Geert H. Hofstede was born in October 2, 1928 in the Netherlands. He received a Masters of Science from Delft Institute of Technology in 1953 and a PhD from Groningen University in 1967.
He is one of the most cited non-Americans in the field of management in the US, noted for his theories on national cultures. Published in the late 1970's and early 1980's, these theories were derived from his work as a psychologist at IBM Europe, where he created the IBM International Employee Opinion Research Program. He left IBM to become a professor at various international management schools including IMD, Lausanne, INSEAD and the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels. In 1980 he co-founded the Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation (IRIC) and in 1985 became a professor at Masstricht University where he taught until 1993. He has since acted as a consultant to government and business organizations such as the World Bank, OECD and Commission of the European Union.
His most noted work is Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-related Values which contained the analysis of the results of a survey of than 100,000 IBM employees around the world. He noticed differences between cultures and came up with theories to explain cultural variability. These are commonly referred to as "Hofstede's Dimensions." These dimensions include:
Hofstede's famous IBM Study is widely recognized as a major break-through in cross-cultural social science studies. There are almost no publications, either from the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, history, law, economics or business administration, that do not refer to Hofstede's work. His concepts have been helpful in the analysis of many different sectors such as income distribution, defense spending, legal systems, social security policies, outbursts of violence and conflict, military and police cooperation, administrative cultures, safety of national aircraft companies, religious values and behaviors, state and corporate economic governance, and work.
To recognize his world wide achievement Hofstede has received several honorary degrees. For example he was recently awarded a honorary doctorate from Nyenrode University in September 2001, and a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the New Bulgarian University in October of this year.