Culture - The Ultimate Group Think

In "Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind" Professor Geert Hofstede published his research into the differences and similarities between more than 70 countries. The research has been updated since the original publication in 1990 and you can compare countries using Hofstede's website, click here.
For example Russia is significantly different to Britain in its acceptance of Power differences between people, suggesting tall hierarchies; and uncertainty avoidance, suggesting a need for politicians to do what they say they are going to do. This may provide some perspective on the Crimean situation. While our own parliament does its own groupthinking in terms of policy, as I described in my last post, it may also be automatically blind to cultural differences (as we all tend to be).
As Switzerland is probably the preeminent example of direct democracy it is also interesting to compare their culture with our own. Click here for Switzerland's cultural fingerprint. You will see that the UK culture values individualism much more than the Swiss who have a noticeably stronger preference for uncertainty avoidance. Otherwise they are similar. Perhaps it is the Power Distance measure that has the most impact on the acceptability of direct democracy (click here for the PD definition). On this measure Switzerland and the UK are almost identical (1% difference).

Comparing Cultures

Geert Hofstede, of Maastricht University, compared cultures across many IBM subsidiaries in different countries. The results may provide some insight into the applicability of Swiss Direct Democracy to the UK. He used 5 criteria (only 4 for Switzerland):

1. Power Distance, a measurement of inequality as perceived from lower levels in the organisation, rated 35 in the UK and 34 in Switzerland. Pretty much the same.
2. Individualism was scored higher in the UK, 89, than in Switzerland, 68.
3. Masculinity rated the UK, 66, slightly less than Switzerland, 70.
4. Switzerland (58) rated higher than the UK (35) in Uncertainty Avoidance.
5. Finally, the UK (25) had a short term outlook but Switzerland wasn't measured.

Before seeing these results I would have expected Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance to have been much lower in Switzerland. I imagine that Direct Democracy would flourish with a higher degree of equality and lower Power Distance score. Similarly, I would have assumed that frequent referendums would lead to greater uncertainty. However, we should be careful about using these results as they may be more associated with the local corporate culture than that exhibited in the general populace.