Professional Life

Geert is destined to go to Delft University of Technology. But Geert is a high school graduate at the age of 16, and too young for student life. His father therefore enrols him in the local technical college.

It gives him the opportunity to master the practical skills of the profession: technical drawing, carpentry, metal works. He enjoys the work and would later state that “not having the right tools” is a major frustration”.

Highlight of his studies is an internship as a ship’s mechanic, 5th class, working below deck in the engine room of the SS Johan de Witt. The voyage takes him to the Dutch East Indies, now called Indonesia.

A year before graduating, at the age of 18, he transfers to Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in order to avoid the draft.

• The SS Johan de Witt
• Geert’s seaman’s book
• Geert’s technical drawing skills

• The two brothers, Peter and Geert, off to the university, both with the traditional bald heads of first year members of the student society.
• Geert’s student cards
• A field trip to England landed on the front page.
• The cover of Geert’s master’s thesis: Four stroke Diesel engine.

Listen to Geert explain how his personal experience led him to choose the topic for his PhD.

After graduating from Delft University in 1953, Geert was drafted into the army as an engineer. He describes his new living quarters as:   “an old carcass” with 32 beds for soldier engineers.

He struggles with the fact that he in the army and considers becoming a conscientious objector, but decides against it after discussing this with friends. He writes to Maaike: (his friend) De Koning tells me that it might be a good idea to be drafted because then I can see from the inside how rotton the war machine is. This will give me strength to dedicate my life to positive things that go against war.

Just before the end of his military service, his jeep is involved in an accident while he was driving, leaving him with a dent in his head.

After fulfilling his military service and before starting his job as an engineer, Geert wanted to experience life as a factory worker, incognito.

For four months, from March to July 1955, Geert worked incognito as a semi-skilled  fitter for a printing press company in Amsterdam and one month as an unskilled labourer in a tobacco factory.

It was a learning experience, it was a painful learning experience. But real learning experiences tend to be painful.

Listen to Geert describe his experience as an incognito unskilled labourer.

Geert embarked on his first jobs as a manager in three Dutch industrial companies, the first one was Stork in Hengelo, where his family came from.

With Stork, he negotiated taking  a course in management as “assistent to the director” by Berenschot, before starting his job. He finished the course in 1956, after which the family moved to Drienerwold in Hengelo for him to start his job.

He was 27 years old. He was starting a family and was earning 500 guilders a month.

In 1959, he started a job at De Jong en Van Dam, Jovanda, a company making ladies stockings. He tells about his experiences in the film. When he returned home from a vacation to Paris, a letter from the management was waiting which asked him to “extend his holidays”.

He then got a job at a textile factory in Enschede, N.J. Denk N.V. He was particularly pleased with that job, because Fred Polak, a professor in “futurology” was on the board of directors.  Before accepting the job, he had spoken to Polak about doing a PhD in social sciences, an ambition that Polak supported.

Now he was earning 15 000 guilders per year, but he writes: I did not accept the job because of the pay, but because of the responsibility.

Listen to Geert describe his experience as beginning manager at a company for ladies stockings.

At IMEDE he could develop his budding ideas about cultural dimensions.

Listen to Geert explain why he went to Brussels to write Culture’s Consequences.

IRIC was a prime example of scientific entrepreneurship.. Listen to Geert speak of IRIC.

• Geert delivering his inaugural address
• Titel of the address
• Geert with Hein Schreuder, who was instrumental for the acceptance of the International Management Programme
• Geert with his wife Maaike.

In 1993 Geert turned 65, and became emeritus. He delivered his valedictory address on the topic of Images of Europe:past, present and future.

There were major differences between Geert’s inaugural address and his parting address. The former was in Dutch for a Dutch audience; the latter in English for an international audience.  This fundamental shift in focus was predominately due to the Maastricht Treaty (1992)  founding the European Union.

Unfortunately, the International Management programme, dear to Geert’s heart, had been abandoned by the faculty during Geert’s sabbatical in Hong Kong and Hawaii. After Geert’s address, Franz Palm, made a public apology on behalf of the Faculty Board.

A Geert Hofstede Chair in Cultural Diversity was established, with Professor dr. Mark Peterson as chair.

“Dutch people tend to underestimate the importance and international impact of my work. Our feminine culture is more readily prone to jealousy rather than recognition. I sincerely hope that we will find a stable home to carry on this work.”

Geert Hofstede, 24 november 2003, Letter to Jo Ritsen, Chair of Board of Directors, Maastricht University

See the official ceremony in which Geert Hofstede was knighted.

Listen to Geert’s reflecting on his awards and distinctions.