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An improvement to Kogut and Singh measure of cultural distance considering the relationship among different dimensions of culture

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  • Kandogan, Yener

Abstract

National cultural distance construct has wide-spread use in the international business literature, with many applications. Despite its limitations as summarized by Shenkar (2001), the method in Kogut and Singh (1988) is commonly adopted by researchers to measure cultural distance. This article demonstrates that this method is a special case of the distance measure in Mahalanobis (1936) under the assumption of zero covariances between different dimensions of culture. Further, it demonstrates that this assumption is not valid for several cultural dimensions of countries measured by Hofstede (1980), and suggests a simple modification to the method that corrects for this invalid assumption, and hence produces more accurate measures of cultural distance. The article concludes with a comparison of cultural distances as measured by the original and the modified version of the method.

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  • Kandogan, Yener, 2012. "An improvement to Kogut and Singh measure of cultural distance considering the relationship among different dimensions of culture," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 196-203.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:26:y:2012:i:2:p:196-203
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2011.11.001
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    2. Messner, Wolfgang, 2022. "Cultural Heterozygosity: Towards a New Measure of Within-Country Cultural Diversity," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(4).
    3. Kedia, Ben L. & Bilgili, Tsvetomira V., 2015. "When history matters: The effect of historical ties on the relationship between institutional distance and shares acquired," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 921-934.
    4. Oded Shenkar & Stephen B Tallman & Hao Wang & Jie Wu, 2022. "National culture and international business: A path forward," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(3), pages 516-533, April.
    5. Shulgin, Sergey & Zinkina, Julia & Korotayev, Andrey, 2017. "“Neighbors in values”: A new dataset of cultural distances between countries based on individuals’ values, and its application to the study of global trade," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 966-985.
    6. Henry, Elaine & Thewissen, James & Torsin, Wouter, 2021. "International Earnings Announcements: Tone, Forward-looking Statements, and Informativeness," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2021016, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    7. Fedenia, Mark & Shafer, Sherrill & Skiba, Hilla, 2013. "Information immobility, industry concentration, and institutional investors’ performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2140-2159.
    8. Zorzeta Bakaki, 2021. "Climate Variability and Transnational Migration: A Dyadic Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, January.
    9. Tobias Böhmelt & Vincenzo Bove, 2020. "Does cultural proximity contain terrorism diffusion?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(2), pages 251-264, March.
    10. Kaasa, Anneli & Vadi, Maaja & Varblane, Urmas, 2016. "A new dataset of cultural distances for European countries and regions," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 231-241.
    11. Beracha, Eli & Fedenia, Mark & Skiba, Hilla, 2014. "Culture's impact on institutional investors' trading frequency," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 34-47.
    12. Danko Tarabar, 2019. "Globalization, cultural distance, and cultural convergence: some new evidence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(1), pages 453-466.

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