A review by statman
Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition by Michael Minkov, Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede

3.0

This took a long time for me to get through because it is packed with information. It is a fascinating study into "culture" and what that word really means. There is a large discussion of different elements that distinguish different cultures based on survey data. They show how countries differ from each other in terms of these elements, which I thought was quite interesting, to think about how someone from Japan or China might have a different idea of how to approach a particular situation compared to my American ideas of culture. There's a lot of detail and statistical analysis of all of this survey data to explain the differences. I think this could have been more concisely explained. The last part of the book talks about the implications of these differences in culture and what it means in terms of business relations and governmental policies towards other countries that have different cultures. It concludes with a discussion of how culture evolves over time, which at times seemed to turn more into a rant against overpopulation of the earth and religious dogmas.

The topic is absolutely fascinating and one not covered much elsewhere so I really enjoyed the 500 pages or so of the book, but it just took me a long time to get through it because of the organization of the book and the more academic style of writing.