As you can see, it’s called “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind” by father and son Geert and Gert Hofstede. They took a quantitative study of IBM employees around the world in the 60′s and created a way to derive their cultural and social values. From that, they were able to identify a few fundamental dimensions that drives ALL cultures around the world. Things like masculinity vs. femininity, individualism vs. collectivism and tolerance for ambiguity.
From a planner’s perpective, it helps me simply understand how culture works, period. The inescapable power of it, the unwritten rules and regulations of it, how it creates differences between countries over hundreds of years.
I’ve come to see the difference between the short term heroes and symbols of pop culture and the long term foundational values of people and countries.
Finally, it’s inspired very specific ideas when I’ve applied it to marketing in countries like Germany and Spain, or in a particular category like fast food or financial services.
Hope you like it!
