Cultural Trend Spotting; The Curse of Campanilismo?
Cultural Trend Spotting in Europe Media commentators are talking about the long-term risk that the European institutions will “disintegrate”. But the foundations on which these institutions are based – the subsoil of the European Union – are also shaky. There are a...
Dutch Culture vs American Culture; USA and the Netherlands
In this article, I want to talk specifically about Dutch Culture vs American Culture: [4-mins read] Dutch culture vs American culture American culture in more specifics Cultural diversity in the United States; what does that mean? The inspiration for this article came...
Belgian Culture; An outsider’s take on the Belgian dilemma
Belgian Culture We are always told to keep out of other people’s politics but, as an admirer and a long-standing resident of this country, I feel as concerned as a lot of Belgians do about all the talk of breaking the country up. Not that we did a very admirable job...
Uncertainty Avoidance in the Netherlands and Belgium Compared
Uncertainty Avoidance in Belgium This is a personal story and experience when it comes to Uncertainty Avoidance in the Netherlands and Belgium. In earlier posts on this topic, I have tried to describe what Uncertainty Avoidance is. Only last week I was confronted with...
Culture and Personality and Cultural Traits
Culture and Personality and Cultural Traits I get the question very often during a Cultural Awareness Training: "What is the relationship between Culture and Personality?" and "What's the difference between cultural traits and personality traits?". This article is an...
Long Term Orientation Hofstede Examples
Long Term Orientation Hofstede Examples My previous post on the cultural dimension Long Term Orientation of Hofstede had a lot of comments. Mainly on Social media. Since the concept of this dimension is often quite confusing for Westerns, I'd like to share a couple of...
What Is Long Term Orientation?
Let's start with a definition of Long Term Orientation, so we're all on the same page: "A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift and persistence." It's likely that you can find more definitions, but this one makes sense and is compact. The way...
Compliance Risk Management In Different Cultures
It is well known that different cultures deal differently with Compliance Risk Management. But why is this? How do different cultures deal with rules and regulations in general? Is it true that Germans always stick to the rules? And that Americans only look at the...
How to use the Cultural Reference Sheet
I have recently added a resource page to Culture Matters (click here to get it), which is the so called Cultural Reference Sheet. This Cultural Reference Sheet gives an overview of countries and their respective scores on 4 culture dimension, partially inspired by the...
