Hofstede Cultural Values

Cultural Values Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions can help to inform our understanding of our own cultures. My background is mostly Spanish, with a little bit of Pascua Yaqui on my mother's side. I would characterize my culture as having a high power distance where we are taught to always respect authority. This happens in school, church and in the family as well. Everybody has a position within the family and within society, and you must stay within that position. The culture is also very collectivist in that way.

I was raised to believe that we work as a unit, without worrying too much about individual goals. The exception is that you are expected to work to make yourself better, which I think reflects more of a traditional American value that has come from being here. An example of how this works is with my ancestors' grandfather. He was from Andalucia in Spain and was a famous bullfighter.

He had his own nickname and everything - "El Nino de la Palmas." You can take two things from this about my culture. Family is strong and important -- I still carry this heritage with pride and feel a connection to all members of my family because of this. But at the same time, this pride comes from individual accomplishment. So we tend to want to accomplish things and be successful.

There is a competitive spirit that fits with Hofstede's masculine culture, but there is a strong sense of the family collective that unifies people within the context of that individual achievement. With respect to time orientation, there is a longer-term time orientation that I feel, because there is still a connection to the family from the past.

I do not always think in the short-term, which is something that people here do, where maybe they do not always know about their family's past, but for me the family is such an important element and I take great pride is being connected in time to my ancestors. The last dimension is uncertainty avoidance. I have a fairly strong score for this.

I think this comes from having such a strong sense of place growing up, where I always want to have a sense of place and a sense of role. I think it would be very disorienting to have no sense of where I stood in society, and where my future lies. This also ties in with the long-term time orientation, because part of my own identity and future is defined by the traditions of my family.

The fact that so many of these traits are related to one another is interesting, because on the surface they make up a cohesive culture. Yet, when we add the influence of American culture, some of the changes can be a little bit disconcerting. Whether you want to call it a cultural issue or not, I have had some surprisingly heated discussions about bullfighting with people who have a strong attachment to animals. While I.