ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the most important critical limitations of the frameworks, including the limitations of Hofstede’s original research database as a basis for generalizations regarding national culture, and questions surrounding the apparent assumptions regarding culture as fixed, essential, and synonymous with national cultures. It develops first alternatives that may prove more useful for researchers attempting to come to grips with the complexities of culture online, including in specific contexts such as online classrooms and collaborative workgroups. A central critique of Hofstede’s work is that it relies on interviews with IBM employees in the 1960s and 1970s, thus raising serious questions about extending any of Hofstede’s findings to national cultures. The chapter shows that the frameworks of Hall and Hofstede “work,” but are most successful with regard to the graphical elements of advertising websites. It makes clear that these frameworks are not well-suited for a range of important foci of CMC research: the multiple minority cultures within a given national culture.
