While there have been many attempts to produce cross-cultural data from an etic research perspective, the data sets such comparisons are based on are rarely equivalent. A common assumption in the etic approach is that aside from language differences, cultures are similar and equivalent. People seem to feel that if we all spoke the same language, we would all be alike. But the simplicity sought in the etic approach is elusive. Mostly that's because cultures and languages are responses to environment.
Cultures consist of adaptive tool sets that humans create in the interest of survival.
These tool sets are particular to a group, and are passed on and maintained over time as traditions. Nevertheless, even the ways in which these universal dimensions are used vary across cultures. For example, in the car research previously mentioned, power was important across cultures, but it was perceived as having a technological association in one culture and an interpersonal association in another. Wealth can be commonly sought across cultures, but one culture may measure wealth in terms of the number of children one has, and in terms of gold in another. Happiness can be seen as a common pursuit, but may have very different end goals.