118 UNDERSTANDING MAGYAR: AN ANALYSIS OF HUNGARIAN IDENTITY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF CULTURAL DIMENSIONS THEORY AND ADDITIONAL METRICS Peter HOLICZA Óbuda UniversityĽ Doctoral School on Safety and Security SciencesĽ BudapestĽ Hungary Abstract The importance of recognizing cultural diversity is increasing in the so-called ’global’ Ň1st century. Cultural differences present new challenges and also new opportunities, this is especially true for a fragmented Europe and European Union. This paper intends to emphasize the importance of cultural awareness by presenting a literature review and aims to identify the characteristic features of Hungarian culture along Hofstede’sĽ Trompenaars’ and Hall’s proposed categoriesĽ including the GLOBE Study. Researcher’s findings will be compared in order to investigate differences between each perspective and the existing data vs. new data. Keywords: cultural characteristics, Hungarian culture, cultural dimensions, Hofstede, Trompenaars, Hall, GLOBE Study Introduction Several theories have been formulated to explain what culture is. The Oxford dictionary describes simply: The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. According to the interpretation of Kim Ann Zimmermann: “Culture is the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Today, in the United States as in other countries populated largely by immigrants, the culture is influenced by the many groups of people that now make up the country”. [1] Others relate the culture with patterns: „Learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day living patterns. These patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction...”. [Ň] John Useem states it as learned and shared behaviour: “Culture has been defined in a number of waysĽ but most simplyĽ as the learned and shared behaviour of a community of interacting human beings”. [ň] In order to describe cultural differences, Professor Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most comprehensive studies. He defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others”. [Ő] His model of national culture consists of six dimensions, namely:  Power Distance Index (The degree to which members of a collective expect power to be distributed equally. It does not reflect an objective difference in power distribution, but rather the way people perceive power differences.),