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Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales

Cross-cultural comparisons often investigate values that are assumed to have long-lasting influence on human conduct and thought. To capture and compare cultural values across cultures, Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory has offered an influential framework. Hofstede also provided a su...

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Autores principales: Gerlach, Philipp, Eriksson, Kimmo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8056018/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33889119
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662604
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author Gerlach, Philipp
Eriksson, Kimmo
author_facet Gerlach, Philipp
Eriksson, Kimmo
author_sort Gerlach, Philipp
collection PubMed
description Cross-cultural comparisons often investigate values that are assumed to have long-lasting influence on human conduct and thought. To capture and compare cultural values across cultures, Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory has offered an influential framework. Hofstede also provided a survey instrument, the Values Survey Module (VSM), for measuring cultural values as outlined in his Cultural Dimensions Theory. The VSM has since been subject to a series of revisions. Yet, data on countries have been derived from the original VSM — and not on one of the revised versions of VSM. We tested three scales (indulgence, power distance, and individualism) from the latest version, the VSM 2013, as part of a larger survey across 57 countries. Two main findings emerged. For one thing, country scores based on the VSM 2013 scales correlated only weakly with country scores of the same cultural dimensions obtained in a large previous study. Thus, the validity of the VSM 2013 is in doubt. For another thing, the internal consistency of the VSM 2013 scales was overall poor, indicating that the scales did not reliably measure well-defined constructs. We discuss implications for cross-cultural research.
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spelling pubmed-80560182021-04-21 Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales Gerlach, Philipp Eriksson, Kimmo Front Psychol Psychology Cross-cultural comparisons often investigate values that are assumed to have long-lasting influence on human conduct and thought. To capture and compare cultural values across cultures, Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory has offered an influential framework. Hofstede also provided a survey instrument, the Values Survey Module (VSM), for measuring cultural values as outlined in his Cultural Dimensions Theory. The VSM has since been subject to a series of revisions. Yet, data on countries have been derived from the original VSM — and not on one of the revised versions of VSM. We tested three scales (indulgence, power distance, and individualism) from the latest version, the VSM 2013, as part of a larger survey across 57 countries. Two main findings emerged. For one thing, country scores based on the VSM 2013 scales correlated only weakly with country scores of the same cultural dimensions obtained in a large previous study. Thus, the validity of the VSM 2013 is in doubt. For another thing, the internal consistency of the VSM 2013 scales was overall poor, indicating that the scales did not reliably measure well-defined constructs. We discuss implications for cross-cultural research. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8056018/ /pubmed/33889119 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662604 Text en Copyright © 2021 Gerlach and Eriksson. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Gerlach, Philipp
Eriksson, Kimmo
Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales
title Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales
title_full Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales
title_fullStr Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales
title_full_unstemmed Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales
title_short Measuring Cultural Dimensions: External Validity and Internal Consistency of Hofstede's VSM 2013 Scales
title_sort measuring cultural dimensions: external validity and internal consistency of hofstede's vsm 2013 scales
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8056018/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33889119
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662604
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