Gert Jan Hofstede

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The cultural biology of organization

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We humans are social mammals. Very intensely social, in fact. That shows in the uses to which we put new technologies. But we are also mammals like other mammals.

The unwritten rules of our social groups are what I call culture. Culture is biological. It has co-evolved with human nature and with personality psychology for over a million years. It is pretty hardwired into our societies and it somehow transmits itself through the generations despite huge societal changes.

Culture (along with a host of other things) also co-determines much of what happens in our lives and our jobs, and that is what I can tell you about. Leadership, trust, management, humour, rights, religion, you name it; culture plays a big role.

Go to my site at Wageningen University.
  I wrote an article about humour across cultures, to be published in a book in 2009. Any comments or jokes? I'd be happy to hear them!

 

updated 19-03-2008 by Gert Jan Hofstede