Prof. Geert Hofstede is Director (Emeritus) of the Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation (IRIC) at the University of Limburg at Maastricht, the Netherlands. Hofstede's pioneering study of IBM affiliates in fifty countries, elaborated in his book Culture's Consequences, helped to form the foundation of the field of comparative management. A number of questions in the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ were designed and researched by Dr. Hofstede's colleague, Professor André Laurent, Emeritus Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD.

In Cultures and Organizations (1997b) Hofstede focusses more on cultural diversity in organizations. His approach has not remainded without contradiction and meanwhile there have been lots of follow-up studies which verified, in many cases broadened his findings or fostered a contradictional point of view. Nevertheless, his contribution for the subject of intercultural relationships, diversity and the research in this fields has remained untouched.

Recommended readings with several authors dealing with the problematic issue of measuring cultural diversity: UICHOL KIM; TIANDIS, HARRY et al.: Individualism and Collectivism, Thousand Oaks, Sage, 1994, with a preface of G. Hofstede.

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