Minkov, M., & Hofstede, G. (2012). Is national culture a meaningful concept? Cultural values delineate homogeneous national clusters of in-country regions. Cross-Cultural Research, 46(2), 133-159.

Many cross-cultural studies have utilized nations as the units of analysis. Researchers, however, questioned the concept of national culture for a variety of reasons. They argued that there may be great cultural diversity within some countries yet there are commonalities across national borders.

The authors used the World Values Survey data in their study. They revealed that basic cultural values are overwhelmingly clustered along national lines in 299 in-country regions from 28 countries in East and Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Anglo world. Cross-border intermixtures are relatively rare.

These findings are valid even for the countries of Malaysia and Indonesia, or Mexico and Guatemala, which share official languages, ethnic groups, religions, historical experiences, and traditions. Other findings are that even the regions of such neighboring African nations as Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Mali, do not intermix much when they are clustered on the basis of cultural values.

Minkov, M., & Hofstede, G. (2012). Is national culture a meaningful concept? Cultural values delineate homogeneous national clusters of in-country regions. Cross-Cultural Research, 46(2), 133-159. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397111427262