What is culture?

Since its original release closer to 8 years ago, one of our most popular articles has always been What do we mean by "culture"? It’s hardly a surprise, because we are probably the only consultancy that strictly focuses on culture. The original article is still fully relevant, and answers the question at hand in a straightforward and effective manner. Yet many customers end up asking a lot of follow-up questions, so there clearly is a need for a more comprehensive look. This is that look. The aim of this article is to offer a deep look into the topic and answer all those remaining questions as well.

Prefer to listen? Listen to part one or listen to part two. 

What is culture? 

If you have ever wondered, "How do you actually define culture?", you are in good company.

Despite decades of research, there is no single, universally accepted definition of culture. Anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and management scholars have all approached the topic from different angles, often disagreeing on what culture is and what it consists of.
After reviewing this long debate, psychologist Gustav Jahoda came to a rather striking conclusion: culture is absolutely necessary, but it cannot be defined comprehensively.
Rather than trying to pin it down once and for all, it is often more useful to simply keep discussing culture, and - whenever necessary -  explain how the term is being used in your particular context.

That is the approach we follow here.

When we talk about culture, we use Professor Geert Hofstede's definition:

 

"Culture is the programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from another group."

 

While this may sound academic, the idea itself is surprisingly simple.

Culture is the set of shared beliefs, values, norms, and practices that people learn from the groups they belong to. It influences how we think, how we communicate, what we consider appropriate behaviour, and how we make sense of the world around us.

Culture is learned 

Nobody is born with a culture. From childhood onwards, we absorb countless signals from our surroundings: from our parents, schools, workplaces, communities, and societies. We learn what is considered polite, what success looks like, how decisions should be made, and how people are expected to behave.

Over time, these shared understandings become so natural that we rarely notice them.

This is why people from different countries, organisations, professions, or even departments within the same company can approach the same situation in completely different ways yet still feel their way is simply "normal."

Culture is therefore not something people possess individually. It is something they learn together.

Culture is a collective phenomenon

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about culture is this: culture only exists at the level of groups.

An individual can have a personality, preferences, or life experiences, but culture describes the shared patterns that emerge when we look at groups of people. It tells us what tends to be considered normal, acceptable, or desirable within a particular environment.

This is why culture cannot really be understood by looking at individuals in isolation. One person behaving in a certain way may simply be expressing their personality. Culture becomes visible only when many people share similar expectations, values, and ways of behaving.

Culture is also fundamentally comparative.

We rarely notice the assumptions of our own culture because they feel natural to us. We may know, intellectually, that our society values equality, directness, consensus, or hierarchy, but it is only when we encounter people who see these things differently that we begin to understand what those values actually mean in practice.

In other words, much of culture is invisible from the inside.

Sometimes, the best way to understand your own culture is to experience one that works differently.

Shared patterns of behaviour 

Think about something as ordinary as a meeting.In some organisations, meetings begin exactly on time and follow a strict agenda. Challenging the manager openly is encouraged.

In others, meetings start more flexibly, discussions are less structured, and openly disagreeing with a senior leader may be considered disrespectful.

Neither approach is inherently better. They are simply different expressions of culture: shared expectations about how people should interact.

The same applies to countless other aspects of daily life:

• How feedback is given

• Whether hierarchy is emphasised or minimised

• How conflict is managed

• How risks are approached

• What constitutes professionalism

• How people balance work and personal life

These behaviours are not random. They are patterns that groups develop and reinforce over time.

And because they are learned, they can also evolve.

The layers of culture

Culture is often compared to an onion with several layers.
At the centre are values: deep preferences about what is good or bad, important or unimportant, desirable or undesirable. These values shape how groups of people interpret the world around them.

Surrounding these values are more visible expressions of culture. We see them in the symbols people use, the heroes they admire, and the rituals they perform together. These are the things that make culture tangible: the stories cultures - whether that is national culture, organisational culture or for example even a subculture - tell, the traditions they maintain, the language they use, and the behaviours they celebrate.

Together, these visible elements form practices. Practices are the everyday ways in which culture is expressed and reinforced.

This distinction matters because practices can change, in certain circumstances even relatively quickly, while values tend to change much more slowly, if at all.

The outer layers of culture, the symbols, heroes, and rituals, are constantly evolving. The values at the centre are more enduring. They shape what a group considers important, desirable, or normal, and it is these values that give meaning to the visible expressions of culture.

Understanding culture therefore means looking beneath what people do and asking why those practices feel natural, meaningful, or important to the group.

Culture is everywhere 

When people hear the word "culture," they often think of countries. And national culture is certainly important. But culture exists at many, many levels.

You can talk about:

• National culture

• Organisational culture

• Professional culture

• Departmental culture

• Team culture

• Even subcultures built around things such as music or sports

A software engineering team may have a different culture from the finance department. A start-up may operate very differently from a government agency. Two organisations in the same country may share many national values while having entirely different ways of working.

Culture is not limited to geography.

It emerges whenever groups of people develop shared ways of thinking and acting.

So, what is culture? 

There may never be a single definition of culture that satisfies everyone.

But for us, Professor Geert Hofstede's remains the most useful:

Culture is "the programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from another group."

Culture is not personality.

It is not nationality.

It is not a stereotype.

It is the shared patterns of values, symbols, heroes, rituals, and practices that people learn as members of a group, and through which groups distinguish themselves from one another.

The better we understand these patterns, the better we understand not only others, but ourselves.

Why does culture matter? 

If culture is simply the shared ways in which groups of people think and act, why does it matter so much?

The answer lies in how our brains work.

Human beings are remarkably good at recognising patterns. In fact, we have little choice. Every day we are exposed to more information than we could possibly process consciously, so our brains constantly take shortcuts. We learn from experience, create expectations, and automatically apply those expectations to new situations.

This is an incredibly useful ability.

It allows us to drive cars without consciously thinking about every movement. It allows us to recognise faces instantly. It allows us to enter a meeting and immediately understand, often subconsciously, who is in charge, when it is appropriate to speak, and how we are expected to behave.

The downside is that we tend to mistake our expectations for reality.

The things we are used to, begin to feel natural. Obvious. Common sense.

And this is where culture comes in.

Culture shapes many of the assumptions our brains make automatically. It influences what we perceive as polite or rude, efficient or inefficient, trustworthy or suspicious, ambitious or arrogant. It affects how we communicate, how we react to authority, how much uncertainty we are comfortable with, and how we think decisions should be made.

Most of the time, we are barely aware of these assumptions.

They simply feel normal.

When "normal" isn't universal

Problems arise when people who have developed different assumptions need to work together.

Imagine two colleagues discussing a new project. One expects everyone to speak openly, challenge ideas, and disagree if necessary. To them, this is how good decisions are made.

The other believes that meetings are meant to create harmony and alignment. Public disagreement feels confrontational and disrespectful.

Neither person is irrational, or acting in bad faith. Each is simply relying on the assumptions their brain has learned over years of interacting with people around them.

Yet the outcome may still be frustration.

One person thinks, "Why won't they say what they think?" while the other wonders, "Why are they attacking every idea?" Both may leave the meeting convinced that the other is difficult to work with.

This is why culture matters.

Our brains are designed to interpret the world through patterns we have learned in the past. When those patterns differ, misunderstandings become more likely. Communication becomes harder. Trust can erode, conflict may emerge, and people who are otherwise perfectly capable may struggle to work effectively together.

If this happens repeatedly, and especially if it happens within organisations, the consequences are no longer personal. They form behavioral patterns which influence strategy execution.

Culture and strategy execution 

This is where culture begins to influence organisational performance. Organisations do not execute strategies. People inside those organisations do.

Every day, employees and leaders make countless decisions: how to communicate, how much risk to take, whether to challenge existing ideas, how to respond to uncertainty, and how to work together.

These decisions are not made in isolation. They are influenced by the assumptions, expectations, and habits that people bring with them: their culture.

This is why two organisations can pursue the same strategy and achieve very different results. In one organisation, the culture supports the strategy execution and helps people act in ways that move the organisation forward. In another, the culture creates friction, misunderstandings, or resistance to change.

Culture does not replace strategy.

But it can support it, undermine it, or quietly steer it in a direction nobody intended.

Culture and leadership

The same principle applies to leadership.

Consider a simple question:

Should a good manager have answers to all of their employees' questions?

For some people, the answer is obviously yes. A manager is expected to be the expert, to provide guidance, and to know more than their subordinates. Uncertainty or admitting ignorance may even undermine the manager's credibility.

For others, the answer is just as obviously no. A manager is not expected to know every technical detail. Instead, their role is to coordinate, remove obstacles, and help specialists do their jobs effectively.

Neither view is inherently right or wrong. Yet people who hold these different assumptions may have very different expectations of what good leadership looks like.

This is one of the reasons culture matters so much in organisations. Leadership is not interpreted in a vacuum. The same behaviour can inspire confidence in one environment and create frustration in another.

Understanding culture therefore helps leaders understand not only how they lead, but also how their leadership is likely to be perceived.

Culture and communication

Communication is often simply thought of as the exchange of information, but in practice, it is rather the creation of shared understanding. And shared understanding is surprisingly difficult to achieve when people interpret the same message in different ways.

A pause in a conversation. A simple "yes." Direct feedback. An invitation to discuss an idea. Even something as seemingly straightforward as a deadline. These things can carry very different meanings depending on the assumptions people bring with them.

Most of us rarely think about this because the rules of communication we have learned feel natural. We assume that other people interpret messages in roughly the same way we do.

But they often don't.

This is why intercultural communication failures are so common. The problem is usually not language itself. It is the interpretation.

People may use the same words and still misunderstand one another because they attach different meanings to them. Things one person sees as respectful, another may interpret as evasive, impolite, or even hostile. When this happens repeatedly, misunderstandings accumulate.

What begins as a communication problem can quickly become a business problem.

If you'd like to explore this topic further, we've written about this in more detail in our article:

Lost in Translation: 6 Reasons Why Intercultural Communication Fails

Culture, innovation, and change

Almost every organisation wants to be innovative. Yet innovation is surprisingly difficult to define, and even more difficult to achieve. Too often, organisations introduce new working practices or organise brainstorming sessions without first asking what they are actually trying to accomplish.

Innovation is not a goal in itself. It is a means to an end.

And whether innovation succeeds depends, in large part, on culture.

At its core, innovation is about looking at familiar problems from new perspectives. It requires people to challenge assumptions, question established ways of working, and sometimes pursue ideas that initially seem uncomfortable or risky.

But this is not equally easy in every environment.

If employees believe that mistakes will be punished, they are less likely to experiment. If people are expected to defer to authority, they may hesitate to challenge existing ideas. If teams are rewarded for following established processes, they may struggle to think beyond them.

In other words, innovation is not only about generating ideas. It is about creating an environment where people feel able to explore them.

This is why Organisational Culture matters so much.

You can introduce new processes, new technologies, or even replace the people within an organisation and still find yourself working in much the same way as before. People adapt these changes to the assumptions and habits they already have.

If you want people to think differently, you need to understand how they think now.

And if you want innovation to succeed, you need a culture that supports the kind of thinking, experimentation, and collaboration required to make it happen.

How do you create such a culture? We've explored this question in more detail in our article on fostering innovation in large organisations, where we discuss how to identify the type of innovation you need and how to align your Organisational Culture to support it.

Why culture matters

Culture matters because people matter.

Organisations are not strategies, processes, or technologies. They are groups of people trying to achieve something together. And people do not approach the world objectively. We interpret situations through assumptions that have been shaped by our experiences, our environments, and the groups to which we belong.

Most of the time, we are barely aware that these assumptions exist.

Yet they influence how we communicate, how we lead, how we respond to uncertainty, whether we challenge ideas, and how we make decisions. They shape what feels natural, what feels uncomfortable, and sometimes even what feels possible.

This is why culture is not a side issue. It does not sit alongside strategy, leadership, or innovation. It influences all of them.

Culture will not determine everything that happens in an organisation. But it shapes the environment in which everything else happens.

The different types of culture

By now, we've established that culture is learned, collective, and influences how groups of people think and act.

But what exactly is a group?

When we use Professor Geert Hofstede's definition of culture as "the programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from another group," the answer becomes surprisingly broad.

A country is a group.

An organisation is a group.

So are professions, teams, generations, regions, and even groups of people who share common interests or experiences.

Culture exists at many levels and in many forms.

You could speak of:

• National Culture

• Organisational Culture

• Team Culture

• Professional or Industry Culture

• Regional Culture

• Generational Culture

• Subcultures within society

None of these perspectives are wrong.

In fact, they can all be useful.

But they also raise a practical question:

Where do you draw the line?

After all, no two people are exactly alike, and no two groups are exactly the same. If we continue zooming in, we eventually arrive at the individual. If we keep zooming out, we risk losing the details that make cultures distinct.

At The Culture Factor, we focus primarily on two levels of culture: National Culture and Organisational Culture.

Not because the other levels are unimportant, but because, in our experience, these two levels provide the most useful starting point for understanding how people work together and how organisations can improve the way they operate.

National Culture

National Culture refers to the shared values and expectations that people develop as they grow up within a society.

It shapes how people view authority, uncertainty, individual achievement, collaboration, communication, and countless other aspects of life.

Most of these values are learned early in life and become so deeply embedded that we rarely question them. They simply feel natural.

This is also why National Culture is best understood comparatively.

You rarely notice your own culture while living inside it. It becomes visible when you encounter people who have grown up with different assumptions about what is normal.

National Culture does not explain everything about an individual.

But it does help us understand why large groups of people may approach the same situation in different ways.

And because values tend to change slowly, National Culture provides an important foundation for understanding human behaviour across borders and across generations.

Organisational Culture

Organisations have cultures too.

Even companies operating in the same country, employing similar people, and competing in the same industry can develop very different ways of working.

This is what we call Organisational Culture.

Organisational Culture describes how people within an organisation relate to one another, to their work, and to the outside world. It is expressed through the practices of the organisation: how decisions are made, how feedback is given, how leaders behave, how risks are approached, and what kinds of behaviours are rewarded.

Unlike National Culture, which is rooted primarily in values, Organisational Culture is largely visible through practices.

And practices can change.

This makes Organisational Culture particularly important for organisations seeking to improve performance, align strategy, or create lasting change.

If you'd like to explore this topic further, we've written a comprehensive introduction here:

Organisational Culture - All You Need to Know

Teams, professions, generations, and other cultures

Of course, National Culture and Organisational Culture are not the only cultures that influence us.

A software engineer may share assumptions with other software engineers around the world, regardless of nationality.

A marketing department may have a very different culture from the finance department in the same organisation.

People who grew up in different decades may have different expectations around work, communication, and leadership.

Regional cultures, professional cultures, team cultures, and subcultures all exist, and they all matter.

In some situations, it makes perfect sense to zoom in and examine these differences more closely.

For example, if an organisation employs people from several generations, generational differences may become highly relevant. Similarly, if one department consistently struggles while another excels, examining team cultures or subcultures can provide valuable insights.

But in our experience, these questions are usually easier to understand once you have first considered National Culture and Organisational Culture.

They provide the broader context within which many of these smaller differences emerge.

How National Culture and Organisational Culture influence each other

Although we often discuss National Culture and Organisational Culture separately, in reality they are deeply interconnected.

People bring their values, expectations, and assumptions with them into the workplace. At the same time, organisations develop their own ways of working: their own practices, rituals, and norms.

These two layers constantly interact.

An organisational practice that feels perfectly natural to employees in one country may feel uncomfortable or counterintuitive in another. Likewise, organisations operating in the same country may develop very different cultures depending on their goals, leadership, and history.

This is one of the reasons why cultural change can be challenging.

People can usually adapt to new practices, but asking them to abandon deeply held values is an entirely different matter.

Lasting change therefore requires understanding both levels of culture: the values people bring with them and the practices that shape how they work together.

This is also why we believe that Organisational Culture and Intercultural Management cannot, and should not, be treated as separate topics. Organisations operate within societies, and people bring their cultural backgrounds into the workplace every day.

Understanding one without the other means missing part of the picture.

If you'd like to explore this relationship in more detail, we've written a dedicated article on how National Culture and Organisational Culture differ and how they influence each other.

You can also explore our introductions to:

• Organisational Culture - All You Need to Know

• Intercultural Management - All You Need to Know

Culture comes first

Culture exists at many levels. We can speak of National Culture, Organisational Culture, Team Culture, Professional Culture, or any number of subcultures and overlapping identities. Each perspective highlights something different about how groups of people distinguish themselves from one another.

None of these perspectives is inherently more correct than the others.

They are simply different lenses through which we can understand human behaviour.

Sometimes it makes sense to zoom out and look at societies. Sometimes it makes sense to zoom in and examine teams, professions, or generations. Often, several levels of culture are at play simultaneously.

The important thing is understanding that culture exists, that it shapes how people think and act, and that different groups may see the world in very different ways while each believing their own perspective to be perfectly normal.

At The Culture Factor, we spend much of our time working with National Culture and Organisational Culture because these are often the most relevant in international business and organisational life. But they are not separate worlds. They are deeply intertwined, each shaping how the other is experienced and understood.

Can culture be measured? 

Culture is often perceived as something intangible.

We can see its effects everywhere: in the way people communicate, make decisions, build relationships, approach authority, or respond to change. Yet culture itself can seem difficult to grasp. Unlike financial results or demographic statistics, it is not something that can be observed directly.

For this reason, many people assume that culture is too abstract to measure reliably.

However, this assumption is mistaken.

While culture may not be directly visible, it leaves observable traces in behaviour, practices, preferences, and shared patterns. By studying these patterns systematically, it becomes possible to identify, compare, and measure cultural characteristics.

In fact, researchers have been doing exactly this for decades. Some of the best-known studies of National Culture emerged from large-scale surveys comparing groups of people across different countries. By analysing recurring patterns in how people responded, researchers were able to identify measurable cultural dimensions and compare them across societies.

The same principle applies whether we are discussing National Culture, Organisational Culture, or even smaller cultural groups. The question is not whether culture can be measured, but rather what aspects of culture we measure and how we go about measuring them.

Culture leaves patterns

One of the reasons people struggle with the idea of measuring culture is that they imagine culture as something hidden inside people's minds.

While values and beliefs certainly play a role, culture becomes visible through patterns. When groups of people consistently behave in similar ways, make similar choices, or share similar preferences, those patterns can be observed and analysed.

For example, if employees across an organisation consistently prefer clear instructions over flexibility, that pattern tells us something about the culture of that organisation. If people in one country tend to involve others in decision-making while those in another country expect leaders to make decisions independently, those patterns also tell us something about culture.

The key is that we are not measuring individuals. We are measuring trends within groups.

No single person represents a culture. However, when enough data is collected, recurring patterns begin to emerge. These patterns can then be analysed and compared.

From observation to measurement

The idea of measuring culture is not fundamentally different from measuring many other social phenomena.

We cannot directly observe concepts such as trust, motivation, engagement, or job satisfaction either. Instead, we measure indicators that help us understand them.

Culture works in much the same way.

Researchers observe how people behave, what they experience, how they perceive their environment, and how groups differ from one another. By collecting this information systematically, culture becomes something that can be analysed rather than simply discussed.

This is the principle behind many approaches to cultural measurement, from studies of National Culture to modern Organisational Culture assessments.

What about National Culture? 

One of the most influential examples of culture measurement comes from research into National Culture by Professor Hofstede.

Beginning with studies conducted within IBM during the 1960s and 1970s, Hofstede compared groups of employees from different countries. The goal was not to understand individual personalities, but rather to identify patterns that consistently appeared within national groups.

The result was a framework that demonstrated something important: cultural differences can be identified, compared, and measured in a systematic way.

The significance of this research extends beyond National Culture itself. It demonstrated that culture is not merely a philosophical concept or a matter of personal opinion. When approached scientifically, culture produces observable and measurable patterns.

Measuring Organisational Culture

The same logic applies to organisations.

Just as people within nationalities develop shared ways of thinking and acting, people in organisations develop shared ways of working. Employees learn what is expected, what behaviours are rewarded, how decisions are made, and how success is defined.

These shared practices create patterns that can be measured.

Unlike National Culture, where values often play a central role, Organisational Culture is often most visible in everyday practices. Rather than focusing on what people say the organisation stands for, Organisational Culture measurement focuses on how people actually experience the workplace and how things are done in practice.

This distinction is important because the culture described in company values is not always the culture employees experience. By measuring those experiences and identifying recurring patterns, organisations can gain a clearer picture of their actual culture.

Of course, understanding a culture is only useful if you can do something with that understanding. So now that we know culture can be measured, the next question becomes: can it also be changed?

Can culture be changed?

One of the most common questions people ask after learning about culture is whether it can actually be changed.

The answer is yes.

Culture is not static. Every culture changes over time because people change, societies evolve, and organisations adapt to new realities. If culture never changed, the world today would look much the same as it did centuries ago.

The more interesting question is not whether culture can change, but rather how it changes and how quickly.

The answer depends largely on the type of culture we are talking about.

National Culture changes slowly

National Culture is remarkably stable.

As we discussed earlier, National Culture is rooted primarily in values. These values are learned during childhood and reinforced throughout life by families, schools, communities, and society as a whole. Because each generation passes many of these values on to the next, National Cultures tend to change gradually rather than suddenly.

This does not mean they are fixed forever.

Over long periods of time, societies evolve. Economic development, education, migration, demographic changes, technological advances, and political developments all influence the way people live and the values they pass on to future generations. Major historical events, such as wars, revolutions, or periods of rapid social change, can accelerate this process even further.

Even then, however, cultural change usually takes place over decades rather than months or years.

Organisational Culture can be changed much more deliberately 

Organisational Culture is different.

While National Culture is primarily expressed through values, Organisational Culture is primarily expressed through practices. These include how meetings are run, how decisions are made, how leaders behave, how feedback is given, what behaviours are rewarded, and how people collaborate with one another.

Unlike values learned in childhood, these practices are learned throughout people's working lives.

Perhaps more importantly, they are largely designed by the organisation itself.

An organisation can decide to introduce new leadership practices, redesign recruitment processes, change performance management systems, modify communication routines, or create new ways for teams to work together. None of these changes instantly alters people's personal values, but together they influence the environment in which employees work every day.

Over time, these new practices become the new normal.

This is why Organisational Culture can be changed far more deliberately than National Culture. Organisations are not trying to change who people are. They are changing how work is organised and how people interact within that environment.

Of course, meaningful cultural change is rarely quick or effortless. New practices need to be introduced consistently, supported by leadership, and reinforced over time. But because organisations have direct influence over these practices, they are in a unique position to shape their own culture.

Could National Culture also be influenced deliberately?

This naturally raises another question.

If organisations can deliberately influence culture by changing practices, could something similar work at the level of National Culture?

To a certain extent, yes.

Governments, educational systems, public institutions, legislation, and even the media all help shape the environment in which future generations grow up. Over long periods of time, these institutions can encourage certain behaviours, reinforce particular norms, and gradually influence societal values.

This is not simply a theoretical idea.

Recent project carried out by The Culture Factor Group explored the development of a dimensional model specifically for Philippine culture. Rather than treating National Culture as something completely fixed, the project examined how cultural characteristics could be measured in greater detail and used to support long-term national development. The goal was not to change a culture overnight, but to better understand it and identify ways in which cultural development could be encouraged over time.

This illustrates an important distinction. While organisations can often redesign their practices relatively quickly, influencing National Culture requires sustained effort across generations.

Cultures also change naturally

Not all cultural change is intentional.

Societies constantly evolve. Technological developments, economic growth, demographic shifts, education, and globalisation all influence the way people live. As people's lives change, cultures gradually change with them.

Because of this, cultural research also continues to evolve.

For example, one of our recent large-scale replication studies revisited the original measurements of National Culture using much broader and more representative datasets than had previously been available. The results showed that some countries had experienced significant and constant cultural shifts over the preceding decades that the scores for Individualism and Long-Term Orientation needed to be updated.

This is precisely how scientific models are meant to work. As better evidence becomes available, our understanding becomes more accurate and more granular.

Why cultural change often feels bigger than it really is

People often feel that their own culture has changed dramatically.

You may hear people say that society has become much more individualistic, less hierarchical, or more open-minded than it was a generation ago.

Sometimes they are absolutely right, as discussed above. However, there is an important point that is easy to overlook: Culture is fundamentally comparative.

If many societies become more individualistic at roughly the same pace, the differences between those societies may remain almost exactly the same. Since National Culture describes how the culture of one nation differs from another, widespread global trends do not necessarily change the relative position of a country's culture.

In other words, cultures might have changed but with everyone moving in the same direction your own culture still compares roughly the same to the cultures around you.

This is one reason why cultural change is often overestimated from within a society. We notice the changes happening around us, but we are less likely to notice that similar changes are taking place elsewhere as well.

So, can culture be changed?

Yes.

But different types of cultures change in different ways.

National Cultures evolve slowly because they are rooted primarily in values that are learned early in life and passed from one generation to the next. Organisational Cultures can be influenced much more deliberately because they are expressed largely through practices that organisations themselves can design and improve.

Understanding this distinction is important. It explains why organisations can successfully transform the way they work without trying to change who their employees are.

Common misconceptions about culture

By now, we've established that culture is learned, collective, measurable, and capable of changing over time. Yet despite decades of research, culture remains one of the most misunderstood concepts in business and society.

Many of these misunderstandings come from applying cultural models in ways they were never intended to be used.

Let's look at some of the most common misconceptions.

"Isn't culture just another word for stereotypes?"

At first glance, cultural research may appear similar to stereotyping because both describe groups of people rather than individuals.

The crucial difference lies in how that information is used.

A stereotype treats a group characteristic as a conclusion about an individual. Cultural research, on the other hand, simply makes us aware that certain tendencies may exist within a group. It encourages us to remain curious rather than assume.

For example, you may have heard that people from a particular culture tend to communicate less directly than people from another. A stereotype would be assuming that everyone from that culture communicates in exactly the same way. Cultural awareness simply reminds us that different communication styles may exist and encourages us to pay attention before drawing conclusions.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of learning about culture is that it also makes us more aware of ourselves. We begin to recognise that our own expectations, behaviours, and interpretations have also been shaped by culture, and that what feels "normal" to us may not feel normal to someone else.

In that sense, understanding culture should reduce stereotyping rather than reinforce it. It replaces certainty with curiosity, encourages us to question our own assumptions, and reminds us that every individual deserves to be understood on their own terms.

 "I'm nothing like my culture"

This is probably the most common objection people have when they first encounter cultural research.

"I'm Swedish, but I love hierarchy."

"I'm German, but I'm highly collectivistic."

None of these statements contradict cultural research.

The misunderstanding comes from assuming that cultural models describe every individual equally well.

They don't.

Imagine measuring the height of everyone in a country. You would not find that everyone is exactly the same height. Instead, you would find a distribution. Most people would cluster somewhere around the average, while others would be considerably taller or shorter.

Culture works in much the same way.

When researchers measure a cultural dimension, they are not looking for identical people. They are looking for recurring patterns within a group. The cultural score represents the average tendency of that group, not a description of every individual within it.

This means there will always be people who differ from what is typical for their culture. Some may differ only slightly, while others may seem to be the complete opposite.

That does not invalidate the culture itself.

After all, exceptionally tall Dutch people and exceptionally short Dutch people do not change the fact that the Netherlands remains one of the tallest populations in the world on average.

The same principle applies to culture.

In fact, if large numbers of people consistently began behaving differently, the average would gradually shift as well. Over time, the culture itself would begin to look different. As we discussed in the previous section, this is precisely how cultures evolve.

"Doesn't personality matter more than culture?" 

Whether personality matters more than culture is, in many ways, the wrong question.

Culture is only one of many factors that influence human behaviour.

Every individual also has their own personality, experiences, education, profession, interests, family background, and countless other influences that shape how they think and behave.

Two people from the same culture can therefore behave very differently.

At the same time, personality and culture answer different questions. Personality helps us understand why one individual differs from another, while culture helps us understand why or how one group tends to differ from another.

This distinction is particularly important for leaders and organisations. While it is difficult to predict how an individual will behave, groups tend to exhibit more stable patterns. That makes culture an invaluable tool when making decisions that affect teams, organisations, or societies.

"Does culture determine how people will behave?"

Culture influences behaviour, but it does not determine it.

Knowing someone's cultural background does not allow you to predict exactly what they will say or do. Instead, it tells you which behaviours, values, or expectations are more likely to feel natural or appropriate to them.

Good intercultural management is not about assuming that everyone from a particular country behaves the same way. It is about recognising that people may approach situations differently and remaining open to understanding those differences.

"Hasn't globalisation made culture less important?"

Quite the opposite.

People around the world increasingly use the same technologies, consume similar media, and work for the same multinational organisations. At first glance, this can make cultures appear to be converging.

Yet the way people interpret these shared experiences often remains deeply influenced by culture.

The same leadership style may inspire employees in one country while creating uncertainty in another. The same communication style may be perceived as honest in one culture and impolite in another. Even organisations with global processes often find that those processes are experienced differently across countries.

Globalisation has increased the number of intercultural interactions, but it has not removed cultural differences. If anything, understanding culture has become more important because we interact across cultures more often than ever before.

Understanding culture means understanding people better

Culture is one of the most powerful lenses we have for understanding how groups of people think, communicate, and work together.

But it is only a lens.

It should never replace curiosity, empathy, or genuine conversation. The goal of understanding culture is not to place people into boxes, but rather to become aware that the boxes we already carry in our own minds may not be as universal as we once believed.

What should you do with this knowledge? 

If you've read this far, you now know considerably more about culture than when you started.

You know that culture is learned rather than inherited. That it belongs to groups rather than individuals. That it exists at many levels, can be measured, and can change over time. You also know that culture influences far more than national customs. It shapes how we communicate, lead, make decisions, collaborate, and respond to change.

But perhaps the most important lesson is this:

Understanding culture should make you less certain, not more.

It should make you more aware that the way you see the world is not the only way to see it. That what feels obvious to you may feel unfamiliar to someone else. That people often act rationally according to assumptions you may not even realise exist.

In other words, understanding culture should make you more curious.

Rather than assuming that someone is difficult, unmotivated, or uncooperative, you begin asking different questions.

Could we simply have different expectations?

Are we interpreting the same situation differently?

Am I seeing this through the lens of my own culture?

These questions are valuable whether you are leading an international organisation, working in a multicultural team, designing organisational change, or simply trying to communicate more effectively with the people around you.

Culture is not a shortcut to understanding people. It is a framework that helps you understand them better.

Where do you go from here?

This article has focused on culture as a broad concept. Depending on your interests, there are several directions you might want to explore next.

If you are interested in how culture influences organisations, continue with our guide to Organisational Culture, where we explore how culture affects strategy execution, leadership, and organisational performance.

If your work involves international collaboration, our introduction to Intercultural Management explains how National Culture influences communication, decision-making, leadership, and teamwork across borders.

If you're facing cultural challenges within your own organisation, whether you're trying to improve collaboration, align culture with strategy, support international teams, or better understand your employees, we'd be happy to help. Our consultants work with organisations around the world to measure, understand, and develop culture using research-based tools and practical interventions.

Or perhaps your goal is to deepen your own expertise. If you'd like to apply these concepts professionally, our certification programmes provide a deeper understanding of Organisational Culture, and Intercultural Management, together with practical tools that can be used in consulting, leadership, HR, and organisational development.

Whatever direction you choose, remember that understanding culture is only the beginning. The real value comes from applying that understanding to build stronger organisations, more effective leaders, and better collaboration across cultures.