Cultures and Organizations SOFTWARE OFTHE MIND

in the late 1960s Geert accidentally became interested in national
cultural differences—and got access to rich data for studying them.
His research resulted in the publication in 1980 of a book called Culture’s Consequences. It was written for a scholarly readership; it had to be,
because it cast doubts on the universal validity of established theories
in psychology, organization sociology, and management theory: so it
should show the theoretical reasoning, base data, and statistical treatments used to arrive at the conclusions. A 1984 paperback edition of the
book left out the base data and the statistics but was otherwise identical
to the 1980 hardcover versionCulture’s Consequences appeared at a time when the interest in cultural
differences, both between nations and between organizations, was sharply
rising, and there was a dearth of empirically supported information on the
subject. The book provided such information, but maybe too much of it at
once. Many readers evidently got only parts of the message. For example,
xii Preface
Geert lost count of the number of people who claimed that Geert had
studied the values of IBM (or “Hermes”) managers. The data used actually
were from IBM employees, and that, as the book itself showed, makes quite
a difference.
In 1991, after having taught the subject to many different audiences
and tested his text on various helpful readers, Geert published a book
for an intelligent lay readership—the fi rst edition of Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. The theme of cultural differences is, of
course, not only—and even not primarily—of interest to social scientists
or international business students. It pertains to anyone who meets people
from outside his or her own narrow circle, and in the modern world this
is virtually everybody. The new book addressed itself to any interested
reader. It avoided social scientifi c jargon where possible and explained it
where necessary; a Glossary was added for this purpose. Slightly updated
paperback editions appeared in 1994 and 1997.
In the meantime the worlds of politics, of business, and of ideas kept
changing fast. In 2001 Geert published a rewritten and updated version of
Culture’s Consequences that included a discussion of the many replications by
other researchers that had appeared since 1980. Anybody whose purpose
is research or academic scrutiny is referred to this source.
In 2005 Geert issued a rewritten and updated version of Cultures and
Organizations: Software of the Mind. Gert Jan Hofstede joined him as a
coauthor. After having majored in biology and taught information systems
at Wageningen agricultural university, Gert Jan had started to use his
father’s work in his own teaching and research. In 2002 he had already
published his own book, Exploring Culture: Exercises, Stories and Synthetic
Cultures, which included contributions from Paul B. Pedersen and from
Geert. Gert Jan contributed experience with the role of culture in international networks, hands-on experience in teaching the subject through
simulation games, and insight into the biological origins of culture.
Ever since his fi rst cross-cultural research studies, Geert has continued exploring alternative sources of data, to validate and supplement his
original, accidental IBM employee data set. In the past three decades the
volume of available cross-cultural data on self-scored values has increased
enormously. Geert used to say that if he had to start his research again, he
would use a choice from these new databases. About ten years ago, Geert
got into e-mail contact with a researcher in Sofi a, Bulgaria, who seemed
to be engaged in exactly that: scanning available databases and look-
Preface xiii
ing for structure in their combined results. The name of this researcher
was Michael Minkov, and we learned to call him Misho. In 2007 Misho
published his analyses in a book, What Makes Us Different and Similar:
A New Interpretation of the World Values Survey and Other Cross-Cultural
Data, bringing the kind of progress in insight we had been hoping for. In
addition, Misho, as an East European, brought insider knowledge about a
group of nations missing in Geert’s original database and of great importance in the future of the continent.
For this new, 2010, third edition of Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Misho has joined Gert Jan and Geert as a third coauthor.
The division of labor in our team is that Gert Jan has substantially contributed to Chapter 1 and entirely written Chapter 12. Misho has contributed
to Chapters 2, 4, and especially 7 and has entirely written Chapter 8. In
addition, each of us has commented on the work of his colleagues. Geert
takes responsibility for the fi nal text.
On a trip around the world several years ago, Geert bought three
world maps. All three are of the fl at kind, projecting the surface of the
globe on a plane. The fi rst shows Europe and Africa in the middle, the
Americas to the west, and Asia to the east. The terms the West and the East
were products of a Euro-centered worldview. The second map, bought in
Hawaii, shows the Pacifi c Ocean in the center, Asia and Africa on the left
(and Europe, tiny, in the far upper left-hand corner), and the Americas to
the right. From Hawaii, the East lies west and the West lies east! The third
map, bought in New Zealand, was like the second but upside down: south
on top and north at the bottom. Now Europe is in the far lower right-hand
corner. Which of these maps is right? All three, of course; Earth is round,
and any place on the surface is as much the center as any other. All peoples
have considered their country the center of the world; the Chinese call
China the “Middle Kingdom” (zhongguo), and the ancient Scandinavians
called their country by a similar name (midgardr). We believe that even
today most citizens, politicians, and academics in any country feel in their
hearts that their country is the middle one, and they act correspondingly.
These feelings are so powerful that it is almost always possible, when
reading a book, to determine the nationality of the author from the content
alone. The same, of course, applies to our own work—Geert and Gert Jan
are from Holland, and even when we write in English, the Dutch software of our minds will remain evident to the careful reader. Misho’s East
European mind-set can also be detected. This makes reading the book by
xiv Preface
others than our compatriots a cross-cultural experience in itself, maybe
even a culture shock. That is OK. Studying culture without experiencing
culture shock is like practicing swimming without water. In Asterix, the
famous French cartoon, the oldest villager expresses his dislike of visiting
foreigners as follows: “I don’t have anything against foreigners. Some of
my best friends are foreigners. But these foreigners are not from here!”
In the booming market for cross-cultural training, there are courses
and books that show only the sunny side: cultural synergy, no cultural
confl ict. Maybe that is the message some business-minded people like to
hear, but it is false. Studying culture without culture shock is like listening
only to the foreigners who are from here.
Geert in 1991 dedicated the fi rst edition of this book to his fi rst grandchildren, the generation to whom the future belongs. For the second edition
Gert Jan’s eldest daughter, Liesbeth, acted as our documentation assistant,
typing among other things the Bibliography. This time her sister Katy
Hofstede was our indispensable help, especially in preparing the tables and
fi gures.
From our academic contacts we thank in particular Marieke de Mooij,
who was our guide in the worlds of marketing, advertising, and consumer
behavior, where culture plays a decisive role. References to her work are
found at many places in the book. For Chapter 12, which was an entirely
new venture, Gert Jan was inspired by David Sloan Wilson, and he benefi ted very much from comments by his proofreaders Duur Aanen, Josephie Brefeld, Arie Oskam, Inge van Stokkom, Arjan de Visser and Wim
Wiersinga.
The fi rst edition appeared in seventeen languages (English with translations into Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French,
German, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian,
Spanish, and Swedish). The second edition has appeared so far in Chinese,
Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Swedish. We hope
that this new edition will again reach many readers through their native
language