1. Developing an international perspective: how to become a World Citizen
Geert Hofstede
Prague, 6th October 2016

2. Necessary for effectively cooperating with people in and from other countries:
(1) speaking or having learned a shared language (2) acting according to shared rules and standards

3. Everybody speaks with an accent
While speaking a common language, you and I each speak it each with our own accent
Our accent depends on the place where we learned our first language
If a foreigner speaks your language without a foreign accent, (s)he probably lived in your country as a child

4. Everybody also thinks, feels and acts with an accent
Equally true but less evident: we also think, feel and act with local “accents”, acquired when and where we grew up.
We call this our national culture.

5. Why this almost universal shock experience
Why this almost universal shock experience? In our own country, we function according to mental programmes we learned as children
As children before puberty, our body and mind are “wired” for unconscious learning of all the normal things we need to become adults
If we then move to an environment where these things are not normal, we feel like becoming children again – we have to be “rewired”

6. Three meanings of “culture”
Literally: tilling the soil, cultivation
Training or refining of the mind: civilization
Collective ways of acting, thinking, and feeling: “collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category* of people from another”
*) nation, region, occupation, organization, gender

7. Gaining an international perspective
Becoming conscious of our own culture amidst the variety of cultures we may meet in people from elsewhere
There is no substitute for personal international experience
We can acquire knowledge about differences in national cultures in our present day world
We should develop skills for “translating” between cultures
When in another culture, in a way we become children again

8. Knowledge: Basics of national culture differences
All countries in the world share the same basic problems, but each national society has over time developed its own answers
Six basic problems for each society (outcome of my research):
How much (in)equality should there be among us?
How afraid are we of unknown people, ideas and objects?
How dependent are we on our (extended) family?
How should a man feel, how a woman?
Do we focus on the future, the present or the past?
May we have fun or is life a serious matter?
These can be seen as six different and separate dimensions of national cultures

9. Culture is related to our unconscious values It is in our guts – not in our minds
What is like our culture is normal, good, smart
What is unlike our culture is evil, bad, stupid
The problem is that you will have guts reactions
Not intellectual but emotional
Culture is about values
Cultural differences are loaded with stereotypes
Some examples

10. Dimensions of culture do not apply to individuals
A culture presupposes a collective or social system
Individuals don’t have cultures but personalities
Our personality was influenced by the culture in which we grew up, but only to a limited extent
Stereotyping individuals by their supposed culture is a frequent error
A society is like a jigsaw puzzle, the individuals are the pieces; each piece is different, but together they make one whole

11. Dimensions of national cultures do not apply to organizational cultures
National cultures are rooted in values learned before age 10
They pass from parents to children
For management, they are given facts
For academics, they belong to anthropology
Organizational cultures are rooted in practices learned on the job
With management effort, they can be monitored and changed
For academics, they belong to sociology
International organizations function through shared practices, rarely shared values

12. Being a world citizen, and enjoying it
Understand your own cultural software
Accept your own cultural identity
Experience working in another country
Explore its geography, history and literature
Speak at least one other language
Make real friends in other cultures
Treat cultural differences as challenges
My last point: be proud of your own cultural identity

13. Why want to be a world citizen?
For ourselves,
our grandchildren
and their grandchildren