So how do we distinguish between cultures.
Before we start distinguishing remember;
- There will always be numerous individuals in a society to which cultural traits of that society do not apply.
- It is not an exact science but could be the reason why someone is behaving the way they do
We are going to look at 3 approaches to distinguish between cultures. Geert Hofstede, (Hofstede Model of 6 Dimensions) Edward Hall, (Context, Time, Space) and David Pinto, (F and G structures)
Geert Hofstede
Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede (2 October 1928 – 12 February 2020) was a Dutch Social Psychologist, IBM employee, and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, well known for his pioneering research on cross -cultural groups and organizations.
He is best known for developing one of the earliest and most popular frameworks for measuring cultural dimensions in a global perspective.
Cultures and Organizations, Software of the Mind Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival Geert Hofstede Gert Jan Hofstede Michael Minkov ISBN: 978-0-07-177015-6
Edward T. Hall
Edward Twitchell Hall, Jr. (May 16, 1914 – July 20, 2009) was an American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher.
Hall has taught at the University of Denver, Bennington College, Harvard Business School, Illinois Institute of Technology, North-western University and others. During the 1950s he worked for the United States State Department, at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), teaching intercultural communications skills to foreign service personnel. Hall is considered a founding father of intercultural communication as an academic area of study.
Among other things Hall has released the following books/articles: The Silent Language (1959), The Hidden Dimension (1966), Beyond Culture (1976), The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (1983), Handbook for Proxemic Research, Hidden Differences: Doing Business with the Japanese, Understanding Cultural Differences - Germans, French and Americans (1990)
David Pinto
David Pinto (born around 1942 in Midelt, Morocco) is a Moroccan-Jewish opinion-maker and author.
Pinto migrated from Israel to the Netherlands in 1967. He is a former associate professor of intercultural communication. He was titular chair from 1998 to 2005 at the University of Amsterdam, faculty of political and socio-cultural sciences. Pinto is also director and manager of the Intercultural Institute (ICI), a commercial company he founded in 1982, author of 19 books and various research reports, articles, essays and columns. He is the author of “The World according to Pinto” (2004) and “Is the Maslow Pyramid Universal” (2017).
