Dr. Geert Hofstede, after a decade of research, studying people working at IBM in more than 50 countries, initially identified the four-dimensional model that could distinguish a culture from a another in the 70s. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The first is Power Distance. It refers to the social distance between people with or without power and how they respond to their power. The second is uncertainty avoidance. This refers to the way people in this country react to the unknown future, unspecified things, and the fact that they cannot always control the future. The third is individualism. This concerns how individualistic or collectivist the members of a society are, whether they think only of themselves and their family, or whether they think of the entire group. The fourth is Masculinity. This refers to the characteristics that a society has: Masculine, meaning that the society is driven by achievement, success and competition; o Feminine is when work and personal life are kept in balance. And the fifth dimension is long/short term orientation. When a society is short-term oriented, it means that it wants to respect traditions, is religious and has an eye on the past and is suspicious of any upcoming change. On the other hand, if a company is long-term oriented it means that it looks ahead to changes, is pragmatic and modest. (Laurie J. Mullins, 2016, p.24) Keep in mind: This is just one example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay Starting from the first one, Power Distance, the score of the Netherlands is low (38) which means that there is a good understanding in the hierarchical structure. Regarding individualism, it scores 80, which shows that society is very individualistic and always thinks of themselves, before anyone else. When it comes to masculinity, the Netherlands only scores 14 points, which shows that Dutch citizens are more interested in quality of life than in achieving success and being first. But when it comes to avoiding uncertainty, the Netherlands scores 53, which means they are afraid of the future, of what they cannot control and always need rules, to work hard and security is an element important to them. And in the last one, in the dimension "Long-term/Short-term oriented", the Netherlands scores 87, which means they have a pragmatic nature, try to put things into practice more than in the traditional way and are not afraid of change. (Mindtools.com, 2017)