Frons Trompenaars

Trompenaars used a comparable methodology (questionnaire, statistical analysis) but started from a theory on culture. His key idea is that we all deal with uncertainty. This uncertainty may be divided in seven dilemmas and national cultures are determined by the (average!) places a country has on those dilemmas. However, Trompenaars does not provide the overall scores per country, only the answers to two questions per dilemma; the reason being that this intellectual property is protected for commercial reasons.

The seven dilemmas are found on the left with some more explanation in the stack on two of these dilemmas. Universalism characterizes a culture that focuses on rules and their implementation; particularism takes the circumstances as a starting point.

Individualism - communitarianism is the already known choice between focus on individual or on the group. Neutral versus emotional indicates how much emotion one shows in his or her work.

Specific indicates a culture in which a different aspect of the personality is shown in each type of transaction, compared to the diffuse culture with all involved persons, e.g. the separation of work and private (specific: strictly separated; diffuse: flux).

The next dilemma relates to status, either due to a job well done (achievement) or by external appearance (also for instance born into a job like the monarchy).

Regarding time we can measure the degree of overlap between past, present and future; the duration of each of these periods; and the importance of each of the three (in the drawing in the stack the size of the circle indicates its importance).

Finally the environment: can man control nature and make use of it to the maximum extent (internalist) or is man ultimately subjected to the rules of nature (externalist)?