Our Culture, Their Culture and Beyond: Further Thoughts on Ethnocentrism in Hofstede's Discourse

摘要

In recent years the work of Geert Hofstede and his cultural dimensions has been carefully reviewed by academic scholars and educators around the world. As a result of this more careful analysis and scrutiny there are now questions, and in some cases open criticism, of the assumptions Hofstede utilised in arriving at his conclusions and theories. Many of the previous reviews and criticisms focused on ontology, epistemology and methodology, etc. For instance, the debate concentrates mainly on five points: (1) surveys are inappropriate instruments to measure culture, (2) unit of analysis of nations is not the best unit suited for studying culture, (3) one company can't provide information about entire national cultures, (4) the IBM data is old and obsolete and (5) four dimensions can't tell the whole story (McSweeney, 2002).