ABSTRACT
Hofstede’s work, and Hofstedean thought in general, did not always get a warm reception. In fact, it has met with some oft-cited, somewhat chilly, critiques, questioning its conceptual underpinning, empirical groundwork, practical usefulness or political consequences. In the field of cross-cultural management, Geert Hofstede’s work has had an ‘extraordinary command in shaping both thought and practice’. According to Google Scholar, Hofstede has over 100,000 citations, making him one of the most-cited social scientists worldwide. Geert Hofstede’s work can be credited for making ‘national culture’ popular among academics and practitioners, sensitizing them to the impact of national cultures on organizations with a culturally diverse work staff or operating in a globalizing world. Critical scholars have argued that, by contrast with functionalist and managerialist notions, ‘culture is not a conventional social science variable in the sense that it can immediately be observed, counted, dimensionalized, yoked to a set of norms, or directly manipulated’.
