (and Regions) Participating in the two Models
Table1 presents the basic differences between the two cultural dimensions and Table 2 lists the Countries (and Regions) Participating in the two Models.From Table 2, we can see that both of the Models chose the sample countries in the six continents and in Australia and North America they chose the same countries.In Africa, some countries and regions varied.In Hofstede Model, East Africa, which contained four countries, was given the same score.The same went with West Africa, which contained three countries.In GLOBE Model, South Africa was divided into two groups and was given different scores according to the races which were more convincing as to cultural influence.And also Egypt, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe were included in this research due to the most recent economic growth of these countries.In Europe, the former Germany (in Hofstede this was measured as one country) was measured twice as the Germany-East (former GDR) and Germany-West (former FRG).Switzerland was measured twice for those English-speaking and French speaking, which fell into Switzerland and Switzerland-FR, which was more adequate since Language is an important element to define cultural clusters (Tang & Koveos 2008).But GLOBE Model did not include Bulgaria, Estonia, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, and Romania.In Asia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, and Qatar were included in GLOBE, while Arab World (Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates), Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam were excluded.So, sample countries and regions in Asia were more widely chosen by Hofstede while for Europe sample countries and regions GLOBE Model more adequately and widely chosen.

Cultural Dimensions in Hofstede Model
The Hofstede Model distinguished cultures according to five dimensions and this model provided scales from 0 to 100 for each dimension, and each country has a position on each scale or index, relative to other countries.At first four (1972) and later five (2005) main dimensions on which country cultures differed were revealed through theoretical reasoning and statistical analysis and they reflected basic problems that any society had to cope with but for which solutions differ.These five dimensions were empirically verifiable, and each country could be positioned somewhere between their poles (See Table 3).Moreover, the dimensions were statistically independent and occurred in all possible combinations, although some combinations were more frequent than others (Hofstede & Hofstede 2005).

Cultural Dimensions in GLOBE Model
GLOBE study develops nine cultural dimensions encompassing both actual society practices (''As Is'') and values (''Should Be'') in the different cultural settings (See Table 4).The nine cultural dimensions they identified as independent variables are Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, Institutional Collectivism, In-Group Collectivism, Gender Egalitarianism, Assertiveness, Future Orientation, Performance Orientation, and Humane Orientation.There were two forms of questions for each dimension: One measured managerial reports of actual practices in their organization and managerial reports of what should be (values) in their organization; the other measured managerial reports of practices and values in their societies, thus 18 scales to measure the practices and values with respect to the core GLOBE dimensions of culture (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta, 2004).

Debate between the two Models
Hofstede and House et al. held different explanations and argument towards their own understanding and choices as to the measurements of cultural dimensions and the origins.Hofstede compared the differences and similarities between GLOBE and Hofstede Model from the following seven points: new data versus existing data; team versus single researcher; managers versus employees; theory-driven versus action-driven; US inspired versus decentered; organizational culture as similar or different in nature to/from societal culture; and national wealth as a part or as an antecedent of culture (Hofstede, 2006).And what they argued most consisted in three aspects: one is about the concept of culture and in cross-cultural research, how to define the border of organizational culture and societal culture; the second focuses on how to define and classify the face value; finally whether wealth is considered to be part of the culture.Hofstede furthered his argumentation about GLOBE and pointed out that "GLOBE sought to define its dimensions in a way to hold face validity and to make psychological sense."(Hofstede, 2006(Hofstede, , 2010)).But in his empirical analysis, he found that "distinctions derived from comparing collective trends in respondents' answers across countries did not necessarily make psychological sense at the individual level."He believed that "Cultures are not king-size individuals.They are wholes, and their internal logic cannot be understood in the terms used for the personality dynamics of individuals, and Eco-logic differs from individual logic" (Hofstede, 2001).Hofstede firmly believed that GLOBE adopted his dimensions paradigm of national cultures and he believed that GLOBE researchers expanded his five dimensions to nine (Hofstede, 2010).That is, GLOBE researchers maintained the labels Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance, and renamed Long Term Orientation: Future Orientation.GLOBE researchers did not accept the anthropological logic in his other two dimensions, and sought psychological face validity and political correctness by splitting Individualism-Collectivism into Institutional Collectivism and In-Group Collectivism, and replacing Masculinity-Femininity by four supposed components: Assertiveness, Performance Orientation, Gender Egalitarianism, and Humane Orientation.
According to House et al, six of their culture dimensions have the origins in the dimensions of culture identified by Hofstede which are Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, Institutional Collectivism, In-Group Collectivism, Gender Egalitarianism, and Assertiveness.The scales to measure the first three dimensions are designed to reflect the same constructs as Hofstede's dimensions labeled Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, and Individualism.Their measure of individualism and collectivism derived from a factor analysis of a set of items intended to measure collectivism in general.This factor analysis resulted in two dimensions: In-Group and Institutional Collectivism.As to the Hofstede's Masculinity index, House et al found it necessary to develop their own measures since they found Hofstede's Masculinity index lacked face validity and also was confounded by items that appeared to measure multiple constructs.Future Orientation in GLOBE Model had its origin in Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's Past, Present, Future Orientation dimension which focused on the temporal orientation of most people in the society (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961).Performance Orientation was derived from McClelland's work on need for achievement (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell, 1953).Humane Orientation also had its root in Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's dimension entitled Human Nature as Good vs. Human Nature as Bad (Kluckhohn &Strodtbeck, 1961), andPutnam's (1993) and McClelland's conceptualization of the affiliative motive (Putman, 1993).Uncertainty Avoidance was most recently conceptualized by Cyert and March as an organizational attribute (Cyert & March 1963).Power Distance was initially conceived of by Mulder as a measure of power differential between superiors and subordinates (Mulder, 1971).

Discussions and Conclusions
Both Hofstede Model and GLOBE Model are highly valuable research studies in international business and management.Given the increasing globalization of industrial organizations and the growing interdependencies among nations, the need for a better understanding of cultural influences on leadership and organizational practices has never been greater (House et al, 2004).Hofstede, the principal research investigator, analyzed data from a single multinational company (IBM) and its 53 regional subsidiaries to arrive at his classical pioneer work on national cultures.The respondents for his research were predominantly non-managerial employees and the survey was primarily used as a management diagnostic tool to understand the nuances in IBM's different cultural and work backgrounds.In contrast, the GLOBE study, conducted in the period of 1994-1997, is a collaborative effort of about 170 researchers researching about 951 non-multinational organisations (Hofstede, 2006).The GLOBE respondents were managerial employees and this massive research was theory-driven, based on extensive academic literature.Apart from these methodological issues, the GLOBE study introduced cultural dimensions both at the organizational and societal level, such as institutional and in-group collectivism and a new dimension, performance-orientation, not addressed in the Hofstede's literature (Pramila, 2009).Scholars suggest that Hofstede's studies did not measure feminine scores directly -a lack of masculinity was considered feminine, but in contrast, the GLOBE project measured feminine scores perse (Parboteah, Bronson and Cullen, 2005).And also, Hofstede cultural didn't not give the number of China, it is only the estimate number derived from Taiwan and Hongkong.However, nowadays, more and more foreign investors have set up wholly-owned and majority-owned firms in China (Li, Qian, Lam and Wang, 2000), and the research concerning the entry mode choices and other research fields about China is becoming increasingly greater.Thus it would be a reasonable choice for the researchers to use GLOBE dimension scores if they are doing the research about China.
From the analysis above mentioned, it is self-evident that the two studies had similarities and, of course, differences, in many ways as the data selection, the origins of dimension and the way they viewed culture.But GLOBE survey combined a group of cultural studies together, such as Schwartz; Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's; Cyert and March; and Hofstede which assigned scores to cultures with regard to beliefs and values (McCrae, Terracciano, Realo, Allik, 2008).GLOBE researchers were heavily influenced by Hofstede's work in their choice of variables to assess, and some of their nine societal scales share labels with the Hofstede dimensions.It is possible, therefore, that some of the GLOBE scales assess unfounded stereotypes rather than objective features of the society (McCrae, Terracciano, Realo, and Allik, 2008).As to the future research, just as Christopher Earley argued nearly a decade ago that it was time to "move away from studies focusing on individualism -collectivism" (Earley & Gibson, 1998).He suggested that scholars should "refocus their attention away from any more of these values surveys and toward developing theories and frameworks for understanding the linkages among culture, perceptions, actions, organizations, structures, etc".He thought that this form of large-scale, multi-country survey be set aside for the development of alternative mid-range theories having a more direct application and explanation for organizational phenomena in a cultural and national context (Earley, 2006).So we recommend that future research be directed towards developing theories and also focus on the application of the two Models in different research fields across different cultures, by using a quantitative method to see which culture dimensions are key factors in cross-cultural relationship.