Hofstede Approach is a framework developed by Geert Hofstede to study the communication

across different cultures. He developed this model by surveying more than 88,000 employees

working in subsidiaries of IBM in different countries. According to Hofstede, culture is collective

programming of mind which separates the member of one group from the other one. It guides

people about what behaviors are appropriate and what are not. And it influences all actions of

people (Bah, 2013).

Studying Hofstede is very useful as it provides us significant information regarding differences

between countries and how to manage these differences. Moreover, the recent research

studies have found the effectiveness of Hofstede approach during a wide range of managerial

activities like conflict management, change management, leadership, wok-related attitudes,

and negotiation. This is because all of these activities involve dealing and communicating with

cross-cultures having different values, beliefs, and behaviors. Therefore, understanding all

these is necessary to ensure effective cross-cultural communication (Bah, 2013).

However, the entire research of Hofstede is inconclusive research as it relies on surveying the

employees of only one company which makes the sample size small. And due to small sample

size, the findings cannot be generalized to the larger population. Moreover, Hofstede ascribed

culture to only geographical place of residence and did not consider other aspects like

migration, women empowerment, and cultural diversity. Despite these limitations, the

approach is still relevant and give deep insights to understand different cultures and ensure

good cross-cultural communication (Shaiq, 2011).

References

Bah,D.K., 2013, ‘The Cultural Approach to the Management of the International Human

Resource: An Analysis of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions’, International Journal of Business

Administration Vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 39-45

Shaiq,A.M., 2011, ‘Why not everybody loves Hofstede? What are the alternative approaches to

study of culture?’, European Journal of Business and Management, vol.3, no.6