Culture and the profession of arms in the 21st century: An application of Hofstede's dimension theory within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Partnership for Peace (PFP) military cultures

Over many centuries, professional military personnel from multiple nations have often combined their forces to form a single unit in support of a mission against a common enemy. From the Boxer Rebellion to the World Wars to the events following September 11th in Afghanistan and Iraq, the need for multinational military forces to successfully protect and defend governments and their citizens has been well established.; The private sector, notably the international business community, has seriously addressed the impact of culture on its operations and the bottom line for decades. But despite almost universal globalization, similar research in the public sector has lagged far behind and has received only scant attention. Therefore, a key purpose of this study is to conduct cultural research in this area. Specifically, this involves professional military communities from multiple nations associated with combined (i.e., multinational) operations. The basic intent, through direct application of Hofstede's dimension theory, is to establish if there are cultural differences between similar career military personnel from multiple nations. The scope of the study involves comparing and contrasting findings from Hofstede's value survey module on representative sample nations from, currently, the 19 member NATO and the 26 member PFP military societies.; This study establishes that national cultural differences do exist among career military professionals from NATO and PFP nations, even though these professionals are serving in basically the same occupation in quite similar types of organizations. There is an additional finding that the career military personnel in NATO are a more culturally homogenous group than their counterparts in PFP. Hofstede's theory on cultural dimensions is reinforced and numerous suggestions for further cultural research are offered. Additionally, the findings not only underscore the importance of maintaining and expanding NATO, but also suggest political implications for the United States and other nations in the creation and conduct of future multinational military coalitions involving international alliances.