Half a Century of Measuring Culture: Review of Approaches, Challenges, and Limitations Based On the Analysis of 121 Instruments for Quantifying Culture

Abstract

After examining 121 instruments for measuring culture, we provide a historical overview and analyze how culture has been operationalized over the last half a century. Our study focuses on the topics of culture definition, dimensionality of culture models, collection and analysis of data for measuring culture, levels of culture measurement, issues of cross-cultural survey equivalence and the reliability and validity of culture measures. For each of these topics, we provide a review of existing approaches, discuss the challenges, and suggest best practices. Based on our analysis, we identify gaps in the field of culture measurement and offer directions for future research.