Page 170 - Cultures and Organizations

146 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

Performance orientation “as is” correlated negatively with our uncer-
tainty avoidance (UAI, see Chapter 6), and performance orientation “should
be” correlated negatively with long-term orientation (LTO, see Chapter 7).
Humane orientation “as is” and “should be” produced no signifi cant correla-
tions. We doubt whether this GLOBE dimension makes any sense at all. 9

Masculinity Versus Individualism

In the literature the distinction between country-level masculinity and
femininity is easily confused with the distinction between individual ism
and collectivism. Authors from the United States tend to classify feminine
goals as collectivist, whereas a student from Korea in her master’s thesis

classified masculine goals as collectivist.
In reality the individualism-collectivism and masculinity-femininity
dimensions are independent, as is evident in Figure 5.1, in which the two
dimensions are crossed. All combinations occur with about equal fre-
quency. The difference between them is that individualism-collectivism is
about “I” versus “we,” independence from in-groups versus dependence on
in-groups. Masculinity-femininity is about a stress on ego versus a stress
on relationship with others, regardless of group ties. Relationships in col-
lectivist cultures are basically predetermined by group ties: “groupiness”
is collectivist, not feminine. The biblical story of the Good Samaritan who
helps a Jew in need—someone from another ethnic group—is an illustra-
tion of feminine and not of collectivist values.
As we mentioned in Chapter 4, Inglehart’s overall analysis of the World
Values Survey found a key dimension, well-being versus survival, that was
associated with the combination of high IDV and low MAS. This means
10
that the highest stress on well-being occurred in individualist, feminine

societies (such as Denmark), while the highest stress on survival was found
in collectivist, masculine societies (such as Mexico). We will meet this
dimension from Inglehart again in Chapter 8, relating it to Misho’s new
dimension indulgence versus restraint.

Are Masculinity and Femininity One or
Two Dimensions?

As in the case of individualism and collectivism, the objection is some-
times made that masculinity and femininity should be seen as two separate
dimensions. Again the answer to the question of whether we’re talking