Cultures can be characterised by four main measures, according to the most widely adopted criteria in cross-cultural psychology, those of Geert Hofstede: greater or lesser inequalities of power, greater or lesser autonomy, more or less structured codes of behaviour, and more or less fluid roles for men and women.28 To these he later added measures of longer-term (self-denying) or shorter-term (self-gratifying) orientation. The seeming paradox lies in the fact that countries that score ‘best’ (as the prevailing climate of opinion would see it) in terms of these factors – that is to say
...more
