What Defines a Culture's Values?
Today I happened to come across a video on my YouTube feed.
It was about a meeting between President Lee Jae-Myung of Korea, and President Nicușor Dan of Romania during the recent NATO summit held in Turkey.
At first, I didn't take much heed of it.
Then, I realized how similar Korea and Romania were.
It wasn't a factual, reasoned conclusion, it was just a feeling.
This really didn't make much sense.
Korea is in East Asia.
Romania is in Eastern Europe.
Korea is based in Sino-Confucian values.
Romania is based in Latin-Christian values.
The distance between the two countries is 7,916 km.
Different language, different history, different culture, different religion.
What is it about these two cultures that felt so similar?
Then for lunch I visited our favorite Mediterranean place, Layla's.
While waiting for my take-out order, I struck up a conversation with the manager.
I soon found out that he was Turkish, and I told him that I was Korean.
As soon as he heard that he smiled and said, "We are brother countries."
7,800 km distance.
Different language, different history, different culture, different religion.
What is it about these two cultures that felt so similar?
Worlds apart.
Nothing in common.
Yet, for some reason they felt similar.
Then I expanded the list to other countries I visited, people I've met, and simply grouped them by cultures that felt similar vs. not.
1. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia etc.
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This makes sense because they are all a part of the larger Sino-cultural influence group. So called 'Collectivist' cultures. Add on to that their geographical proximity.
2. Cultures that feel different to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
USA, Britain, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Germany etc.
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This also makes sense because they are all so called 'Individualistic' cultures. Either geographically close together, or former colonies. The former 'colonies' are interesting, since not all 'colonies' feel the same:
- USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are undoubtedly similar to Great Britain.
- Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, most of Africa are very different from their former colonizers.
3. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, but I can't figure out the reason:
Mexico, Hungary, Türkiye, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran etc.
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Have no idea why they feel similar, but they do. Makes you wonder whether they feel similar in the same way.
4. Cultures that feel different, but I can't figure out the reason:
India, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sri Lanka etc.
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Have no idea why they feel different, but they do.
So today,
I wanted to explore this rather unscientific feeling of similarity-distance between cultures, with Korea as the base of comparison.
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Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory
The good news is, there has been a lot of study and research into this topic (see details in the alternative/succesor models in the breakout section below).
Perhaps the most important and influential is Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory,
often considered the gold standard in cross-cultural psychology and international management.
Geert Hofstede (1928–2020) was a Dutch engineer-turned-social psychologist best known for creating one of the most influential frameworks for comparing national cultures. His core question was:
Why do people working in similar organizations behave differently across countries?
While working at IBM as an executive in the HR department, Hofstede analyzed international employee-survey data and concluded that cultures differ along recurring dimensions. He first identified five dimensions, but later expanded it into 6 dimensions.
- Power Distance Index (PDI)
Measures the extent to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.High PDI: Inequality is expected. Subordinates expect to be told what to do; bosses are benevolent autocrats. Status symbols are crucial. (e.g., Malaysia, Russia).
Low PDI: Inequalities are minimized. Subordinates are consulted; privileges and status symbols are frowned upon. Bosses act more like facilitators. (e.g., Denmark, New Zealand). - Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV)
Measures the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members.High IDV (Individualist): The "I" identity. People look after themselves and their direct nuclear family only. Hiring and promotions are based strictly on merit. (e.g., United States, Australia).
Low IDV (Collectivist): The "We" identity. People belong to in-groups (extended families, clans, or organizations) that protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. (e.g., South Korea, Guatemala). - Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)
Measures how society deals with the fact that the future can never be known. Do they try to control it, or just let it happen?High UAI: Intolerance for unorthodox behavior and ideas. Strong need for rules, precision, and punctuality. Innovation is often resisted if it disrupts the status quo. (e.g., Japan, Greece).
Low UAI: Relaxed attitude toward the unknown. Practice counts more than principles. Deviance is tolerated, and there are as few rules as possible. (e.g., Singapore, Jamaica). - Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS)
(Note: Sociologists today often rename this "Achievement vs. Nurture" or "Tough vs. Tender" to avoid gendered terms, but Hofstede's original terminology remains the academic standard.)High MAS (Masculine): Society is driven by competition, achievement, and success. The winner takes all. "Live in order to work." (e.g., Japan, Austria).
Low MAS (Feminine): The dominant values are caring for others and quality of life. Standing out from the crowd is not admirable. "Work in order to live." (e.g., Sweden, Norway). - Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation (LTO)
How every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future.High LTO (Long-Term): Pragmatic. Truth depends on situation, context, and time. Strong propensity to save, invest, and persevere to achieve long-term results. (e.g., China, South Korea).
Low LTO (Short-Term): Normative. Prefer to maintain time-honored traditions and view societal change with suspicion. Focus on achieving quick results. (e.g., United States, Nigeria). - Indulgence vs. Restraint (IVR)
Measures the ability to control desires and impulses.Indulgent: Allows relatively free gratification of basic human drives related to enjoying life and having fun. Higher optimism. (e.g., Mexico, Sweden).
Restrained: Suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms. Less emphasis on leisure time. (e.g., Russia, Egypt).
Using Hofstede's Theory, below is a chart of some of some countries in the world (alphabetical order):
It's a little difficult to interpret like this, outside of each country's individual score.
For example:
Korea:
PDI (Power-Distance): 60
Relatively High. Somewhat believes that inequality is expected, and subordinates are expected to do what their bosses tell them to.
IDV (Individualism): 18
Very Low. Strongly believes that people belong to in-groups that protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.
MAS (Masculinity): 39
Relatively Low. Believes that individuals in a society should care about others and everyone's quality of life, and less about individual competition, achievement, and success.
UAI (Uncertainty Avoidance): 85
Very High. Very intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas. Resists innovation it it disrupts the status quo.
LTO (Long-Term Orientation): 100
Very High (in fact the highest in the world). Believes that truth depends on situation, context, and time. A focus on achieving long-term results.
IVR (Indulgence vs. Restraint): 29
Low. Believes in supressing individual desires and impulses and indulgence is frowned upon by society.
Denmark:
PDI: 18
Very Low. Inequality is not tolerated. Subordinates are consulted. Bosses are fascilitators.
IDV: 74
High. Believes people should look after themselves and their direct nuclear family only. Believes society should be merit based.
MAS: 23
Low. Believes that individuals in a society should care about others and everyone's quality of life, and less about individual competition, achievement, and success.
UAI: 23
Low. Relaxed attitude towards the unkown. Deviance is tolerated, and rules are minimized.
LTO: 35
Relatively Low. Prefers to maintain tradition and views societal change with suspicion. Focuses on achieving quick results.
IVR: 70
Relatively High. Prefers to enjoy life and have fun.
Interesting, but in this state very difficult to interpret differences/similarities between countries/cultures.
If we reorder the list so that they are ordered by similarity/difference to Korea, then the data becomes infinitely more interesting (note, that these are similarity/difference based on raw numbers and are not weighted, i.e., PDI = IDV = MAS = UAI = LTO = IVR. In the real world, people and societies would not consider these dimensions equally important).
Some interesting observations:
Observation 1.
My intuition was correct. When looking at similarity and difference between countries, Korea is much closer to Romania and Türkiye (also Russia, Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, and Indonesia etc.)
Observation 2.
My intuition was correct again. Korea is very distant from the US, Great Britain, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland etc.
Observation 3.
My intuition was wrong, when I said that Korea's closest neighbors China and Japan should be similar.
Observation 4.
Surprisingly, when using this unweighted comparison, a bunch of countries that I felt were distant is similar to Korea like Russia, Czech Republic.
This led me to think that the 'feeling of similarity', is driven more by some dimensions than others. Particularly IDV and MAS. This makes intuitive sense, because IDV and MAS are social dimensions, they define how you related to others, and the reason you push yourself.
So I reweighted the model and rebuilt the similarity/difference heatmap. Of course there's a risk of manipulating the model so that it fits my intuition - which proves nothing.
With IDV and MAS overweighted, UAI and LTO underweighted, the results shifted dramatically.
Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia rise to the top.
Russia, the Czech Republic drop down.
Romania, Türkiye also get closer to Korea.
The US, Great Britain, Scandinavian countries remain very distant.
Very interesting.
So returning to my original 'gut-feeling'-based groupings:
1. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia etc.
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a. Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore really are quite similar.
b. Surprisingly, Japan, China, and Malaysia are quite dissimilar (China closer than Japan).
2. Cultures that feel different to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
USA, Britain, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Germany etc.
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Every country listed here are dissimilar to Korea, no matter what I do with the weights.
3. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, but I can't figure out the reason:
Mexico, Hungary, Türkiye, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran etc.
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These countries exist in the moderately similar range. Romania and Türkiye are particularly interesting, since these are both European countries that beat other Asian countries in similarity.
4. Cultures that feel different, but I can't figure out the reason:
Russia, India, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sri Lanka etc.
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This is where things get interesting. Russia, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, much of Eastern Europe are close, but it's difficult to tease out with Hofstede's dimensions.
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* Alternative / Successor Models to Hofsteade
- The Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map
Treats culture as a byproduct of a society’s level of economic and physical security. They propose that as a society moves from subsistence (Survival) to prosperity (Self-Expression), its culture fundamentally shifts. Uses to axis; Traditional vs. Secular-Rational, and Survival vs. Self-Expression. - The GLOBE Study (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness)
Considered the "successor" to Hofstede, this study involved over 170 researchers and was designed specifically to fix the "IBM bubble" bias. GLOBE asks two questions: "How is it?" (Practices) and "How should it be?" (Values). Uses 9 cultural dimensions (some overlapping with Hofstede) - Erin Meyer
Meyer focused on how different cultures interact in business. Uses 8 scales - Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner
Takes a more philosophical look at how people relate to each other and time. Focuses on Universalism ("The rules apply to everyone equally") vs. Particularism ("The rules depend on who you are and what our relationship is").
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Obviously, Hofstede's theory is not without criticism. We've seen some limitations above, as we manipulated weights. But there are others.
Criticism 1. The "IBM Bubble"
In his original model, Hofstede didn't survey "nations"; he surveyed employees of one single company (IBM) across different countries. He was measuring the corporate culture of an American tech giant in the 1960s, not the national culture of the people living there. An IBM employee in Japan in 1970 was already a specific type of person—highly educated, urban, and likely Westernized—who was not at all representative of the average Japanese citizen.
Criticism 2. The Fallacy of National Monoliths (the variance problem)
Hofstede assigns a single number to an entire nation. This treats "The United States" or "Italy" as if they are uniform blocks. If we take the US as an example, there are significant differences between; the Coasts (East + West), Education (College vs. non-College), Urban vs. Rural etc. Using averages flattens wide disparity into a single number.
Criticism 3. The "Time Capsule" Effect
Culture is not a stone tablet; it is a fluid, evolving ecosystem. The world has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 500. The rise of the internet, the global pop-culture machine, and shifts in economic structure mean that the "national software" of 1970 is likely obsolete today. This is particularly interesting because LTO and UAI seem to be more about historical events, than something inherent in a culture (e.g., faced war, famine etc.).
Criticism 4. Semantic Bias
Hofstede's model is built entirely on questionnaire responses — and how a question is worded, and how it's understood inside a given social context, shapes the answer. The model assumes a Western trade-off: achievement (MAS) and nurture (its opposite) sit at two ends of one scale, so scoring high on one means low on the other. But that trade-off doesn't hold everywhere. In Japan, striving is intense but collective — you push hard, and you push for the group's success, not your own. Achievement is a form of caring for the in-group. The two things the questionnaire treats as opposites are, in Japan, the same act. So the instrument records a startling MAS of 95 — reading fierce group-drive as personal competitiveness — while the "vs." at the center of the dimension quietly falls apart. The scale measured something real, then mislabeled it.
Criticism 5. The "Reductionism" Trap
Hofstede reduces the complexity of human existence down to 6 integers. You can't capture the soul of a people in 6 variables. It's like classifying the world into 4 groups (e.g., blood types), or 12 (e.g., Chinese zodiac) and refusing to acknowledge that there are more than 4 or 12 types of people.
Criticism 6. Describes a Version of 'What', but Does Not Explain "Why"
This is my number 1 criticism. Even taking criticism 1 - 5 as a given, no matter what Hofstede's model does, it doesn't explain Why countries and cultures look that way. For me, a What without a Why is a dead theory. It lacks replicability and predictability. And isn't that why we model in the first place?
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