In an era of relatively instantaneous contact between
organizations across the seemingly shrinking globe, why
should one consider cultural distance at all? Simply because
culture affects virtually all of human behavior [5,6]. For
example, culture has been defined as ‘‘the software of the
mind’’ [7]. Hofstede’s [8] extensive research on culture has
helped conceptualize one of the most popular theories of
cultural types, as evidenced by well over 1000 citations
from Cultural Consequences reported in the Social Science
Citation since 1980. His approach to culture initially iden-tified four underlying value dimensions: (1) individualism
vs. collectivism, (2) large vs. small power distance, (3)
strong vs. weak uncertainty avoidance, and (4) masculinity
vs. femininity (a fifth dimension, long- vs. short-term
orientation was added later).