150 International Human Resource Managementnations). A third one is the obsolescence of the data (collected between 1967
and 1973). Hofstede invited researchers to try and measure cultural dimen-
sions that would be theoretically and statistically independent from the
ones he developed. Candidates did try. The following sections will present
alternatives developed by various management researchers to Hofstede’s
model and their attempts to measure new (or complementary) dimensions
of culture.
3 TROMPENAARS AND HAMPDEN-TURNER
Like Hofstede, Trompenaars (1997) also proposed comparing countries using
cultural dimensions. He considers that each culture has to deal with several
‘universal problems’ and proposes three ‘problems’: social interactions, pas-
sage of time and relationship to the environment, that unveil seven dimen-
sions of culture (see Table 6.2). These cultural dimensions describe the
characteristics that each culture provides as answers to the three fundamen-
tal problems. Measurement of the cultural dimensions is based on the
responses of managers from multinational and international corporations
(circa 30,000 from 55 countries). For each dimension, Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner give examples and expected consequences for management
and organization.
TABLE 6.2Fundamental dimensions of culture from Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner
Fundamental problems Resulting dimensions of culture
Social interactions Neutral versus Affective
Individualism versus Communitarianism
Universalism versus Particularism
Achievement versus Ascription
Specificity versus Diffuseness
Passage of time Time orientation (past-present-future,
sequential and synchronic)
Relationship to the environment Inner versus Outer Directedness
Source: Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997: 8–10.