HODNOTY SPJATÉ S PRACÍ A ROZDÍLY MEZI KULTURAMI VE STŘEDNÍ A VÝCHODNÍ EVROPĚ

Work-related values and cross-cultural differences in Central and Eastern Europe

hodnoty spjaté s prací a rozdíly mezi kulturami ve střední a východní evropě

Kolman Luděk, Dienes Erszébet, Hofstede Geert, Noorderhaven Niels G.,

Adresa autora:

Kolman, Luděk, Czech Agricultural University, Prague

Dienes, Erszébet, Hungarian Council for Work Psychology, Estergom

Hofstede, Geert, Brabant Catholic University, Tilburg

Noorderhaven, Niels G., Brabant Catholic University, Tilburg

The research described was supported by the Research Support Scheme Grant No. 805/1997

Abstract:

The paper presents the first measurements based on a full version of Hofstedes VSM (1994a) in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia and in the Netherlands (which served for comparison purposes). The survey by VSM was complemented by additional questions on the attitudes of respondents concerning the expected enlargement of the European Union. The research hypothesis was that the attitudes would correlate with some of the Hofstedes dimensions. The research results support the hypothesis.

Anotace:

Referát přináší první výsledky měření rozdílů kultur České republiky, Maďarska, Polska a Slovenska pomocí Hofstedeho dotazníku VSM. Aby bylo možné výsledky porovnat s výsledky dalších zemí, bylo do výzkumu zahrnuto i Holandsko. Šetření pomocí VSM bylo doplněno dalšími otázkami, zjišťujícími postoje respondentů k očekávanému rozšíření EU. Výzkumná hypotéza předpokládala, že tyto postoje budou korelovat s některými Hofstedeho dimensemi. Tento předpoklad byl potvrzen.

Key words:

Cross-cultural communication, Hofstedes theory, Cross-cultural differences of Central European nations.

Klíčová slova:

Cross-kulturální komunikace, Hofstedeho teorie, Rozdíly kultur Středoevropských národů

The method

The research presented in this paper was conducted as a questionnaire survey. It was conceived as an application of the VSM94 (Hofstede, 1994a) which was supplemented by a set of attitudinal questions (see below). The methodology used was based on matched samples comparison. Both VSM and the set of attitudinal questions will be described briefly here.

Hofstede has developed his method in the seventies and from that time on he and some others have used it in a quite extensive range of surveys (see, e.g., Hofstede, 1980, 1991, 1994b). Through the years the VSM has proved to be a reliable and consistent measure of cross-cultural differences in work-related values systems (Sřndergaard, 1994). The most recent (or 94) version of the Value Survey Module provides measures on five dimensions of national cultures, i.e., power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long term-short term orientation. The measures of the dimensions were derived by factor analysis (see Hofstede, 1984), and in the following text are shortened to PDI, IDV, MAS, UAI and LTO, respectively.

Table 1: Description of the Hofstedes dimensions

Hofstedes research instrument, the VSM 94, is a questionnaire consisting of 27 questions (four questions for every dimension, and supplementary questions asking on age, sex, education, etc. of the respondent). The survey of attitudes to the enlargement of the European Union was implemented by another 15 questions adjoined to the VSM questionnaire. These questions were derived in the preliminary examination phase of the research. They might be described as covering three distinct themes. The first theme deals with emotional ties to the respondents own country and language. The second one deals with attitudes to the change introduced by the expected enlargement of the European Union, and the third one with respondents opinions on how things might be made easier if this change is going to happen. In this paper only the questions covering the first theme will be analyzed in some detail. They are introduced in full in Table 1. (Actually, the question 41 is one of Hofstedes supplementary questions; it was added to the subset because of its strong associations to the other questions of the subset.)

Table 2: A subset of attitudinal questions (the Love of Patria Questions).

For convenience the questions introduced in Table 1 were dubbed the Love of Patria Questions by the researchers. This label will be used in this paper, as well.

The procedure and the sample

The questions of the research instrument (VSM 94 and the attitudinal questions) were prepared in English originally. For survey in every country covered the questions were translated in the language of the nation, and translated back to check on the translation accuracy. Another precaution which is usually taken in a survey of this kind is to let a half of the respondents in every country to use a questionnaire in English, and another half to use the translated version. This, unfortunately, was not possible to achieve, as there were not enough of students sufficiently fluent in English at the Universities in Central and Eastern Europe. Instead, the questionnaires were administered as bilingual, both in English and the language of the nation in question. The respondents were asked to use the questions in English if they felt they could master it. That way, another check on the translation accuracy was provided.

In the research described in this paper the samples of respondents were Business (or, Economy) Faculties students, half men, half women. The surveys were undertaken at the capitals of the countries, with the exception of the Netherlands, where the study was carried out at Brabant University in Tilburg. The projected number of respondents was one hundred in every country. Actually, the numbers were somewhat higher in all the countries. It seems, there is a culturally determined tendency for men and women to choose a field of study. Because of it there was a higher proportion of men in the Netherlands sample, and on the contrary, a higher proportion of women in the sample from Bratislava, Slovakia, and Budapest, Hungary. With very few exceptions all the respondents in all the countries classed themselves as nationals of the dominant nation of the country in question.

The results

The measurement results of the countries covered on the five dimensions are presented in Table 2. In this table the dimensions labels are shortened to PDI for power distance, IDV for individualism-collectivism, MAS for masculinity-femininity, UAI for uncertainty avoidance and LTO for short term-long term orientation. The indices numeric values were computed according to formulas derived by factor analysis of research data (see Hofstede, 1984, 1991). It is important to note, though, that the VSM produces ratio scales, only. Because of it, not the absolute values, but the ratios should be accounted for in any interpretation.

Table 3: Positions of the five countries on the five dimensions.

C - Czechia; H - Hungary; N - The Netherlands; P - Poland; S - Slovakia.

As could be seen in table 1, power distance is the highest in Slovakia. Hofstede (1991, p. 26) has found the Netherlands as a rather low power distance country. Because of it we might expect that the power distance scores of the countries involved would be the same, or run somewhat higher, if more as just five countries would be covered. In individualism all the countries covered score high, with the exception of Slovakia, which appears in the middle of the scale. This, again, is in agreement with expectations (in Europe, individualism is higher in the West, lower in the East).

According to Hofstede (op. cit., p. 55), Netherlands is a rather feminine country. However, in our measurements its masculinity index is negative (this might occasionally happen, see Hofstede, op. cit.). This, most probably, means that in a sample of more, as just five countries, the masculinity indices of the countries involved would be somewhat higher. As goes about uncertainty avoidance, Middle Europe is known as a high uncertainty avoidance region. Czechia, Hungary and Poland score moderately over average on this dimension, and Netherlands (as should be expected) together with Slovakia somewhat lower, as average. On long-term orientation all the countries score near the average, with the exception of Czechia that seems to be a rather short-term oriented country.

The data introduced in the preceding table provide some information on cultural differences of the countries covered by the research. In the research of Hofstede and others (see, e.g., Hofstede, 1991, Hofstede et al. 1998) the indices were found associated with a wide range of measures and these results could be used to interpret the findings presented above. To this we are going to attend in the next section of this paper. Here, however, we are more interested in examining relations of the indices to questions introduced in Table 2 (the Love of Patria questions). If an association of answers to these questions will be found, it could be taken as another corroboration of Hofstedes theory.

Product moment correlation coefficients of UAI and the question means were computed. The correlation coefficients are presented in Table 3:

Table 4: Product moment correlation coefficients of Love of Patria questions (country means) and uncertainty avoidance.

As could be seen in Table 3, all the correlation coefficients are negative, and pretty high (in absolute value). As we have correlated countries, there is N = 5 only, and so it is questionable if it would make really sense to discuss statistical significance in this case (on one-sided test all the coefficients in Table 5 are significant on 0.05 level and four of them are significant on that level on two-sided test). Because of it we have decided for another approach. It consisted in computing Principal Component Analysis for the same set of data. Its results, the authors believe, are more informative on what the association found really means, as the correlation coefficients shown above (interpretation of correlation coefficients is not an easy and commonplace task, as usually is assumed; see Howell, 1997, p. 248ff). The results of Principal Component Analysis are presented in Tables 4 and 5.

Table 5: Principal Component Analysis of questions 37 - 41 and UAI

As could be seen in Table 6, the first Principal Component alone accounts for more, as 89% of variance. For a Principal Component Analysis to be taken as valid it is required that the first and second component would account for at least 85% of variance. In this case we get more as 96%. The component weights of the variables are tabulated in the following table:

Table 6: Component weights of Love of Patria questions and UAI.

Discussion and conclusions

The results of the measurement of cultural characteristics of the five countries were shown in Table 3. In the preceding section of this paper the relative positions of these countries on Hofstedes dimensions were already mentioned. In this section possible meaning of these differences will be discussed. At the same time, the issues of validity of these findings and plausibility of the interpretation will be reconsidered.

The dimensions of national cultures (like those we have referred to in this paper) reflect basic value orientations. Values might be thought of as ”broad tendencies to prefer certain states of affairs over others” (Hofstede, 1991, p.8). By acting on minds of people, these broad tendencies influence how people think and feel about specific affairs, and consequently, how they act in specific situations. According to Schwartz (1999), because cultural value priorities are shared ”role incumbents in social institutions … can draw on them to select socially appropriate behaviour and to justify their behavioural choices to others …”. That way, presumably, the value pattern of a country shapes methods and manners of managers and administrators. The same way, it seems, it shapes the responses to the use of these methods by others, as well as their willingness to accept them. Actually, the result of Principal Component Analysis of the preceding section corroborates this set of assumptions. It shows that the way people think and feel about their country and their language is strongly associated with their value preferences in one specific domain. The result described in this paper is only one of the many in support of Hofstedes five dimensional model (see e.g., Sřndergaard, 1994; Hofstede, G. et al., 1998). The repeated corroboration of the theory, together with many associations of the dimensions to divers and specific facts identified in the studies quoted throughout this paper, the authors believe, validates the results of the research described here, as well, and gives plausibility to its interpretation, as it is given in the following paragraphs.

As was shown in the preceding section of this paper, in power distance Czechia and Hungary scored near the average. Poland scored somewhat lower as average and Slovakia considerably higher, as average. In individualism all the countries covered, with the exception of Slovakia, scored considerably high. Slovakia scored near the average on this dimension. Masculinity was found considerably high in Hungary and Slovakia in this study. Both Czechia and Poland scored somewhat under average on this dimension.

Hofstede (1991, p. 166) has found the Netherlands to be the longest term oriented nation of Europe (there are, however, other countries in the world which exceed it in this quality). In his sample of 23 countries it scored 10th and Poland scored as 13th. This finding corresponds to the relative positions of these two countries in our sample. The position of Hungary is practically the same, as that of Poland. Both Slovakia and Czechia are extremes - Slovaks are even (and much) more long-term oriented, as Dutch, and Czechs appear to be the most short term oriented from all.

The primal interest of the present authors was what could be learned from cultural characteristics of the four Central and Eastern European countries as goes about probable differences between them in the above mentioned fields of management and administration. If we take in the account the measurements using the same method in other countries (see Hofstede, 1980, 1991), the cultural patterns of Czechia and Hungary seem to be more similar to the European Latin, or catholic countries, as to the Germanic (Anglo-Saxon, Nordic), or Protestant European countries. From this it might be concluded that it would be more suitable for these countries to develop administrative practices and/or management methods similar in kind to those used in, e.g., France, or Belgium, as to those that are used in, say, Sweden, or Great Britain.

Czechia differs from the other four countries in being the least long-term oriented of all. Hofstede (op. cit.) associated short-term orientation with consumerism, and difficulties in building a sound economy. This really might be the case, and it might account for the present difficulties of the Czech economy. On the other hand, such a conjecture hardly could be verified, or even corroborated - the post-communist economies are hardly stabile. Few years ago the Czech economics was thought to be sound and the present state might appear as just one of wild fluctuations after more time will lapse. Unfortunately, a sample of five countries is too small for a serious attempt to analyze the phenomenon in any depth (presumably, by using external data on economic development, savings, etc.).

Slovaks seem to be quite distinct from the other three Central and Eastern Countries. Their model would be ”family” with a strong, masculine father figure on the top. As they are weak uncertainty avoiders, they might accept achievement as a motive, but it probably will be an achievement in the interest of the group they belong to. Most probably, the most efficient motivation for them would be derived from the interpersonal relations.

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