What national culture dimension scores for individuals tell us about people – and countries
Event Title
International Interdisciplinary Conference: Advances in Comparative Culturology
Location
MBG06, Lam Woo Lecture Theatre, Patrick Lee Wan Keung Academic Building, Lingnan University
Start Date
15-5-2025 3:00 PM
End Date
15-5-2025 3:30 PM
Language
English
Description
Using national culture dimensions to explain differences in individual or group behavior has posed a challenge ever since Hofstede introduced the cultural dimension paradigm and stated that scores cannot be applied to individuals without committing the ecological fallacy. This limitation renders national dimension scores theoretically inapplicable for explaining cultural differences at any lower level than countries. However, people communicate, not countries. To address this issue, we calculate scores for 44,000 individuals from 54 countries for the Collectivism-Individualism and Monumentalism-Flexibility dimensions of the revised Minkov-Hofstede model. We derive a regression-based formula from the ecological level and employ it at the individual level, imposing the structure of countries on individuals. Aggregated back to the country level, they correlate with the original country-level factor scores at r = .98 and r = .92, respectively, indicating that national culture differences have been accurately preserved. Density curves of individuals' scores per country show a large overlap between individuals of different countries, confirming the non-transferability of country scores to individuals. Yet, we argue national culture serves as a codebook for all individuals within a country. Further, our method provides insights into differences within countries, such as ethnic background and gender. Future work should focus on quantifying the impact of national culture on individuals.
Document Type
Presentation
Recommended Citation
Schachner, M. (2025, May 15). What national culture dimension scores for individuals tell us about people – and countries. Presented at the International Interdisciplinary Conference: Advances in Comparative Culturology, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
What national culture dimension scores for individuals tell us about people – and countries
MBG06, Lam Woo Lecture Theatre, Patrick Lee Wan Keung Academic Building, Lingnan University
Using national culture dimensions to explain differences in individual or group behavior has posed a challenge ever since Hofstede introduced the cultural dimension paradigm and stated that scores cannot be applied to individuals without committing the ecological fallacy. This limitation renders national dimension scores theoretically inapplicable for explaining cultural differences at any lower level than countries. However, people communicate, not countries. To address this issue, we calculate scores for 44,000 individuals from 54 countries for the Collectivism-Individualism and Monumentalism-Flexibility dimensions of the revised Minkov-Hofstede model. We derive a regression-based formula from the ecological level and employ it at the individual level, imposing the structure of countries on individuals. Aggregated back to the country level, they correlate with the original country-level factor scores at r = .98 and r = .92, respectively, indicating that national culture differences have been accurately preserved. Density curves of individuals' scores per country show a large overlap between individuals of different countries, confirming the non-transferability of country scores to individuals. Yet, we argue national culture serves as a codebook for all individuals within a country. Further, our method provides insights into differences within countries, such as ethnic background and gender. Future work should focus on quantifying the impact of national culture on individuals.
Additional Information
Speaker
Michael SCHACHNER (The Culture Factor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Michael Schachner, Head of Research at The Culture Factor Group and Austrian national, first encountered culture during a High School exchange year in the US. Fascinated by the topic and the possibility of quantifying human behavior, he took the first opportunity to make culture his profession. There, he helps translate academic research into business applications, involving the development of tools to capture cultural preferences, cultural adaptability, organizational culture, and consumer preferences across cultures. With a background in Economics, he reconnected with academia after a 15-year break during a major cross-cultural study that aimed to replicate Hofstede's national culture dimensions. This study led to many co-authored publications. To catch up with formal academic qualifications, he is currently doing a PhD at VU Amsterdam, focusing on organizational culture and computational linguistics as measurement alternatives to surveys. At the interface of business and academia, his ambitions are to bridge gaps between the two areas by improving the quality of business tools through academic insights and by making academic findings approachable to the business audience. Over the years, he lived in Austria, the US, Spain, and the Czech Republic before ending up in Finland, where he lives with his wife and three kids.