Massage Therapy Journal Summer 2025

38 • Massage Therapy Journal

AMTA Continuing Education

Then Hofstede’s research began. Analyses of the IBM data at the level of individuals proved confusing, but a breakthrough occurred when he focused on correlations between individual countries. This allowed him to identify differences between national cultures, which consisted of the following characteristics: • Dependence on superiors • Need for rules and predictability, also associated with nervous stress • Balance between individual goals and dependence on the company • Balance between ego values (like the need for money and careers) and social values (like cooperation and a good living environment). The former were more frequently chosen by men and the latter by women, but there were also differences among countries. A short time later, Hofstede became a visiting lecturer at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. He administered the IBM survey to international managers from over 30 countries and from a variety of different private and public organizations unrelated to IBM. Hofstede found the same results that he had discovered in the surveys taken by IBM employees. This was evidence that the differences among countries was not specific to IBM but due to cultural factors. In 1980, he published his book “Culture’s Consequences ,” in which he identified four cultural dimensions: power distance; individualism (collectivism); masculinity (femininity); and uncertainty avoidance (uncertainty acceptance). Each of the cultural dimensions has a reverse (noted in parentheses), with the exception of power distance. In the 1980s, Canadian psychologist Michael Harris Bond conducted cultural research in East Asia. Hofstede was influenced by his work and added a fifth cultural dimension he called long term orientation vs. short-term orientation. In 2007, Bulgarian linguist and sociologist Michael Minkov contacted Hofstede about a discovery he made after analyzing the World Value Surveys of 2007–2008. The World Values Survey is a survey that studies the values and

beliefs of people around the world that is administered about once every five years to better understand how values change over time and their impact on social, economic and political development. Minkov identified a new dimension of culture, which Hofstede called indulgence vs. restraint. Hofstede added this sixth dimension to his model of national culture. In 2010, Hofstede published the third edition of “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind ” with two co-authors: his son Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov. The new dimensions of national culture were added (for a total of six), and dimensions of organizational culture were explored. The book explains national cultures and organizational cultures in the context of Hofstede’s definition of culture . In national cultures, the groups are people within nations, and the shared framework of a society’s cultural norms, values and beliefs is how people of one nation distinguish themselves from people of other nations. In organizational cultures, the groups are people in organizations, and the shared framework of organizational norms, values and beliefs is how members of the organization relate to each other, do their work and differ from members of other organizations. 5 Hofstede’s Six Dimensions of National Culture A cultural dimension is a group of values that can be measured across cultural groups. These values are based on psychological attributes, such as beliefs, behaviors and personalities. Cultural dimensions help people understand and make sense of a culture, and can help explain how people perceive their own culture in relationship to other cultures. Within his model of cultural dimensions, Hofstede used index scores to measure different aspects of culture and allow for meaningful comparisons. Hofstede used a statistical method called factor analysis to determine the index scores based on results from hundreds of

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