Hofstede’s (1984, 2001) seminal work on cross – cultural dimensions was based on his survey of more than 116,000 IBM employees in 40 countries (Robbins et al. 2012). Hofstede argued that the work – related cultural values and ethics were the closest indicators of national cultures of respective nations and their populations. Thus based on the attributes of organizational cultures, post - modifications, he ranked countries across the globe based on six – dimensional cultural indices as Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism versus Collectivism Index – commonly termed as Individualism Index (INI), Masculinity versus Femininity Index – commonly termed as Masculinity Index (MSI), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), Long – term versus Short – term Orientation Index – commonly termed as Long – term Orientation Index (LOI), and Indulgence versus Restraint Index – commonly termed as Indulgence Index (IDI). Although Hofstede classified the countries based on the data of six individual parameters (indices), a strong necessity was felt for constructing a composite index which will incorporate all the six cultural dimension indices individually and in a collective manner in order to serve two major objectives: first, to establish a linear regressionary relationship between the composite index coined as Hofstede’s Global Cultural Dimension Index (HGCDI) and the individual cultural dimension indices and the Cumulative Cultural Dimension Index (CCDI) respectively [ CCDI is the sum of all the six cultural dimension indices]; and second, to derive the regional surface areas of the HGCDI, individual cultural indices, and CCDI which will help us to analyze the dual effects of individual cultural dimension indices separately and collectively on the HGCDI. HGCDI’s computation is based on the complete cross – sectional datasets of 64 countries around the world. The datasets of other countries are purposely omitted due to the paucity or non – availability of data for all the six cultural dimension indices.
