BEYOND CZECH AND SLOVAK DIFFERENCES IN HOFSTEDE ́S MASCULINITY INDEX: AN INVESTIGATION OF CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES USING HOFSTEDE’S AND SCHWARTZ’S FRAMEWORK

A number of studies adopting either Hofstede ́s Cultural Values Survey approach or Schwartz ́s concept of Value Types have documented major distinctions in value preferences between Czechs and Slovaks. The most prominent one has been represented either by the dimension of Masculinity (as constructed by Hofstede) or value type of Achievement (a concept of Schwartz); both defined by similar content, stressing the importance of success, achievement and competence. In this study, we therefore aim to explore this difference in more detail. For that purpose, we contrasted two matched samples of Czech (N=200) and Slovak (N=200) participants representative of the two populations. One of the main findings of the study was that several items were interpreted quite differently both within and across the countries. This prompted us to look in more detail at the four items that make up the MAS index. Our results, based on participants ́ responses to VSM2013 and PVQ21 and their demographic information, suggest that factors such as religious affiliation, age, gender and residence size were not major predictors of cross-cultural differences in Masculinity, but rather this single item on Hofstede's VSM 2013 questionnaire. One theoretical possibility brought about by our findings is that while the dimension of Masculinity might be culturally universal, the items devised to measure it could have culture-specific content.