The first attempts to conceptualise and operationalize culture date back more than a hundred years. Perhaps one of the first attempts at a definition of culture was made by Tylor in his 1881 study, where he defines it as ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. Over a century later, in 1986, McCracken describes this ‘complex whole’ as a ‘lens through which the individual views phenomena’. This view seems to be shared by Geertz (1973), Clifford (1988) and, more recently, by Marcus (1999). Those early studies seem to address culture at the individual level of analysis.
More recently, however, there has been a noticeable shift from an individual to an aggregate view of culture. This shift seems to be rooted in the study by Hofstede (1980), who defines culture as ‘the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from another’. Those ‘groups’ or ‘categories’ refer to societies, nations and counties. Consequently, following Hofstede, scholars started to conceptualise culture at its aggregate level. Earley (1997), for example, defines culture as ‘manifestations of shared meaning systems that are learned from other members of the society’. Likewise, Johansen (1998) defines culture as a representation of a set of values shared among members of the society. This view seems to be shared by Steenkamp (2001) and Leung et al. (2005) who see culture at the aggregate level and argue that country is an acceptable proxy for culture. Such a ‘modern’ view of culture is further supported by Soares et al. (2007), who note that ‘culture, country, nation and society are often used interchangeably’.
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Consequently, it seems to be appropriate to look at culture and/or cultural contexts (i.e. country) as a ‘programming of the mind’ of the individual within society, as Hofstede used the term. Thus from here on, in this thesis the concepts of culture and/ or cultural context will be subsumed under the one word ‘culture’, to avoid repetition of these terms.
Along with the many attempts over decades to conceptualise culture, a number of frameworks have been developed that aim to operationalise the concept. Parsons and Shills (1951), for example, identify ‘cultural dilemmas’ and characterise them in bipolar pairs, including: affectivity vs. affective neutrality, self-orientation vs. collective orientation, universalism vs. particularism, ascription vs. achievement and specificity vs. diffuseness. Kluckholm and Strodtbeck (1961) identify four value orientations: man’s relation to nature, time dimension, personal activity and man’s relation to others. Hall (1976) distinguishes between high- and low-context cultures. In the 1980s, Hofstede developed his well-known framework based on four cultural dimensions: individualism vs. collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and masculinity vs. femininity. He later added a fifth dimension: long-term orientation. Recently, the framework was updated with two further dimensions: pragmatic vs. normative and indulgence vs. restraint. More recently, Schwartz (2006) distinguishes three bipolar cultural value dimensions: autonomy vs. embeddedness, egalitarianism vs. hierarchy, and harmony vs. mastery. Despite significant research over recent decades, however, Smith et al. (2013) argue that ‘no single theoretical approach fully captures the richness of cultural differences’.
From the literature review it appears that of all frameworks and definitions available, Hofstede’s work seems to be the most commonly cited in research studies, which set out to investigate culture and its effect. This is confirmed by Leider and Kayworth (2006), who while reviewing the IS literature, reveal that most researchers apply Hofstede’s framework into the investigation of the effect of culture on technology acceptance. Soares et al. (2007) claim that this is due to a high level of convergence existing across all approaches, which support the theoretical relevance of Hofstede’s framework. Therefore, it is arguably appropriate to employ Hofstede’s framework to guide the investigation of the effect of acculturation process on e-commerce acceptance.
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Hofstede’s (1980) framework is developed on the etic approach of operationalising culture. Unlike the emic approach, which looks at indices specific to one culture, an etic approach looks at a set of universal dimensions that are equally relevant to all cultures, thus making it possible to distinguish one culture from another. Originally developed in the 1980s, Hofstede’s framework is based on four dimensions of culture: individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, masculinity vs. femininity and uncertainty avoidance. Those four dimensions are constructs which facilitate assessment of the extent to which members of a particular culture deal with unequal distribution of power (power distance) and the extent to which masculine values are valued in the society (masculinity vs. femininity). Further, the framework enables evaluation of relationships between individuals (individualism vs. collectivism), and a cultural group’s tolerance of uncertainty (uncertainty avoidance). In 1991, Hofstede added a fifth dimension, long-term orientation, designed to measure the degree to which a society holds long-term devotion related to respect for tradition. In 2010, long-term orientation was replaced by the pragmatic vs. normative dimension. In 2010, Hofstede supplemented his framework with yet another bipolar dimension: indulgence vs. restraint. All dimensions are summarised in Table 4.
Table 4. Hofstede’s cultural framework
Cultural dimension Description
Individualism vs. Collectivism: The dimension measures
the relation between an individual and society.
Individualistic societies are societies in which ties between individuals are loose. Everyone is supposed to look after one’s self-interest, which is possible though the a large amount of freedom such a society grants its individuals. Hence, individualistic societies are loosely integrated.
In contrast, collectivist societies are societies in which ties between individuals are very tight. People are supposed to look after and support the interests of others in society. In exchange, the society gives everyone protection. A collectivist society is tightly integrated.
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Power Distance: The dimension measures
how society deals with inequality in terms of
power and wealth
Societies characterised as high on the power distance scale let physical and intellectual inequalities grow over time into a power and wealth inequality, which is said to satisfy the psychological need for dependence of the people without power.
Societies low on the power distance scale try to reduce inequalities in power and wealth as much as possible by strong forces in society that perpetuate existing
inequalities.
Uncertainty Avoidance: The dimension measures how society deals with the
uncertainty related to the unknown future.
Societies with a low uncertainty avoidance score socialise individuals into accepting uncertainty. People in such societies will take risk rather easily. They will not work as hard. They will be relatively tolerant of behaviour and opinions different from their own. Hence they feel relatively secure.
A high uncertainty avoidance society socialises individuals into trying to beat an unpredictable future. Those societies have higher levels of anxiety, which may manifest in greater nervousness, emotionality and
aggressiveness. Such societies will have established institutions, laws, formal rules and regulations through which they will try to create security and reduce risk perception.
Masculinity vs. Femininity: The dimension involves the division of social roles
between the sexes in society.
In societies with dominant masculine characteristics, preferred social values include the importance of showing off, performing, achieving something visible, making money and ‘being beautiful’. In a masculine society, the public hero is a successful achiever.
In more feminine-oriented societies the dominant values are those more traditionally associated with the feminine
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role: not showing off, putting relationships with people before money, minding the quality of life and the preservation of the environment and helping others. Consequently, in a more feminine society, public sympathy goes to the anti-hero.
Pragmatic vs. Normative: The dimension describes
the desire to establish absolute truth.
In normative societies there is a strong desire to establish absolute truth. Those societies have a strong need for personal stability; thus, they tend to respect social conventions and traditions. At the same time normative societies seem to look for quick results and are not concerned about the future.
In societies with a pragmatic orientation, on the other hand, there is no desire to establish absolute truth. Those societies believe that truth is dependent on situation and context. Thus, pragmatic societies claim that it is impossible to fully understand the complexity of life, and because of that they seem to be able to accept contradictions.
Indulgence vs. Restraint Indulgence societies allow relatively free gratification of basic human drives, such as enjoyment.
Societies described as ‘restrained’ or having restraint tend to suppress gratification of human needs; such behaviour is regulated by strict social norms.
In spite of its popularity, Hofstede’s framework has not escaped criticism. Researchers have questioned the theory’s relevance and cultural homogeneity, as well as its single-company approach (research was carried out at IBM) (Jones, 1997; Ali et al., 2008). Moreover, researchers have raised concerns related to over-reliance on this particular framework (Engelen and Brettel, 2011). As a result, many research projects have been run to evaluate the real worth of Hofstede’s work. Jones (2007), for example,
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closely examines Hofstede’s work and concludes that ‘a greater argument exists which supports Hofstede than exists which dispute his work’. Despite criticism of Hofstede’s framework, many scholars still apply it, claiming not only that it provides ‘a highly valuable insight into dynamics of cross-cultural relationships’ (Jones, 2007) but that it is still the most comprehensive framework to measure culture (Soares et al., 2007).