Individualism-collectivism in Hofstede and GLOBE

This paper examines the Individualism-Collectivism (I-C) dimension of national culture in the Hofstede and GLOBE models. We identify major contradictions within and between the two culture models, which result in contradictory relationships with external variables such as economic prosperity. We critically evaluate the content validity of the items used to measure this construct in both models. Based on our analysis, we suggest that Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism index be relabelled as Self-orientation versus Work-orientation, GLOBE’s Institutional Collectivism as Organizational Collectivism, and GLOBE’s In-group Collectivism as Family Collectivism. We demonstrate how the proposed alternative conceptualizations of the Individualism-Collectivism dimensions in both Hofstede and GLOBE models can help reconcile the anomalous relationships between these two models of national culture, and between their dimension scores and other external variables of interest to researchers, such as economic prosperity