When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled: the GLOBE and Hofstede projects

By Peter B. Smith. 2006

355 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Four aspects of the debate between Hofstede and Javidan et al. are highlighted. First, it is shown that characterizing cultures either on the basis of aggregated self-perceptions or on the basis of aggregated perceptions of others in one's society are not equivalent procedures. Each has inherent errors, and neither can be considered as providing the one best way to denote national cultures. Furthermore, the number of dimensions of national culture that can be usefully studied must be proportional to the limited number of nations available for comparative analyses. Third, although Hofstede and Javidan et al. appear to differ on optimal ways of aggregating individual-level data to the nation level, both appear to have done so in a way that does not prevent detection of differing relations between items at different levels of analysis. Finally, we need greater clarity as to the ways in which national wealth relates to other aspects of culture. It is a major component of contemporary national cultures, and must be retained as an element within nation-level analyses.

Subfields: Demography, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5c3cb551eb9905ded1ff405f49a93050c762339b

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Citations in the corpus

Performance-based vs socially supportive culture: A cross-national study of descriptive norms and entrepreneurship (2010, methodology): “Second, we identify a parsimonious set of two higher-order dimensions (Hofstede, 2006; Peterson & Castro, 2006; Smith, 2006), namely PBC and SSC, capturing the majority of variation (75%) of seven of the nine first-order dimensions identified in the GLOBE project.”
The GLOBE debate: Back to relevance (2010, background): “Peter Smith (2006) recognized the problematic nature of what GLOBE measured, concluding that GLOBE’s measures based on”
The influence of culture and corporate governance on corporate social responsibility disclosure: A cross country analysis (2018, methodology): “Independent Variables National culture variables are measured using Hofstede’s individualism (IND), power distance (PD), uncertainty avoidance (UA) and masculinity index (MAS) (Hofstede, 1991, 2001; Jansen et al., 2009; Waldman et al., 2006; Smith, 2006; Kim and Gray, 2009; Tang and Koveos, 2008).”
Leadership styles and group organizational citizenship behavior across cultures (2007, methodology): “This corresponds with comments on the problems of multicollinearity by Smith (2006) for both Hofstede and GLOBE dimensions.”
Deciding to Bribe: A Cross-Level Analysis of Firm and Home Country Influences on Bribery Activity (2007, background): “Parboteeah & Cullen, 2003), has been advocated in the literature (Smith, 2006).”
Performance effects of “added cultural distance” in the path of international expansion: the case of German multinational enterprises (2008, background): “No consensus has yet been reached on this point (see e.g., Javidan, House, Dorfman, Hanges, & de Luque, 2006, and Smith, 2006, in a recent JIBS Special Issue on this topic), but it is important to note that the GLOBE study data have been collected more recently than Hofstede’s.”
Macro-level determinants of formal entrepreneurship versus informal entrepreneurship (2014, neutral): “Previous studies (e.g., Smith, 2006; Stephan and Uhlaner, 2010) demonstrate that cultural factors are highly correlated and should be grouped to be used in the same study.”
The evolution of Hofstede's doctrine (2011, background): “the norm that I am likely to want others to follow is submission, not competition for my power (Smith, 2006).”
Examining career-related mentoring and managerial performance across cultures: A multilevel analysis☆ (2008, methodology): “As with all major cross-cultural frameworks, this method of examining culture has generated some skepticism and debate (Earley, 2006; Hofstede, 2006; Javidan, House, Dorfman, Hanges, & Sully de Luque, 2006; Smith, 2006).”
Radius of Trust (2008, background): “In a recent international GLOBE survey (House et al., 2004), which was conducted to study collectivistic practices and values among middle managers from 62 societies, a similar distinction was made (see also Hofstede, 2006; Smith, 2006).”
The impact of cultural diversity in corporate boards on firm performance (2016, positive): “First, we use the culture scores of Tang and Koveos (2008), who update Hofstede’s culture scores by controlling for changes in economic conditions, such as GDP per capita.”