in today's interconnected world we interact with people from all different cultures especially in the work environment i'm from california in the united states which according to the january 2020 issue of u.s news and world reports hold seven of the top 10 spots of the most diverse big cities in the united states but even if you don't live in a city steeped in diversity you are still communicating with people from different cultures thanks very much to the internet the most comprehensive study of culture is the one conducted by gert hofstede for ibm but that was way back in the 1960s and early 70s the question is do these taxonomies still apply today enter the globe project which is described as a unique large-scale study of cultural practices leadership ideals and generalized and interpersonal trust in 150 countries in collaboration with nearly 500 researchers a lot of words to say it's a big study globe founded by robert house in 1991 stands for global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness while this study focused on the inner relationships between societal culture societal effectiveness and organizational leadership we'll be focusing on the societal culture aspect this video will offer a very brief comparison of hofstedes and globe's taxonomies and then focus on describing the nine cultural dimensions of the globe study performance orientation assertiveness future orientation humane orientation institutional collectivism in-group collectivism gender egalitarianism power distance and uncertainty avoidance although we will cover them in a different order than they are presented on the globe project website if you've seen my last video on hofstede's cultural taxonomies the same caveats apply these are likelihoods not absolutes like hofstede globe's research focused on national culture and culture is more than that i'm hoping you already have a working knowledge of hofstede's cultural taxonomies culture is dynamic meaning cultural practices change over time so the placement of a particular culture on one end of the scale today may be different from what it was in the past as well as where it might be in the future and i already told you that i'm from the united states so you'll likely hear some of my biases in our discussion let's compare the two approaches of hofstede and globe the basic concept is the same both use a scale to plot a country's values hofstede scale ran from 0 to 100 or more while the globe project scale is limited to 7 points like hofstede the globe project is a large-scale research project based on data from 17 000 managers from 62 countries around the world and there are some countries missing from the list so when i don't mention countries like norway or iceland as countries with say strong women's rights that's because they weren't one of those 62 countries in the study also both projects were focused on an international business perspective hofstede focused on ibm employees while globe looked at middle managers in terms of differences the most obvious is the number of the dimensions hofstedes has six while globe has nine keep in mind that house the founder of the globe project had hofsted's research to build on in fact globe takes apart some of hofstede's taxonomies and reworks them however globe does offer two unique cultural dimensions the globe project also looked at practices what is and values what should be it's one thing to say you value equality between the sexes but another thing to actually practice it the study also looked at leadership issues but we won't go into that in this video finally not only did the globe project break down the results by country but also organized the countries into 10 culture groups allowing for some easier comparisons this radar chart that looks like a spiderweb shows the differences in scoring between two of these culture groups nordic europe and eastern europe or if you prefer the bar chart these are only included to show you that there are definitely differences between the two culture groups but you're welcome to stop and rewind the video if you want to look at them in detail so now on to the dimensions some of which are identical to hofstedes some variations and some that can be considered new to be clear these groupings are my opinion we'll start with the two hofstede dimensions that globe validated they even carry the same names you'll recall that uncertainty avoidance relates to the tolerance a society has towards uncertainty are you uncomfortable with uncertainty so that you need rigid rules to know exactly what is going to happen or can you deal with ambiguity letting things unfold and viewing the lack of knowing as interesting the globe project identifies sweden singapore denmark and germany as high on the scale meaning they are much more open to uncertainty on the other end of the scale cultures that are uncomfortable with ambiguity you'll find russia hungary guatemala and bolivia the united states is placed in about the middle of the scale and you should remember that power distance refers to the concept that some cultures accept that inequity is normal power is not distributed equally a decentralized power structure where authority is highly respected and followed while other cultures view status as less important not automatically accepting peoples and government's authority in the words of the globe project the extent to which the community accepts and endorses authority power differences and status privileges countries with higher power distances more likely to accept power inequities between people and organizations are nigeria el salvador zimbabwe argentina thailand and south korea countries with lower power distances with more of a centralized power structure and more likely to question their leaders when they disagree with them are denmark south africa the netherlands and bolivia where is the u.s more toward the lower power distance side now we're moving to some of the globe dimensions that you're relatively familiar with as they are variations of some of hofstede's taxonomies hofstede's long-term orientation taxonomy becomes future orientation in the globe project this involves the degree to which people plan for the future such as investing it also relates to spontaneity and how you plan for social gatherings the variation there is no mention of a past orientation scoring high on this list these are the planners singapore south africa the netherlands malaysia and austria the low scoring countries the live for the present approach are russia argentina poland hungary and guatemala you'll find the u.s on the higher end of the scale while we do have national policies focused on future goals we also live in the moment the u.s has the most credit card debt in the world let's move to what hofstede called the individualism versus collectivism dimension which globe separated into two institutional collectivism and in-group collectivism the first deals with connection to groups and organizations in general for practical reasons while the other focus is more on family and more intimate group connections more emotional cohesiveness and pride and yes according to this research there is a difference between these two dimensions the countries that score high on one dimension are not necessarily the same one scoring high on the other dimension institutional collectivism is defined as the degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action okay you can think of this as collectivism as a practicality how much do you support the pooling of community resources to ensure others are taken care of even if it means that your own goals suffer countries scoring high on this dimension are sweden south korea japan singapore and new zealand in these cultures there is more of a concern for the group than the individual think about employees who take a pay cut to ensure that others are able to keep their jobs the group is more important than the individual greece hungary germany argentina and italy score lower on this dimension meaning that the society's economic system is designed to help facilitate the individual's interests rather than the groups and where is the u.s in comparison to other countries towards the middle but leaning towards the lower end of the scale in-group collectivism relates to a culture's cohesiveness pride and loyalty to their organizations and family i think of it as the emotional equivalent of institutional collectivism children and parents take pride in each other's accomplishments and children tend to live with their parents until marriage and the adult children take their aging parents into their homes cultures scoring high on this dimension showing a strong family cohesiveness are the philippines georgia in eastern europe iran and india in india for example married couples traditionally continue living with the husband's family after marriage low scoring cultures on the in-group collectivism dimension are denmark sweden new zealand and the netherlands you'll also find the u.s on this side of the scale hofstede's masculinity versus femininity taxonomy has been separated into two different globe dimensions assertiveness a characteristic typically ascribed to males and gender egalitarianism characteristics usually apply to females assertiveness is the degree to which individuals are forceful confrontational and aggressive what hofstede identified as masculine characteristics as opposed to cooperative and compassionate traditionally a feminine characteristic countries loading high on this scale are albania nigeria hungary germany and hong kong where direct communication is favored in these countries if you want something you ask for it and you make your expectations clear and unambiguous and yes you'll see the united states in the top 10 percent of countries in terms of assertiveness on the low end of the scale are sweden new zealand switzerland and japan where the desire is more towards consensus building and cooperation representing the feminine side of hofstede's masculinity versus femininity taxonomy is globe's gender egalitarian dimension sometimes referred to as gender differentiation how much women are considered equal to men in terms of status power and job opportunities in cultures rating high on this scale you'll see women having more job opportunities and holding powerful positions that includes countries like hungary russia poland and slovenia on the lower end of the scale where women have lower status both at work and in the home are south korea kuwait egypt and morocco in morocco for example while women make up about half of the country's population only about one in four holds jobs outside of the home a fact that i noticed when i visited that country about four years ago and here is an example of my bias as a woman in the u.s remember that a score of seven on the globe scale would be a country where men and women have achieved true equality yet the highest score on this dimension is hungary's 4.08 and in the united states where i live has yet to see a female president interesting when you compare the u.s gender egalitarian value score what we say we want to be it is significantly higher than what we say happens in practice 5.6 in value versus 3.34 in practice two globe dimensions are considered new humane orientation and performance orientation humane in this case refers to human rights how much fairness altruism generosity and kindness are encouraged and valued i can see this as yet another extrapolation of the femininity characteristics hofstede identified but on a larger scale high-scoring countries on this humane dimension are zambia the philippines ireland malaysia and thailand these countries tend to be more concerned about being kind and fair to others spain greece hungary germany and france are the lowest scoring countries that's not to say they don't care about human rights but they don't emphasize it as much the u.s is placed near the middle of the scale but closer to the humane side the second new dimension is performance orientation which focuses on how much a community encourages and rewards high standards improvement in performance and innovation you might think of this as an emphasis on tasks training feedback and explicit communication can improve performance and people are more valued for what they do not who they are countries emphasizing high performance are singapore albania hong kong new zealand and south africa and yes the u.s is in the upper 10 percent of high performance orientation countries but not the highest countries scoring lower on this dimension are more likely to value the individual as a person and negative feedback is more implied so as not to make the other feel uncomfortable countries like greece venezuela russia hungary and qatar fall on the low end of the scale well that was a lot to cover even if you can't remember which culture is high on which dimension you should at least be able to understand that different cultures have different values and behaviors and that both hofstede's research and the globe project help us organize and understand these differences with that i'll say goodbye from sacramento california the third most diverse city in the usa