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Is National Culture a Meaningful Concept? Cultural Values

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Is National Culture a Meaningful Concept? Cultural Values CCR46210.1177/1069397111427262M 427262inkov and HofstedeCross-Cultural Research © 2012 SAGE Publications Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Cross-Cultural Research 46(2) 133 –159 Is National Culture © 2012 SAGE Publications Reprints and permission: http://www. a Meaningful sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1069397111427262 Concept? Cultural Values http://ccr.sagepub.com Delineate Homogeneous National Clusters of In- Country Regions Michael Minkov1,2 and Geert Hofstede3 Abstract Although many cross-cultural studies have used nations as the units of analy- sis, the concept of national culture has been challenged on various grounds. One objection is that there may be significant cultural diversity within some countries and similarities across national borders, compromising the con- cept of national culture. This objection has little empirical support. We used latest World Values Survey data and found that 299 in-country regions from 28 countries in East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Anglo world overwhelmingly cluster along national lines on basic cultural values, cross-border intermixtures being relatively rare. This is true even of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, or Mexico and Guatemala, despite their shared official languages, religions, ethnic groups, historical experi- ences, and various traditions. Even the regions of neighboring African nations, such as Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Mali, do not intermix much when they are clustered on the basis of cultural values. Keywords national culture, national regions, cultural distance, values 1International University College, Sofia, Bulgaria 2Sofia University Kliment Ohridski, Sofia, Bulgaria 3University of Maastricht, Maastricht, Netherlands Corresponding Author: Michael Minkov, International University College, ul. Tsarigradsko Shose No 149B, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria Email: [email protected] 134 Cross-Cultural Research 46(2) Using nations as units of analysis in cross-cultural studies is a controversial approach. Some political scientists and economists strongly defend this method: “Despite globalization, the nation remains a key unit of shared expe- rience and its educational and cultural institutions shape the values of almost everyone in that society” (Inglehart & Baker, 2000, p. 37). According to Parker (1997), national culture is viewed as a “critical factor affecting economic development, demographic behavior and general business policies” (p. 1). The use of nations as units of cross-cultural analysis has also been defended by leading cross-cultural psychologists, for instance, Smith (2004). Other authors have expressed more cautious views: national borders may not be an inadequate way to delineate cultural boundaries because many countries have large subcultures (House & Javidan, 2004). Lenartowicz and Roth (2001) echoed similar concerns. Tung (2008) pointed out that intranational variations can often be as significant as cross-national differ- ences. Boyacigiller, Kleinberg, Phillips, and Sackman (2007) referred to various cases in which nations had disintegrated. This means that nations are somewhat arbitrary political formations that are not necessarily formed along stable cultural lines. In retrospective, speaking of a Yugoslav or Soviet culture may not have been justified even when Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union existed as single political entities. A third group of authors have openly challenged the meaningfulness of the concept of national culture (Baskerville, 2003; McSweeney, 2002). For example, Baskerville (2003) refers to an Encyclopedia of World Cultures in which the Middle East is said to have 14 nations and 35 different cultures (p. 6): an argument against the concept of national culture. Is national culture a meaningful concept? The issue is extremely impor- tant because many cultural indices in cross-cultural psychology, cross- cultural management, and other fields are provided for nations as if they were single entities, not only politically but also culturally. In recent years, Cross-Cultural Research—a journal of comparative anthropology—has also published articles that present national cultural indices. However, if it is not justifiable to speak of national culture, there is little point in cultural comparisons of nations. Peterson and Smith (2008) identified three main types of critiques of the use of nations as units of cross-cultural comparisons: Studies of individuals show significant within-nation variance; Nations have regional, ethnic, or other subcultures; Structural theories in general have been challenged. Minkov and Hofstede 135 We will leave out the third of these critiques as it is purely theoretical. The first is grounded in correct empirical findings but it is logically flawed. When national cultures are compared, it does not matter whether individual differ- ences are large and whether they are larger or smaller than national differ- ences. Saying that groups, such as nations or ethnic groups, should not be studied because the individuals that they consist of are much more heteroge- neous than the groups that they make up is like saying that individuals need not be studied because the cells that they are made of are much more diverse than the human beings on our planet. The existence of intranational subcultures is a more serious argument against using nations as a unit of cross-cultural analysis. One might wonder if the cultures of large countries, such as China, India, and Indonesia, or even those of far smaller but seemingly diverse nations, such as Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland, are homogeneous enough to be studied as single entities. For instance, some countries have sizable subcultures that appear so dif- ferent from the other subcultures in the same countries that they should prob- ably be viewed as distinct from them. However, some of these national subcultures may show similarities across national borders. A case in point are the Balkan Gypsies (Roma, Sinti, Manush, so called “Egyptians,” etc.) that are found throughout the peninsula and beyond. The question of whether there are transnationally shared cultures, of which Gypsy culture may be an example, has not been studied sufficiently. However, even if one could demonstrate the existence of a Gypsy culture that is markedly different from the cultures of the majority populations of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, or Slovakia, that would not mean that those countries do not have mainstream cultures, shared by the majority popula- tions of ethnic Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbs, or Slovaks, that can be viewed as national cultures. There are a number of countries that are different from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia as they do not have a dominant ethnic population. For example, the two largest ethnic groups of Afghanistan are Pashtun (47%) and Tajik (27%); those of Pakistan are Punjabi (45%) and Pashtun (16%; Central Intelligence Agency, 2011). What would a cluster analysis of such ethnic groups show? If a variety of cultural variables were used, would they group the ethnicities of Afghanistan separately from those of Pakistan and Tajikistan? Or would we have a Tajik cluster that groups the Tajiks of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and separates it from the cluster of Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan? Would there be a transnational Punjabi cluster of Pakistani and Indian Punjabis that is clearly separate from the transnational Pashtun cluster? A large-scale study of this kind, including many ethnicities 136 Cross-Cultural Research 46(2) from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and perhaps even Europe, would be extremely interesting. Unfortunately, we do not have contemporary data that can be used to assess the unifying effect of modern nations on the ethnically diverse populations in them. Nevertheless, we have data to answer another question that can address the issue of the existence or nonexistence of national culture. What would happen if we used some cultural variables to perform a cluster analysis of in-country regions from one and the same geographic area or one and the same seemingly distinct cultural area (for instance, the Anglo world)? Would these regions cluster along national lines? This is an interesting issue because if one can show that, for instance, the states of the United States and the Canadian territories cannot be sorted out in a cluster analysis on the basis of cultural variables, it would not be justifiable to speak of the U.S. versus Canadian culture. Similarly, if the Brazilian and Mexican states, or the Chinese provinces, or any other in-country regions do not form compact national clusters on important cultural variables, but are scattered among the regions of other countries, there is no basis for speaking of Brazilian, Mexican, or Chinese national culture. We must note that the goal of our study is not to determine whether in- country regions are good units of cross-cultural analysis or better or worse than nations. Our goal is to address a specific controversial issue in the cross- cultural field: if one compares in-country regions on cultural traits, do they form clusters that largely obscure any national boundaries? If that is so, the notion of national culture would be strongly compromised. However, if there is no national culture and yet in-country regions form clear national clusters with- out intermixtures, what creates this clear delineation? Regardless of the inter- nal cultural homogeneity or heterogeneity of the in-country regions, we would have to accept
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