New Developments in Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions with a Focus on Individualism-Collectivism: A Guide for Scholars and Educators
September 25th, 2025
11am – 12:30pm in Promenade Building (PR13) & on Zoom
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Speaker: Adam KOMISAROF – ‘Keio University’s Faculty of Letters, Tokyo
abstract
Introduced as a measure by Geert Hofstede in 1980, the cultural dimension of Individualism-Collectivism (“I-C”) has dominated the field of cross-cultural research and guided intercultural trainers, educators, and other practitioners up to the present.
In 2023, The Culture Factor, the global cultural analytics and strategy advisor company associated with Hofstede’s framework, updated their I-C scores due to mounting concerns with Hofstede’s operationalization and measurement of I-C, specifically over its old and non-representative data, as well as its limited face and content validity. These newer I-C scores are derived from the work of Hofstede’s
former collaborator, Michael Minkov, and they include a substantial departure from the past. For instance, East Asian cultures’ scores have shifted toward the midpoint or even closer to the Individualism end of the continuum, close to the US’s new score.
Rather than an East-West dimension, as it is sometimes perceived, the new scores represent I-C as a North-South dimension, with Northwestern Europe as the most individualist and African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian countries as the most collectivist.