Hofstede and Schwartz’s models for classifying individualism at the cultural level: their relation to macro-social and macro-economic variables1

lues at the cultural level, such as those employed by Hofstede (1984), Triandis (1995) and Schwartz (1994). Hofstede proposes a one dimensional structure called simply individualism-collecti vism; those cultures that emphasize the autonomy of the person are grouped under individualism, while those cultures whose most important values place emphasis on the dependency of the individual with respect to in-groups are clustered under collectivism. Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai and Lucca (1988) initially began, like Hofstede, with a unidimensional understanding, but recently (Triandis, 1995; Triandis & Gelfand, 1998) have progressed toward the recognition of bi-dimensionality. Schwartz (1990, 1994), criticizes this dychotomical assignment of values to either individualism or collectivism, and suggests that some values can serve both individual and collective interests. Given that our study focuses only on the comparison of the Hofstede and Schwartz models, we will now proceed to explain each one of them. Hofstede and Schwartz’s models for classifying individualism at the cultural level: their relation to macro-social and macro-economic variables1