ABSTRACT
Geert Hofstede is a Dutch academic who has led the way in the scientific study of crosscultural management. His research into cultural differences within national subsidiaries of a single company, IBM, in the 1960s and 1970s opened the door to a greater understanding of worldwide variations in the psychology of work and of organisations, with major implications for organisation theory and human resources management, at the very least. Hofstede’s model for cultural analysis has subsequently undergone revisions, and other explanations for cultural variation have since been developed. But Hofstede’s lasting achievement has been to raise the importance of culture as a major issue when managing trans-nationally.
