Quickscan

Questions:

The quick scan consists of 76 on-line questions which respondents are asked to answer. These questions are based on the research which Geert Hofstede and his colleagues conducted in the eighties of last century.

From a research perspective, 28 questions would suffice if we would have limited ourselves to the scores in the Hofstede model including some demographic data. We have however added 22 questions which give additional content regarding the six autonomous dimensions. All other additional questions, 26 in total, are to a great extent derived form the questions used to identify national cultural differences. They produce:

Some average personality characteristics, such as need for structure in the work situation.
Scores in the 5-D Model, describing value differences among national cultures. Strong deviations from the norm may give additional information about the organization culture being surveyed.
Control statements, e.g. to check whether respondents describe their work reality as objectively as possible or whether they give instead socially desirable answers.

Number of sub-cultures:

It is rare that an organization of any size and complexity has just one culture, without any sub-cultures. It is unlikely that e.g. both top management of a multinational and machine operators at the shop floor relate the same way to their work. One quick scan covering many different sub-cultures would add up to average scores in which salient information has disappeared. Thus, it is the challenge to identity at least all sub-cultures of those groups which matter for the realization of success. At the same time, one should not identify too many different sub-groups in order to avoid both redundancy and overload of information.