Who is Geert Hofstede?
Geert Hofstede argues through his research that National Culture explains more of the differences in work-related values, than an employee, person, profession, age, gender, interests, organisational level, category etc. Although Hofstede does not maintain that all cultural group members hold exactly the same values, his work has lead to Diversity training focussing on cross cultural training, categorising cultures on the basis of a small number of variables. The content of Diversity Programmes tends to be based on generalisations based on national characteristics. This is referred to as the Maximalist approach. South Africa’s own Linda Human argues that managing Diversity is not necessarily about managing them ‘out there’, it is about ‘managing me’ in here. This approach is gaining rapid support.
