What are the Seven Dimensions of Culture?
Following are the 7 Dimensions of Culture as described by Frons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner:
- UNIVERSALISM VS. PARTICULARISM: What is more important, rules or relationships?
- INDIVIDUALISM VS. COLLECTIVISM (Communitarianism): Do we function in a group or as individuals?
- NEUTRAL VS. EMOTIONAL: Do we display our emotions?
- SPECIFIC VS. DIFFUSE: How separate we keep our private and working lives?
- ACHIEVEMENT VS. ASCRIPTION: Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us?
- SEQUENTIAL VS. SYNCHRONIC: This orientation involves the way in which societies look at time: Do we do things one at a time or several things at once?
- INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL CONTROL: This orientation is about the attitude of the culture to the environment: Do we control our environment or are we controlled by it?
Note that the first 5 orientations are covering the ways in which human beings deal with each other.