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ABSTRACT Using indigenous knowledge of Chinese culture and philosophy, this article critiques Geert Hofstede's fifth national culture dimension, i.e. `Confucian dynamism', also referred to as `long-term orientation'. The basic premise on which the dimension is founded is scrutinized and the way in which this index has been constructed is assessed in detail. It is argued that there is a philosophical flaw inherent in this 'new' dimension. Given this fatal flaw and other methodological weaknesses, the usefulness of Hofstede's fifth dimension is doubted. The article concludes by calling for new visions and perspectives in our cross cultural research.
KEY WORDS - Chinese values - Confucian dynamism cross cultural Hofstede's fifth dimension long-term orientation Yin Yang
Geert Hofstede's (1980) Culture's Consequences, one of the most cited sources in the Social Science Citation Index, is the most influential work to date in the study of cross cultural management. The hallmark of this work is Hofstede's four dimensions of national cultural variability, i.e. power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity, derived from his unique and extensive empirical investigations at IBM subsidiaries in 53 countries.1 Hofstede defines culture as the collective mental programming of the mind which distinguishes one group or category of people from another. Hofstede (1983b: 78) maintains that his cultural dimensions broadly characterize national culture in terms of its `average pattern of beliefs and values'.
In 1991, Hofstede published Cultures and Organizations, a revised and popularized version of Culture's Consequences. He explained the impetus behind the new book as follows (1991: ix):
Reformulating the message of Culture's Consequences after 10 years has made it possible to include the results of more recent research by others and by myself... Since 1980 many people have published important studies on cultural differences. The second half of the book is almost entirely based on new material.
A vital feature of this book is the inclusion of `Confucian dynamism' (also known as `long-term orientation' - LTO) as a fifth dimension of national culture variance. A whole chapter (i.e. Chapter 7, pp. 159-74) is devoted to theorizing and describing this new dimension (see especially the section `Confucian dynamism as a fifth dimension', Hofstede, 1991: 164-6). According to Hofstede (1991), the fifth dimension deals with `time orientation'...