Cross Cultural research based on Hofstede dimensions in Iran

In multicultural, multilingual and multi ethnic societies the usage of nation as a surrogate for culture is unappreciated. This empirical article investigate cultural characteristics of various tribes (subgroups) in comparison of each tribe. In Iran, research conducted across four major tribe's, Azari, Kordish, Turkman and Lor representing different cultures is known as cross cultural research. To make the research measurable, Though there have been different frameworks proposed by different scholars for operationalization of culture but Hofstede's (1980) framework of cultural values at the national level has been the most famous and widely used for calculating the cultural values of nations. The five dimensions of cultures have been labeled as follows (Hofstede 2001) Power Distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance and Long Term versus Short Term Orientation. The respondent from each culture were administered 250 questionnaire and to make the samples more representative of each sample the questionnaire were administered to the bank employees and cluster sampling was used taking into account the four cluster or the four tribes. The Hofstede five dimension of culture were calculated using formulas provided by Hofstede (1994) in the instruction manual provided with VSM 94. It has been seen that all four states show less tendency to high power distance characteristics in addition, in three states avlues of MAS is less than mid-way but forth state is significantly higher than other states. In case of IND and UAI states have very low difference and are likely individualism and have high uncertainty avoidance. Values of LTO across the four states are not significantly different, about moderate which means societies have some high LTO characteristics so showing homogeneity in these dimensions of culture