Comparing the Cultures of Romania and The Netherlands: When East Meets West

Abstract

Romania, a former communist country and a recent member to the European Union, and TheNetherlands, one of the oldest EU members with a long history of democracy, were compared onnational and organizational culture variables. A total of 1,182 Dutch and Romanian participantscompleted questionnaires that measured (a) Hofstede’s four national culture dimensions ofpower distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity, (b) what they perceivedcurrently in their jobs (actual practices) and what they wished for in an ideal job (values) on fivedimensions of organizational culture: autonomy, interdepartmental coordination, externalorientation, human resource orientation, and improvement orientation, and (c) practices andvalues for transformational leadership. The results showed that the Netherlands scored higher onindividualism, and lower on power distance and masculinity, than did Romania. The Dutchperceived higher levels of how autonomy, interdepartmental coordination, human resourceorientation, and improvement orientation is actually practiced in organizations, and lowerpractices levels for external orientation and transformational leadership than did the Romaniansample. With respect to values, the Dutch scored higher on autonomy and lower oninterdepartmental coordination, external orientation, human resource orientation, improvementorientation, and transformational leadership than did the Romanians. The finding that Romaniansare lower on most practices and higher on most values suggests that Romanians desire changeand that East and West European countries within the EU will grow closer to one another otherover time.