Research in Hospitality Management

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rrhm20Research in Hospitality ManagementISSN: 2224-3534 (Print) 2415-5152 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrhm20How relevant are Hofstede’s dimensions forinter-cultural studies? A replication of Hofstede’sresearch among current international businessstudentsKlaes Eringa, Laura N. Caudron, Kathrin Rieck, Fei Xie & Tobias GerhardtTo cite this article: Klaes Eringa, Laura N. Caudron, Kathrin Rieck, Fei Xie & Tobias Gerhardt(2015) How relevant are Hofstede’s dimensions for inter-cultural studies? A replication ofHofstede’s research among current international business students, Research in HospitalityManagement, 5:2, 187-198, DOI: 10.1080/22243534.2015.11828344To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/22243534.2015.11828344© 2015 Taylor and Francis Group, LLCPublished online: 18 Jan 2017.Submit your article to this journalArticle views: 20023View Crossmark dataCiting articles: 1 View citing articlesResearch in Hospitality Management 2015, 5(2): 187–198Printed in The Netherlands — All rights reservedResearch in Hospitality Management is co-published by NISC (Pty) Ltd and Routledge, Taylor & Francis GroupCopyright © NISC (Pty) LtdRHMISSN 2224-3534http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/RHM.2015.5.2.10.1283Geert Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensionsGeert Hofstede is one of the leading academics on culture(Søndergaard, 1994; Kirkman et al., 2006; Merkin et al.,2014). His original research was conducted in the late 1960sand used an impressive sample of 116 000 – mainly male –IBM engineers. Based on his analysis of the dataset, he initiallydistinguished four, later five and finally even six dimensionsof cultural orientation that are different for various nationalcultures (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede et al., 2010b). Accordingto Hofstede, these dimensions are both distinctive and stable.Hofstede (2001) argues that every person carries his/her own “mental programme” which is already formed intheir childhood and further developed later in academicinstitutions and organisations. These programmes containparts of national culture. Hofstede et al. (2010b) state that theconcept of culture can best be described by naming symbols,heroes, rituals, and values as its main components. Differencesbetween people’s mental programmes can be best assessed bycomparing the values that prevail among citizens of differentcountries. Values are the stable element in culture. Socialanthropology assumes that all societies face more or less thesame problems; researchers have suggested the relation toauthority, the relation between individual and society, everyperson’s understanding of masculinity and femininity andtheir ways of dealing with conflicts as common core issues.When analysing the first results of his widely known studyat IBM in the late 1960s, Hofstede was able to verify thisclassification because results within the categories differedsignificantly among employees from different countries. Hecalled the four categories “dimensions” and depicted themin his 4-dimension model (4D model): Power distance “canbe defined as the extent to which the less powerful membersof institutions and organisations within a country expect andaccept that power is distributed unequally”. (Hofstede etal., 2010b, p. 61) Secondly, collectivism versus individualismmeans whether members of a society are rather expected tocare for themselves or if it is deemed best to first look after thewelfare of the society. Femininity versus masculinity specifiesthe extent to which the prevailing values of a society are“masculine” (e.g., assertive and competitive) or if gender rolesdo overlap. Lastly, uncertainty avoidance “can be defined asthe extent to which the members of a culture feel threatenedby uncertain or unknown situations” (Hofstede et al., 2010b:191) and try to avoid such situations.Later, in 1985, Hofstede added a fifth dimension “long-termorientation versus short-term orientation”, which resultedfrom his collaboration with the Chinese University of HongKong. It combines the values of persistence, thrift, orderingrelationships by status and observing this order, and havinga sense of shame on the one hand as well as reciprocation ofgreetings, favours, gifts, respect for tradition, protecting one’s“face”, and personal steadiness and stability on the other hand(Hofstede et al., 2010b, p. 236/237).CriticismDespite the broad acceptance of Hofstede’s framework, manyother researchers have raised critical challenges and Hofstedehas even met with fierce opposition. Especially McSweeney(2002) criticised Hofstede’s approach in several respects: hismain reproaches are that surveys are not the most suitable wayand nations not the best units to examine cultural differences.Also it would be methodically questionable to assign the resultsof single employees from one company to their entire nation’sscores and that five dimensions are not enough to sufficientlydetermine cultural aspects. Furthermore, the IBM datawould now be outdated. In reaction to McSweeney´s (2002)criticism, Hofstede (2002) argued that his survey measuredthe differences between nations, no absolute numbers andHow relevant are Hofstede’s dimensions for inter-cultural studies? A replication ofHofstede’s research among current international business studentsKlaes Eringa*, Laura N. Caudron, Kathrin Rieck, Fei Xie and Tobias GerhardtStenden Hotel Management School, Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands*Corresponding author email: klaes.eringa@stenden.comIn the present study the cultural dimensions of the well known Dutch researcher Geert Hofstede were tested on a sample ofinternational business students. The sample consisted of 1 033 students from the Netherlands, Germany, China, South Africaand Qatar. The findings of the present research contest many of Hofstede’s original findings. The dimensions power distanceand long-term orientation show significant differences with Hofstede’s original country values. The dimensions individualism,masculinity and uncertainty avoidance show significant differences for half of the countries. No significant differences werefound between male and female students. The results show– if anything – that Hofstede seems to be right with his warning tobe careful with relatively small samples. Or, it might be that cultures are less stable after all.Keywords: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions; Dutch, German, Chinese, South African, Qatari business students188 Eringa, Caudron, Rieck, Xie and Gerhardtagrees with McSweeney (2002) that nations are not the mostsuitable way for measuring cultural aspects but often the onlyavailable for conducting this kind of research. Hofstede (2002)is also of the same opinion that surveys should not be theonly research instrument and he welcomes every researcherto come up with proposals to define further dimensions. Herejects the accusation of relying on outdated data by claimingthat they have centuries-old roots and that recent replicationsshow no loss of validity. Williamson (2002) contributes to thisdiscussion with an unbiased view from a third person and canbe recommended for further reading in this regard.Jones (2007) lists in his comparison of strengths andweaknesses of Hofstede’s methodology many of the pointsMcSweeney (2002) mentioned and adds the issue of possiblepolitical influences to the development of some dimensions(especially masculinity and uncertainty avoidance) in the timeof the Cold War. Orr and Hauser (2008, p. 16) cite the sameargument when recommending that Hofstede’s “theoreticalconstructs need to be thoroughly reexamined within thecontext of early 21st century cross-cultural attitudes andpatterns of behavior”. Signorini et al. (2009) criticise the“oversimplification” of cultural differences and inconsistenciesbetween categories in Hofstede’s 5-D-model and find faultwith the fact that it is static, not dynamic.Fang (2003) focuses on Hofstede’s fifth dimension ashe argues that there is a philosophical flaw underlyingthe assumptions of this dimension because the short-termoriented values are labelled as negative and long-term ones asexceptionally positive, which violates the Chinese principle ofyin and yang. Furthermore, Fang (2003) notices that the fifthdimension consists of many overlapping value attributes whichmight lead to confusion and he points out that these valuesare based on the opinions of students who do not necessarilyrepresent a majority of the population. Consequently, hechallenges the validity of Hofstede’s fifth dimension andproposes to take the concept of yin and yang into closerconsideration for possible revision of some of the aspects ofthis dimension.Yeh (1983) also focuses on the Asian context and doubts thatHofstede’s analysis of Asian (especially Chinese and Japanesevalues) is sufficient, because they may interpret value scalesin a different way than citizens from Western countries do ormay hold other values that are not considered by Hofstede.However, as Minkov and Hofstede (2011) describe, GeertHofstede tried to solve the “Western bias” in his original VSMby introducing the fifth dimension of long-term-orientation,which he had found to be especially relevant for Chineserespondents.In a similar way, Huo and Randall (1988) present theirfindings that sub cultural values from habitants of four differentChinese-populated regions are likely to vary significantly andlead to distorted results. Kwon (2012) extends this researchusing Hofstede’s dimensions to regional differences in Chinaconcerning work-related values. Hofstede et al. (2010a) cometo a similar conclusion based on their attempt to compare theresults of the VSM from different Brazilian counties. As theystate, they regard the VSM as “too coarse a net for catchingthe finer cultural nuances between Brazilian states. Addinglocally defined items would have made the studies moremeaningful” (p. 336).Orr and Hauser (2008) emphasise in this context that thechange in the political landscape in recent years entails thatcultural and sub-cultural differences that were constrainedover a long period of time have started to emerge. Thisshould be taken into consideration when applying Hofstede’sdimensions.Replications in various contextsThe large number of publications referring to Hofstede’s workand using his approach indicates its high relevance for over 40years now. His five dimensions are the most widely recognisedand robust (Gong et al., 2007) framework for doing nationalculture research (Hambrick and Brandon, 1988) and Hofstede’swork can still be seen as the most comprehensive and relevantstudy of cultural differences (Holden, 2004).As Hofstede (2001, p. 461) writes, all six areas that heproposed for further continued research more than 20 yearsago (1. non-Anglo cultural dimensions; 2. additional countries;3. cultural changes over time; 4. sub-cultures, such as regional,occupational, and organisational cultures; 5. the consequencesof cultural dimensions; and 6. foreign organisational andmanagement theories) have been covered. Søndergaard(1994) provides an early overview and classifies citations ofHofstede’s work. Besides mere mentioning, criticisms (seeabove), replications as well as paradigmatic applications are themost common categories. The most recent and comprehensiveoverview of applications and replications of Hofstede’s researchin any field has been published by Kirkman et al. (2006).Different from Søndergaard (1994), they classify applicationsand replications from Hofstede’s work as studies where cultureis examined as a main effect (Type I studies) at the individuallevel of analysis, and then at the group/organisation andcountry levels. Studies that incorporate culture as a moderator,they call Type II studies.Hofstede et al. (2010b, p. 35) identify six major replicationsby Hoppe (1990) in an Austrian “elite” context, Shane (1995)on employees, Merritt (1998) on US-American airline pilots,de Mooij (2001) on consumers, Mouritzen and Svara (2002)in a municipal context and van Nimwegen (2002) on bankemployees. All six studies mainly confirmed his finding fromthe original IBM study.Also, within the fields of tourism studies (Crotts, 2004; Litvin etal., 2004) and information technology (Harvey, 1997; Smith andChang, 2003) and Kang and Mastin (2008) with their researchon tourism public relation websites as a combination of both,some researchers have conducted studies in which they appliedor replicated Hofstede’s work. Another major field of replicationis the attempt to extend Hofstede’s findings to other countries orcontinents. Jackson (2011) focused on Africa, Gray and Marshall(1998) on Kenyan and Korean management orientations, Vadiand Meri (2005) used Hofstede’s framework to compare it toEstonian culture, Nasierowski and Mikula (1998) measured thecultural dimensions of Polish managers, and Naumov and Puffer(2000) did the same in a Russian context.Fernandez et al. (1997) replicated Hofstede’s IBM-studyalso in a working-related context although their sample of7 201 respondents did not consist of employees from onlyone company. The nine countries included were the USA,Germany, Japan, the former Yugoslavian states, China,Venezuela, Mexico, and Chile, and their results yielded usefulfindings of some significant changes – some of the values ofResearch in Hospitality Management 2015, 5(2): 187–198 189the population of some states had undergone in the yearssince the Hofstede-study was conducted. Wu (2006, p. 185)conducted an update of the original study in one easternculture, Taiwan, and one Western, the USA. His results suggest“that work-related cultural values in a specific culture are notstatic and can be changed over time” and support Fernandezet al.’s (1997) findings. Thus, both authors recommend theperiodic updating and re-evaluation of many cultural theoriesand examinations.Replication using a student populationThis study will elaborate on research that has been conductedapplying or replicating Hofstede’s approach with a studentpopulation. Similar to the publications in other contexts, mostof the authors pursue a more concrete goal and/or are doingresearch within a narrower field of study (e.g. a certain degreeprogramme) than conducting a replication of Hofstede’sresearch. In this regard, Bearden et al. (2006) as well asBlodgett et al. (2008) tried to apply the VSM questionnaire at anindividual level to find out if this would also have the potentialto yield valuable results. However, as expected and suggestedby Hofstede et al. (2008), both come to the conclusion that theinstrument lacks sufficient validity and is unsuitable to representmultidimensional traits since the instrument is explicitlydesigned for application in a national context.Often, the Hofstede approach is used to evaluatecultural aspects of the focus group in combination withother instruments or applied only partly with regard to themeasurements of certain dimensions as, for example, Gerritsen(2012) did to measure the uncertainty avoidance indices of 84Dutch and German Bachelor’s students by using the originalVSM 94. Payan et al. (2010) focused on the dimension ofindividualism/collectivism when they asked marketing andbusiness students from nine countries about their perceptionsof academic honesty and then compared the results obtainedagainst Hofstede’s original country scores. Simeon et al. (2001)concentrated on the masculinity-index when they examinedgender role attitudes in China, Japan and the USA fromaltogether 2 832 business students. For this purpose theydistributed a revised version (by Dorfman and Howell in thelate 1980s) of Hofstede’s work-related cultural value scale tomeasure and compare masculinity and femininity in the threefocus countries.The former research design seems to be applied morecommonly, as the following examples show. Quite specific andfocused appears Littlemore’s (2003) study of the understandingand interpretation of metaphors used by British lecturers ofBangladeshi students at a British university. In order to evaluatepossible cultural differences between both groups, the authoradministered Hofstede’s VSM questionnaire.Boland et al. (2011) had undergraduate students majoringin accounting from Australia (59 respondents), Belgium(121 respondents) and Japan (64 respondents) at differentuniversities in these three countries fill out Hofstede’s VSM forYoung People 97 version and Kolb’s Learning Style Inventoryto examine if a relation between cultural factors and thestudents’ learning preferences can be established. Also withinthe field of accounting but with a more psychological notion,Ho and Lin (2008) used Hofstede’s VSM 94 as a part of theirdata collection to evaluate the participants’ cultural values. Incombination with Thorne’s Defining Issue Test (assessment ofthe moral development) they aimed to test the relationshipbetween cultural values and cognitive moral development.In an educational context, Sulkowski and Deakin (2009) usedHofstede’s dimensions to devise their own questionnaire toevaluate students’ attitudes, values associated with learning,teaching, aspirations, and ethics. Tapanes et al. (2009) focusedwithin this field on e-learning in their pursuit of establishing alink between cultural values of participants and the perceivedoutcome of such a course. For this purpose, they posed directquestions about culture in the online classroom and usedHofstede’s VSM as an instrument to assess the students’ culturalpreferences. Also within the learning context, Tempelaar etal. (2012) investigated cultural differences in learning relateddispositions amongst 7 300 first-year students from 81 differentnationalities, using the framework of Hofstede as a reference.As a result, their research revealed that cultural differences ininter-correlations turned out to be substantial, which indicates“the difficulty of constructing culture invariant learningtheories” (Tempelaar et al., 2012, p. 3).Rienties and Tempelaar (2013) studied a sample of 757international students from 52 countries to see if ninegeographical clusters using Hofstede’s cultural dimensionscores would relate to personal-emotional and socialadjustment issues. Their findings show that “internationalstudents from Confucian Asia score substantially loweron academic integration than their Western peers, withmoderate to strong effect sizes. The cultural dimensions ofHofstede significantly predicted academic adjustment andsocial adjustment, in particular power-distance (negative),masculinity and uncertainty avoidance” (p. 188). They suggestthat extra support for especially non-western students wouldbe called for.Rienties et al. (2014) use a sample of 146 Dutch and 215international students which they cluster into ten geographicalclusters using Hofstede culture difference scores. They do notattempt to find the actual scores for the participants in theirsample, but – as in most studies that use Hofstede – they usethe values that Hofstede provides in his reports.Tantekin et al. (2011) limited their research to architecturalstudents and used the VSM-questionnaire to evaluate theircultural dimensions in order to test their hypothesis that anarchitect’s professional culture develops significantly duringhis/her studies. Thomas et al. (2009) approached altogether110 management students in Cyprus and South Africausing Hofstede’s questionnaire to examine attitudes towardwork-related ethics and courses of business ethics at the localuniversities and to verify if possible differences were rooted inthe different cultures of the students’ country of origin. Muellerand Thomas (2000) sought to find out if entrepreneurial traitsvaried across 9 countries but used Hofstede’s original scoressolely as a reference framework against which they comparetheir results.In the context of natural sciences, Arrindell et al. (2003)obtained valuable results of the Fear-Survey-Schedule III byusing a large sample of 5 491 students from natural, life, andsocial sciences as well as humanities from eleven countriesto measure public anxiety phenomena. They explicitly pointout the potential to compare their results against Hofstede’scountry scores to “predict observed mean level differences innational fears” (p. 477).190 Eringa, Caudron, Rieck, Xie and GerhardtWithin the context of Information Technology, Kock et al.(2008) assessed Hofstede’s model by comparing data relatedto information overload obtained from 108 New ZealandMBA students to Hofstede’s original country scores. Theauthors ultimately doubt the accuracy of applying the modelin an IT context. Although also confined to the discipline ofhuman-computer interaction (HCI), the studies by AbdelnourNocera et al. (2012) and Oshlyansky et al. (2006) have thepotential to provide broader insights into cultural thinking ofstudents because the authors conducted their studies in five andeleven different countries respectively. Abdelnour-Nocera et al.(2012) distributed questionnaires in the UK, Denmark, Namibia,Mexico and China and thus point out their broad orientationto four different continents. Their sample remains fairly smallwith 20 students per country and Hofstede’s VSM is applied inaddition to Hayes and Allinson’s CSI survey. Unfortunately, theydo not provide insights in the results they obtained but ratherelaborate on the purpose of their study and the methodologythey applied. Oshlyansky et al. (2006) conducted their researchin a HCI-context in the Czech Republic, Greece, India, Malaysia,New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Kingdomand the United States (the number of responses from theNetherlands and France turned out to be insufficient) explicitlywith the intention to update Hofstede’s research “with ayounger, different demographic” (Oshlyansky et al., 2006, p.11). Furthermore, the authors managed to gather a sample ofall in all 1 426 students and only included countries with a validsample of close to 100 questionnaires. The results of the studyultimately do not replicate Hofstede’s original findings (exceptfor the dimension of individualism). Moreover, their factoranalysis unfortunately showed that all of the dimensions testedin the VSM had too little explanatory power and thereforefailed to yield usable results.Girlando and Eduljee (2010) chose a similar approach in asmaller context when they updated Russia’s and the USA’scountry scores on Hofstede’s dimensions by taking VSMsamples from US-American students and Russian studentsstudying in the USA and in Russia.In this sense, further research has been conducted byresearchers with the intention to replicate and in this way tocomplement Hofstede’s original findings by calculating scoreson the cultural dimensions for countries that were not includedin Hofstede’s IBM study. Examples are the studies by Podrug etal. (n.d.), who distributed VSM-questionnaires to 68 Croatian,30 Bosnian, and 30 Slovenian students in order to be able toreveal possible cultural differences in cultural mindsets of citizensof the former Yugoslavian republics (see also Tipuric´ et al., 2007for a similar approach). Similarly, Alkailani et al. (2012) replicatedHofstede’s study using 795 Jordanian students to calculate theircountry’s scores which was then assimilated by Hofstede withthe scores obtained from other Arab countries. Huettinger(2008) replicated Hofstede’s study to obtain separate scoresfor Latvia and Lithuania also by asking about 600 studentsaltogether to fill out VSM-questionnaires. Kolman et al. (2003)used student samples to estimate the scores of the CzechRepublic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia to examine if there aresubstantial differences in value orientations in comparison toWestern European countries and among the four countries.By far, the broadest approach in this overview was takenby van Oudenhoven (2001, p. 89germ) in his attempt tocross-validate Hofstede’s study and to “investigate therelationship between culture as perceived and culture asdesired”. By letting over 800 advanced students of economicsand business administration from ten countries first assess acompany of their choice which they would know very well onthe five dimensions and then indicate what the ideal targetstate in their personal opinion should be, they could supportHofstede’s categorisation but did not establish a relationbetween perceived and desired corporate culture.This overview clarifies that most of the applications ina student context focus on a certain field of study (e.g.accounting or educational settings, etc.) and try to examinedefined issues (e.g. perceptions of academic honesty orunderstanding of metaphors, etc.) within the chosen context.Many researchers use Hofstede’s original findings and comparetheir measures obtained from different survey methods againstthem or focus on certain dimensions from Hofstede’s model.There seem to be only a few direct replications in a studentcontext and these replications mainly seek to evaluate scoresfor countries that were summarised by Hofstede under regionalscores (e.g. Jordan under the scores for some Arab countries)or for countries in regions that have undergone significantpolitical changes (e.g. the Balkan States) in recent years.Therefore, most of the direct replications were conducted incountries other than the Netherlands, Germany or China. Forseveral reasons, replication studies that include samples of oneof these three countries (e.g. Oshlyansky et al., 2006) did notyield sufficient or usable results that could be used for furthercomparison.All sources mentioned are listed in Appendix A to providean overview over the various applications and replicationsmentioned and the way they used Hofstede’s instrument anddimensions. In some categories, further examples of studiesin a Hofstede context that are not mentioned above are alsoprovided.In this regard, it becomes evident that our study has thepotential to add further meaning, especially to the questioncommonly raised by critics as to whether Hofstede’s dimensionscan still be regarded as valid and meaningful. Moreover, theparticipants of this study attend various degree programmesfrom many different fields of study, which further contributesto obtaining more meaningful results. Further conclusions fromfindings from other authors and researchers will be drawn inthe research methods section further below.Issues for investigationThe aim of this study is to validate Hofstede’s results on a newsample. As discussed in the literature review, several replicationsin a student’s context have been conducted. This research isdesigned to add to the research done already and to supportfuture research in the area. The outcomes of this researchare expected to be valid and of interest for researchers in thisarea and related fields. As Hofstede et al. (2008) state in theirmanual for the VSM 08, “essential to the use of the VSM is thatcomparisons of countries should be based on matched samplesof respondents: people who are similar on all criteria other thannationality that could systematically affect the answers” (p. 5).Our student sample from one university (see below) matcheswith such important criteria as a similar educational background(otherwise the students’ application would have been rejectedby the university) or a similar age range.Research in Hospitality Management 2015, 5(2): 187–198 191Hofstede et al. (2010b) also claim that the usefulness of areplication increases with the number of countries involved.They furthermore state that six major replications were donebetween 1990 and 2002, all of which include 14 countriesor more. However, they also acknowledge the validity ofsmaller studies including two or three countries only. Researchand replications seem to have shown that a confirmation ofHofstede’s work can be found even in these samples (Hofstedeet al., 2010b).The sample of this research consists of young adults, maleand female, mostly between 17 and 24 years old that arestudying at the Dutch-based Stenden University. StendenUniversity (hereafter Stenden) is the result of a merger inthe beginning of 2008 between CHN University (ChristelijkeHogeschool Nederland) and Drenthe University, and currentlyhas around 11 0002 students from over 50 different countries.It operates on five different sites in the Netherlands (Assen,Emmen, Groningen, Leeuwarden, Meppel) and has also fourbranches abroad, in Indonesia (Bali), Qatar, South Africa andThailand. At Stenden, students from all over the world attendclasses; however the three major groups distributed amongall campus sites were determined to be Dutch (around 8 000students total), Germans (1 800 students), Chinese (250students) and smaller numbers of South African and Qataristudents.Most students participating in this research follow courses ininternational hotel management or media and entertainmentmanagement. The five main nationalities, namely Dutch,German, Chinese, South African and Qatari students studyingat this university, have been chosen as major areas of interestand therefore a focus was set on the investigation and thereplication of Hofstede’s model regarding these. Next to theinterest in the verification and testing of Hofstede’s resultsa second aim of this research is furthermore to providerecommendations to the university and support an increase inquality of teaching through an increase in cultural knowledge.The rationale behind this research is to find out whetheror not Hofstede’s study from the late 1960s can be used andapplied to an international student context in the 21st century.This study is therefore an attempt to validate Hofstede’soriginally suggested dimensions by using an adapted version ofthe original instrument called “Value Survey Modules” (VSM08 ) on a student population.The following problem statement and research questionsstate the main aims of this study:Problem statementDo the scores of Stenden students from the Netherlands,Germany, China, South Africa and Qatar show a patterncomparable to the scores for these countries in the originalHofstede population?Research questions1.Using the key from Hofstede’s manual, is there a significantdifference between the relative country scores in the Stendensample and the original IBM population?2.Is there a difference in gender for the various dimensionsacross the four countries?MethodInstrument, sample and data collectionSince the main aim of the study was to replicate Hofstede’soriginal research, we decided to use the VSM 08 questionnairethat is freely available on Hofstede’s website. One question ongender was added to study the second research question.Given the size of the university a first targeted sample sizewas set at an ambitious goal of 4 000 respondents to improvevalidity. The authors knew that it would be challengingto reach this number of respondents and agreed to accepta minimum of 2 000 respondents while trying to reach theset 4 000 people target. In the end, given time limitations,availability of students and the scope of this project the samplesize ended up being 1 201 (621 Dutch, 181 German, 124Chinese, 58 South African, 121 Qatari and 96 from variousother countries). Since Hofstede et al. (2008) state that asample size including respondents from one nation should bebigger than 20, we obviously were able to obtain an amountof data which enables us to draw significant conclusions.The survey was distributed in a printed version to studentsrandomly on the Dutch campus sites of Stenden Universityby the authors and collected directly. At the same time, thequestionnaires were distributed to students directly by theirlecturers and collected in a specified place at school. Thequestionnaire was also available as an online version on www.thesistools.com and invitations to participate were sent bye-mail and via facebook to Stenden students. The majority ofquestionnaires were distributed in English (VSM 08) since thelanguage of instruction in most courses is English. However,given some streams of the university being taught in Dutch,the Dutch version of the VSM 08 was retrieved from theofficial Hofstede website and distributed among the respectivestudents. Given potential language difficulties for some of theChinese and German students, a Chinese/German version alsoofficially available on Hofstede’s website3 was pl onlineand distributed. This was done to assure a good understandingof the questions and ensure reliable answers.Table 1 provides an overview of the methods used fordata collection and the number of questionnaires that werereturned.All results from the paper questionnaires were transferredto evaluation forms that are computer compatible. This way,the results were read into the computer and the results wereavailable as a digital version in Excel format. The results of theonline questionnaires were directly available as an Excel fileand then added to the file of the computer readable versionsto have one file including all results.All results were transferred into SPSS for the subsequentsteps such as descriptive statistics, t-tests, and ANOVA tests.Hofstede’s original key of the VSM 08 questionnaire was usedto compute the scores for the five dimensions. The scores foundTable 1: Overview of the respondents yielded by each mode of datacollectionMode of collection Questionnairesreturned


Free-range collection (Stenden study landscape)


160


Online questionnaires


105


Classes/Teacher and staff support


936


Total


1 201


192 Eringa, Caudron, Rieck, Xie and Gerhardtin this research were then compared to the original findingsfrom Hofstede’s IBM-study using t-tests and ANOVA tests.Also, comparisons between female and male respondents ofthe same country as well as between only female respondentsof different countries and only male respondents of differentcountries were tested using a series of t-tests.Screening the dataWhen the data were entered into SPSS and labeled correctly,we found that there were many cases that were not suitablefor further analysis. There were a number of cases that hadtoo many missing values (more than 20%) and they werediscarded immediately. Based on the different scores in theoriginal Hofstede research, we also decided to screen thegroup of South African students and to exclude students fromneighboring southern African countries such as Zimbabweand Zambia. A special case are the students from Qatar.These students have various backgrounds, from Lebanese toPakistani and original Qatar. Following Hofstede and Alkailaniet al. (2012), we decided only to accept students with an Arabbackground and to cluster them into one group.Finally, after computing all the scores for the Hofstededimensions, we decided to omit all cases with missing values.Results and analysisThe resulting sample consists of 1 033 students, of which 360are male (35%) and 665 are female (65%). Table 2 provides amale/ female division per country of interest.Table 3 presents the scores for the five Hofstede dimensions.To put the scores into perspective, the original Hofstedescores are pl in the adjacent columns (S = Stenden; H =Hofstede):At face value there appears to be some striking differencesbetween the original Hofstede values and the scores forthe Stenden sample. To test whether these differences aresignificant, a series of one-sample t-tests were performed oneach dimension and for each nationality. For the Hofstedevalues a fixed norm score was taken from the originalscores. The results in Table 4 show that indeed for a numberof dimensions the Stenden sample scores are significantlydifferent from those of the Hofstede population:The analysis shows that Power Distance seems to haveincreased among Dutch, German an South African businessstudents, but to have decreased for Chinese and Qataristudents. Individualism has increased for Chinese students,but decreased for South African students. The Dutch Stendenstudents are much more competitive than the Dutch IBMengineers in 1970.Dutch and German students show a decrease in UncertaintyAvoidance, where Chinese students show an increase in thisdimension. Long-Term Orientation has decreased for Chinesestudents, but increased for the other four nationalities.If anything, all scores of the Stenden sample seem toconverge, where the original Hofstede sample scoresdifferentiated more between the various nationalities.Given the fact that it is well known and perceived that malesand females are different, even if from the same country, itseems interesting that only a few researchers (see Kolman etal., 2003; and Hofstede, 2001) have compared or analysed thedifferent scores between males and females within a selectedsample. For Hofstede’s original IBM research this might havebeen less relevant as it consisted of 92.5% males. However,since that the Stenden sample is 65% female (see Table 1)it would be interesting to look further into the matter andTable 4: Statistical comparison of Hofstede and Stenden scoresNationality PDI IDV MAS UAI LTODutch 0.000*** 0.152 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000***German 0.000*** 0.926 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000***China 0.003** 0.000*** 0.246 0.000*** 0.000***South African 0.034* 0.002** 0.394 0.532 0.000***Qatari 0.000*** 0.831 0.613 0.522 0.002**Table 2: Gender of respondents within nationalityNationality Total Male FemaleDutch 588 218 368German 168 48 118Chinese 117 40 76South African 54 17 36Qatari 106 37 67Total: 1 033 360 665Note: There were missing values, therefore totals do not alwaysmatch male/female countsTable 3: Comparing scores Hofstede (H) versus Stenden research (S)N PDI IDV MAS UAI LTOH S H S H S H S H SDutch 588 38 49 80 76 14 44 53 27 44 61German 168 35 55 67 67 66 51 65 31 31 83Chinese 117 80 66 20 49 66 60 30 63 118 68South African 54 49 63 65 47 63 57 49 54 34 75Qatari/ Arabic world 106 80 58 38 39 52 49 68 64 36 58Research in Hospitality Management 2015, 5(2): 187–198 193add to the analysis respectively. To test for possible differenceswe performed a series of ANOVAs per nationality for eachdimension. Table 5 shows that there are actually only twosignificant differences: between Dutch males and females forLong Term Orientation, and between Qatari males and femalesfor Individualism. Qatari women appear to be more collectivistthan Qatari men:DiscussionEven though Hofstede et al. (2008) continually stress thedifficulty to replicate his study and the near impossibility ofcomparing scores to the original scores, this research managedto collect data from a sample that fulfils the requirements ofa homogenous group of people (international students withina certain age bracket). This allows for a comparison betweenthe original scores and the scores found at Stenden Universityand some conclusions respectively. Generally speaking it canbe acknowledged that Hofstede et al. (2008) are not keenon replications done by enthusiastic amateurs (the term isHofstede’s, on p. 5), given the fact that this will lead to confusionand potential false accusations of the invalidity of the originalresearch. This research is not supposed to discredit Hofstede’soriginal work, but rather aims to provide a new perspectivelooking at it in a new context and time. The fact that manydifferences with Hofstede’s original results were found was tobe expected, based on the new surrounding of the research andprevious research conducted by numerous researchers.With a total sample of 1 033 students, with five nationalitiesthat include more than 50 students, the study meets thecriteria that Hofstede et al. (2008) list in the VSM 08 manual:“Sample sizes smaller than 20 should not be used” (p. 3), and“people who are similar on all criteria other than nationalitythat could systematically affect the answers” (p. 5).Our results confirm many of Hofstede’s original findings withregard to the ranking of the countries against each other, notnecessarily in the absolute scores we obtained. This is in linewith Hofstede et al.’s (2008) advice in the manual with regardto interpreting obtained results.For the dimensions Power Distance and Long TermOrientation, all Stenden scores differ significantly fromHofstede’s original scores, but the relative rankings remainthe same for all but the South African scores. The other threedimensions present a more diverse picture. In the dimensionMasculinity the Dutch still are the most “feminine” country,although they score significantly higher than 40 years ago.However, what clearly strikes the eye is the comparably closerange of scores which means that the extreme differences inall categories between the countries tested have diminished incomparison to the original results.The relatively young age (approx. 17–24) of the respondentsmay explain this finding as well as the similar educationalbackground of the students, although that is recommendedby Hofstede et al. (2008) in their manual. The tendency thatnational differences are increasingly evening out is quiteevident.Looking at the analysis done with regard to gender it seemsamazing that so few differences between males and femalescan be observed. This might be explained by the nature of the(hospitality and tourism) studies at Stenden, but more researchwith possibly qualitative methods would be advised.LimitationsWe are aware of the fact that although we have chosen acontext for our research that meets the requirements forconducting a replication of Hofstede’s original study as wellas possible (homogeneous focus group, sufficient sample size,etc.), there certainly are facts that can be named as limitationsfor this study. Obviously, the sample sizes of the differentnations – although in total sufficient for yielding valid results– vary significantly. Another important aspect that should beborne in mind when interpreting the results is the fact that allGerman and Chinese students are studying abroad, whereas theDutch and most of the South African and Qatari respondentsbasically attend university in their home country. It seemsreasonable to assume that students who deliberately choose tostudy abroad (especially Chinese who study far away from theirTable 5: Differences in scores between males and females for all dimensionsCountry Label N PDI IDV MAS UAI LTODutch M 1 218 52 74 48 24 53Dutch F 1 368 47 78 42 30 65Sig. 0.212 0.426 0.133 0.284 0.022*German M 2 48 61 81 39 32 91German F 2 118 51 62 55 31 80Sig. 0.24 0.079 0.081 0.941 0.342China M 3 40 67 53 58 72 55China F 3 76 65 47 61 59 78Sig 0.874 0.566 0.829 0.275 0.083South Africa M 4 17 66 48 61 35 75South Africa F 4 36 62 46 55 63 75Sig. 0.795 0.870 0.727 0.105 0.987Qatar M 5 37 63 58 53 59 59Qatar F 5 67 57 26 48 68 56Sig. 0.449 0.009** 0.672 0.436 0.864South Africa M 4 17 66 48 61 35 75South Africa F 4 36 62 46 55 63 75Sig. 0.795 0.870 0.727 0.105 0.987194 Eringa, Caudron, Rieck, Xie and Gerhardthome) are likely to have different mindsets in comparison tostudents who choose to stay in their home country.Besides these more conceptual constraints, we experiencedsome practical challenges with regards to the instrumentitself: the five-point Likert scale that was used for thequestionnaires was found to be counter-intuitive. Like in theoriginal Hofstede research, five meant that the item is ofvery little or no importance and one meant that the item isof utmost importance. While transferring the questionnairesto the computer-readable sheets, the researchers founda few questionnaires with a comment that indicated therespondents’ misunderstanding. This way, the researcherscould continue with the right answers. This issue was noticedhalfway through the project and therefore measures weretaken to provide additional verbal instructions when filling outthe questionnaires thereafter to get reliable answers.Furthermore, the researchers clearly stated in theintroduction to the online survey that the same study was donein paper form at school and asked people to participate onlyonce. This way, the risk of having double results from oneperson was minimised, but could not be fully controlled.All results from the paper-based questionnaires weretransferred manually to computer-readable sheets. Theresearch team did this with much concentration and manybreaks to make no mistakes. However, it can be assumed, thatsome mistakes were made during this process, which couldinfluence the results of the research.Language problems while completing the questionnairecould also be stated as a limitation. 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Hoppe


1990 Elites (e.g. members of governments) from 18countries


Application using the VSM 82Merritt 2000 Commercial airline pilots from 19 countries Replication using the VSM 82Mouritzen & Svara 2002 Top municipal civil servants from 14 countries Replication using the VSM 94Nasierowski & Mikula 1998 Polish respondents who intend to go into businessmanagementExploring cultural dimensions of young Polishmanagers using Hofstede’s instrumentShane 1995 Employees of 6 international corporations from28–32 countriesReplication in an employee’s context


Van Nimwegen


2002 Employees of an international bank in 19 countries


Wu


2006 Employees from US and Taiwanese universities


Replication in a banking contextReplication of Hofstede’s study in the USA andTaiwanStudies using Hofstede’s work as a frame or a referenceArrindell et al. 2003 5 491 students from 9 different countries Use of Hofstede’s dimensions as a reference whencomparing results obtained from other surveys tostudy phobic anxietiesBunchapattanasakda &Wong2010 MBA students currently working in Chinesemultinational companies and studying in public andprivate universities in BangkokUse of Hofstede’s VSM as a basis for thedevelopment of own research questions to analyseThai and Chinese social conceptsCrotts 2004 302 US residents travelling abroad for the first time Testing the impact of cultural distance on overseastravel behavior (Using Hofstede as a guideline incomparing results)Kang & Mastin 2007 Sample frames of English-language tourism websites Use of Hofstede’s work as a frame to identify validexplanatory factors that account for differences intourism websitesMueller & Thomas 2001 1 800 students in nine countries Use of Hofstede’s framework as a references tocompare tested hypotheses psychological on traitsassociated with entrepreneurial potential against itRienties & Tempelaar 2013 757 international students from 52 countries A study that compares the relationship betweengeographical background with personal-emotionaland social adjustment issuesRienties et al. 2014 334 students from ten different countries The study examines the distinctly different academicand social integration processes amongstinternational students. The students are dividedinto nine geographical clusters in line withHofstede’s cultural difference researchTempelaar et al. 2012 7 300 first-year students from 81 nationalities Investigate cultural differences in learning relateddispositions using the framework of Hofstede as areferenceThomas et al. 2008 Cypriot and South African management students Use of Hofstede’s framework as a reference in orderto understand attitudes towards workrelated ethicsand the teaching of business ethics in managementprogrammes at universitiesVadi & Meri 2005 Application with Estonian hotel staff members Measurement of the Estonian culture usingHofstede’s framework as a guidelineStudies testing/referring to single dimensions of Hofstede’s workGerritsen 2012 84 Dutch and German bachelor’s students Use of Hofstede’s instrument to evaluate thedimension of uncertainty avoidancePayan et al. 2010 Marketing and business college students from 13countriesUse of Hofstede’s instrument to measure thedimension of ind/col to ultimately test theirperceptions of questionable behavior concerningacademic honestySchimmack et al. 2005 Focus on the individualism/collectivism dimensionand analysing its validity for cross-cultural research(Hofstede’s approach is compared against others)198 Eringa, Caudron, Rieck, Xie and GerhardtAuthors Year Sample FocusStudies using Hofstede’s dimensions to only evaluate cultural values as a basis for further researchAbdelnour-Nocera et al. 2012 20 undergraduate students in each of 6 differentcountriesVSM only one part of the study (to evaluate students’cultural values)Research in a HCI contextHo & Lin 2008 Exploring a relationship between cultural values andcognitive moral developmentVSM only one part of the study (to evaluate students’cultural values)Littlemore 2003 Bangladeshi students at a British university VSM only one part of the study (to evaluate students’cultural values)Sulkowski & Deakin 2009 Use of Hofstede’s dimensions to evaluate students’attitudes values associated with learning, teaching,aspirations, and ethicsTantekin et al. 2009 Second and third-year architectural students Use of the VSM to evaluate their cultural dimensionsin order to test their hypothesis that an architect’sprofessional culture develops significantly duringhis/her studiesTapanes et al. 2009 Instructors and students in online learning courses VSM part of the survey in the attempt to establish alink between cultural values of participants and theperceived outcome of such a courseStudies testing the validity of Hofstede’s framework in different contextsBearden et al. 2006 292 graduate students Test of the validity of the VSM on an individual levelBlodgett et al. 2008 157 graduates and faculty membersCronjé 2011 12 S&T students from Sudan and 5 professors fromSouth AfricaTo what extent is Hofstede’s research also a suitablebasis for qualitative research? (Hofstede’s culturaldimensions are used as categories of interpretation)Harvey 1997 Comparison of the designs of geographic informationsystems (GIS) in a German and a US countyDoes Hofstede’s framework apply to the actualpractice of information system design?Kock et al. 2008 108 US and New Zealand MBA students Test the validity of Hofstede’s dimensions as a basisto explain IM phenomenaReplications of Hofstede’s study in a country-specific context


Alkailani et al.At-Twaijri et al.


2012 795 graduate students from universities in Jordan1996 Multinational companies


Replication of Hofstede’s original research in JordanApplication of Hofstede’s dimensions in the GCCcountries and comparison of the recent results tothe original onesFernandez et al. 1997 7 201 employed business professionals and adv.business studentsReexamination of Hofstede’s country classifications in9 countriesGirlando & Eduljee 2010 Russian students studying in Russia and in the USAand US students studying in the USAReplication of Hofstede’s work using the VSM 94Huettinger 2008 Over 800 responses from students in Latvia,Lithuania, and Sweden (to calibrate the other scoresEvaluation of scores in 2 new countries using theVSM 94Kolman et al. 2002 Respondents from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary,Slovakia and the NetherlandsEvaluation of scores in 4 new countries using theVSM 94Naumov & Puffer 2000 250 Russian respondents Application of Hofstede’s survey to find out whethercultural values of Russians have changedOshlyansky et al. 2001 1 428 students from 9 countries Replications in a student’s contextPodrug et al. n.d. 128 students from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, andSloveniaEvaluation of scores in 3 new countries using theVSM 94Tipuric´ et al. 2007 Doctoral and postgraduate students in the field ofeconomics in Finland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia,Hungary, and SloveniaEvaluation of scores in 5 countries using the VSM 94Wu 2006 Employees from US and Taiwanese universities Replication of Hofstede’s study in the USA andTaiwanAppendix A: Continued