IT Governance · Chapter 2 supplement

The culture map. Six axes, nineteen countries.

Countries differ in how they communicate, how they decide, how they feel about time. Chapter 2 of the book reads those differences through Meyer's six dimensions. Print space limited the book to a simplified view of the main countries. This is the full version — all nineteen, read by touching the lines.

Two layers: the axes are Meyer's, the numbers are Hofstede's. The six ways of reading culture follow Meyer's framework; each country's position is the author's linear estimate from Hofstede's published six-dimension values. Meyer does not publish per-country numbers, which is why the figures come from Hofstede. It is a map for seeing tendencies, not for ranking countries against one another. Sources are at the foot of the page.

The six axes

Six axes, read across countries.

Higher means one quality, lower means the opposite. The 0–100 scale is degree, not "better" or "worse".

Communicating

ExplicitHigh-context

Leading

EgalitarianHierarchical

Deciding

ConsensualTop-down

Trusting

Task-basedRelationship

Disagreeing

ConfrontsAvoids it

Scheduling

LinearFlexible

The six in the book

The six countries in the book.

The faint grey is all nineteen lines. Over it, each country's own line is drawn in. Which axes run high and which run low — the country's shape reads as an outline.

By the numbers

All nineteen × six, the underlying scores.

When the chart is hard to read, use the table. The six countries in the book are coloured.

Sources & method

Behind the numbers.

The framework is the six dimensions of Meyer, E. (2014) The Culture Map, PublicAffairs. The scores are the author's linear estimates from Hofstede's published six-dimension values (geerthofstede.com, "6 dimensions for website", version 2015-08-16) — not measurements (Meyer does not publish per-country numbers). Israel's IVR is imputed at 50 for missing official data; Portugal's UAI of 104 is clamped to 100. This is the web version of a figure from Chapter 2 of IT Governance: A Practical Guide (Shintaro Tsuruta, Gijutsu-Hyohron, 2026).

Download the methodologyFull conversion formulas, reliability, notes and data (PDF) ← Back to the book page