Geert Hofstede's Cultural Taxonomy Theory

There are varies distinguish cultures existing in this beautiful world and different people categorized them in varies ways. A Dutch social psychologist Geert Hfstede developed his own dimensions to categorize cultures which is the most notable work in his life. Hofstede’s dimensions are power distance, which is the degree of inequality acceptance, high power distance refers to high acceptance of inequality; uncertainty avoidance, which refers to adaptability of change. High uncertainty avoidance cultures consider uncertainty or change is jeopardy; individualism - collectivism, individualism cultures emphasize more on individual level goals and collectivism culture emphasize on group goals and sometimes sacrifice individual if necessary; masculinity

He conducted one of the most significant research of core values in different nations’ workplaces cross more than 70 countries in the worldwide. He analyzed massive data from IBM that covers employees from 76 countries. Initially he did not expect the incredible responses from the his analyzing objects and after he extended to 50 countries and 3 regions. He provided the initial framework to examine and study the cultural differences between nations. With his original work, he developed four dimensions which are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism and masculinity/femininity. In 1991, Michael Harris Bond and his colleagues conducted a study and the survey. The result of them is the completion of the Hofstede fifth dimension long-term orientation. In 2010 the scope has been extended to 93 countries thanks to the Michael Minkov, Hofstede developed the sixth dimension

Group can be huge and small, in the group, people who prioritize group’s interest ahead of individual’s interest can be considered as collectivism. But collectivism does not mean power over individual and it is power as a group. The first group we encountered is family. However family differ from people, in most cases family formed by closely living relatives. In this kind of case family goal are more emphasized than individual goals. For example the family is founding the history book of the family which needs huge amount of money, at this time some short-term individual interests should be temporarily stopped to found the history book