COMMENTARY ON „STUDIU DESPRE VALORILE ȘI COMPORTAMENTUL ROMÂNESC DIN PERSPECTIVA DIMENSIUNILOR CULTURALE DUPĂ METODA LUI GEERT HOFSTEDE” [‟STUDY ABOUT ROMANIAN VALUES AND BEHAVIOUR FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL DIMENSIONS ACCORDING TO GEERT HOFSTEDE’S METHOD”]

Abstract

The study, published in 2005, continues to be a landmark in the Romanian management literature addressing the influence of culture on management practices and work behaviours. This is due both to the celebrity of Hofstede’s management model, and to the fact that its authors consider it the first representative study in the analysis of this model in Romania, using exclusively Geert Hofstede’s methodology and the research instrument developed by him – Value Survey Module, 1994 – on a representative sample of the Romanian population: the study is conducted in collaboration with Gallup Romania (Interact, 2005). Although the study was published in 2005, it has not lost its relevance, as it is used as a reference in more recent studies of Romanian authors addressing various management topics: cultural dimensions in management (Rusu, Isac, Cureteanu, 2015); organizational culture (Hudrea, 2015); leadership styles (Leoveanu, 2015); the impact of cultural values in consumer behaviour (Negrușa, Toader, Vidican-Manci, 2015), or topics of social psychology: cultural change (Boacă, 2016); social representations of power (Neculau, Iacob, 2013). The study is however problematic, for it lacks critical appraisal. We will discuss below the main issues that we believe are problematic in the study, in the wider context of the debates in the field of cross-cultural management.