Page 153 - Cultures and Organizations

132 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

the differences in IDV scores. We found that a country’s IDV score can be
fairly accurately predicted from two factors:

■ The country’s wealth (richer countries associated with higher IDV)
■ Its geographical latitude (countries closer to the equator associated
with lower IDV)

Wealth (GNI per capita at the time of the IBM surveys) explained no less
than 71 percent of the differences in IDV scores for the original fi fty IBM

countries. This finding is amazing in light of the fact that the two measures
came from entirely different sources and that both were rather imprecise—
subject to measuring error.
A correlation does not show which of two related phenomena is cause
and which is effect, or whether both could be caused by a third factor. If indi-

vidualism were the cause of wealth, one should find that IDV scores relate
not only to national wealth per se but also to ensuing economic growth. The
latter is measured by the World Bank as the average annual percentage
increase in GNI per capita during a longer period. If individualism leads
to wealth, IDV should be positively correlated with economic growth in
the period following the collection of the IDV data. However, the relation-
ship between IDV scores (collected around 1970) and subsequent economic
growth was, if anything, negative: the more individualist countries showed
less, not more, economic growth than the less individualist ones.
We can draw the same conclusion by looking at the correlations of
1970 IDV with country wealth in later years. Wealth differences in 1970
explained 72 percent of IDV differences; wealth in 1980 explained 62 per-
cent; in 1990, 55 percent; and in 2000, 52 percent. If causality went from
58
IDV to subsequent GNI, the correlation should have become stronger over
time. The correlation between wealth differences in different periods is

much stronger. 59
The reverse causality, national wealth causing individualism, is there-
60
fore more plausible. When a country’s wealth increases, its citizens get
access to resources that allow them to do their own thing. The storyteller

in the village market is replaced by TV sets, first one per village, but soon
more. In wealthy Western family homes, every family member may have
his or her own TV set. The caravan through the desert is replaced by a
number of buses, and these by a larger number of automobiles, until each
adult family member drives a different car. The village hut in which the