Major publications

Gert Jan Hofstede’s major publications

Gert Jan has been working on a variety of topics since the early nineteen eighties. With a MSc in population biology, an interest in social behaviour, and  job experience in computer programming, he has tended to publish across fields that are hard to classify.

On this page a few core topics are highlighted. For many more, see my google scholar citations profile. Researchers will find some source texts in Researchgate or Academia. As of 2019 there is a rapid move to open source publication, and searching Google Scholar will provide web-readable versions of many articles.

Topics alphabetically

  • Complex Adaptive Systems,
    Most of my recent work involves agent-based modelling of phenomena that have various levels of analysis: individuals act and form patterns. Much of this work is done with PhD students in various corners of the Life Sciences. See my ongoing research page. 
  • culture-aware virtual agents, 
     This was done since 2010 in the context of EU-projects Semira and eCute. Semira yielded the article Linking norms and culture. ECute yielded the concept of Social importance dynamics. In 2013-2014 I was a fellow at NIAS with Frank Dignum and Rui Prada. We did a position paper "From autistic to social agents". 
  • culture's causes
    My dream is to study culture's causation though dynamics of emergence, much like the gender gap example. I see that as a big challenge. In 2015 I wrote a 'Distinguished Scholar Essay' on it for Journal of Cross-Cultural Management.
  • emergence of the gender gap,
    In 2013-2014 I was a fellow at NIAS with Frank Dignum and Rui Prada. We did a model study on status-power dynamics among children. Here is the first paper about that study. The second paper is 'The status–power arena: a comprehensive agent-based model of social status dynamics and gender in groups of children', AI & Society 2018. 
  • modelling negotiation, 
    I worked on this from 2006 on with Tim Verwaart and Catholijn Jonker. We created a series of articles on modelling each of the first five Hofstede dimensions. These are referred to in a 2012 article Cultural Differentiation of Negotiating Agents 
  • simulation gaming,
     This dates from the mid-nineties to present. There are far too many games to mention. I also wrote some overview articles and a well-read book for trainers. See the simulation games page for some highlights.
  • trust and transparency in production networks, 
     This dates from the first century of this century,  when food scares had shaken up agrifood supply chains. A clear presentation of the concept of transparency can be found in the 2003 article Transparency in netchains. A rich description of the dynamics of trust and transparency across cultures is provided in the 2004 book by Kluwer publishers Hide or confide? The dilemma of transparency (not available online).

Early work

Gert Jan's first publication in 1984 concerned abnormal stereotyped behaviours in tethered sows. Its conclusions did not meet with immediate public approval. 30 years on, this type of housing was banned in the Netherlands.

G.M. Cronin, P.R. Wiepkema, G.J. Hofstede (1984) The development of stereotypies in tethered sows. in J. Unshelm, G. van Putten, K. Zeeb (Eds.), Proc. of the Int. Congress on Applied Ethology in Farm Animals, KTBL, Darmstadt (1984), pp. 97–100.

Today, Gert Jan has resumed this line of work with Iris Boumans, who obtained her PhD in 2017. 

Look for publications by Iris Boumans et al. on feeding behaviour and tail biting in pigs.

Modesty in Modelling

Gert Jan summarised findings from his PhD thesis Modesty in Modelling in an article "Open problems, formal problems".

Open problems, Formal problems. Journal of Decision Systems 4:2, 1995.

ABSTRACT This article's purpose is to introduce the notion of an open problem as opposed to that of a formal problem, and to indicate the importance of these notions for those who develop decision support systems. These two notions emerged out of a study on the feasibility of interactive planning systems. Typically, developers of automated information systems think in terms of formal problems while planners deal with their planning tasks as open problems. This leads to problems of communication. Adopting a participative development method in itself is not enough to overcome these problems. Explicit search for open aspects of the planners' problem, and explicit concern for them during DSS design, are also needed. Open aspects should be searched for and agreed upon. An important guideline for the design of a DSS is that if open aspects are found, it may be wise not to hard?wire them into a model, because that might rob the planners of the flexibility they need.