The Globe

The GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness) program is an extensive research project, which is meant to analyse and explore all previous studies on cultural divergences and patterns and integrate all those researches on one single platform and also provide an approach to measure the magnitude of cultural differences. The basic criterion of the selection of countries for this research program was not fixed per se, nevertheless the one factor that was particularly taken care of was the certainty that countries should be selected in such a way that all major regions of the world get adequate representation.

As for the dimensions of the GLOBE program, there are nine of them, on the basis of which, the crux of the project was delineated. Those nine cultural dimensions are inclusive of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, collectivism (two forms of it), gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, future orientation, performance orientation and humane orientation.

GLOBE’s Standards for Measurement: Nine "Cultural Dimensions"

The first major question addressed by the GLOBE researchers was which measurement standards to use so that they could be precise about the similarities and differences among various societal and organizational cultures.  After a thoroughgoing literature review as well as two pilot studies, the team identified nine “cultural dimensions” that would serve as their units of measurement, or (in research language) "independent variables." 

Cultural dimensions have been an often-used tool of intercultural researchers for decades; readers familiar with them will find among the GLOBE nine some that are well-known and some that have been carefully redefined or even newly developed.  Each of these nine units of measurement receives a great deal of attention in the book, and are discussed at length in my third interpretative article (click here).  Here I will list them by name only: 

 The Nine Units of Measurement or "Cultural...