'Culture Convergence\r'

'Introduction In forward-looking-made measures, the globalisation topic is one of the most discussed wages across the world. With globalisation, countries has started to build stronger economic ties and be progressively reliant on separately other as it has never be. nigh researchers urge of heathenish intersection point; that is, as twain countries become closer with distributively other, they allow for be much likely to cultivate apiece(prenominal) others market-gardening, on that pointby bringing the two opposite cultures to be more than resembling.For ex angstromle, the popular culture, which originates from Western European and America, is practically to be said to curve the growing Asian countries culture, and is often dubbed as Westernization (Leung et al, 2008). Conversely, there argon many that argue also of heathen dissimilitude; which is the belief that each nations culture argon deeply rooted in the countries history, so that even if outside culture fork over to influence the belief and position of the throng, the distinction amid cultures hindquarters quench be championed, and can even amplify over time (Axelrod, 1997; Turnbull & Sheehan, 2012).Hofstede (1980) defined four di workforcesions of culture that describes the primal sympatheticities and differences of human behavior and decision making extremity that shapes sidetrack of culture. These dimensions lead be valuable for beat heathenish converging or variant. They consist of masculinity/femininity, force-out surpass, individualistisation/collectivism and hesitation barance. case distance is the dimension of which inequality of power is anticipate and accepted as normal by the less(prenominal) powerful members of organization and society.Masculinity/ Femininity is the measure of which society is oriented towards ‘masculine esteem : competitiveness, assertion, success , good performance, and so forth instead of ‘femin ine value: kindness, caring, empathy, etc. Individualism/ socialism measures to what extent society lets each individual occupy for their own: more individualism means that the ties between individuals in the society is more loose. Uncertainty shunning is the measure as to how much the members of the society keep down risky behaviors and hold on the conservative way.This essay depart effort to discuss whether countries has experienced heathenish product or divergence, by first looking to the pagan divergence phenomenon, and then the cultural intersection point phenomenon, and in the end comparing both and giving recommendation as to how the risks of the phenomenon observed can be mitigated. Discussion cultural Divergence Axelrod (1997) argued in his model that local forgathernce whitethorn cause global polarisation. He contends that the intersection point in society go forthing stay in local argona only, as the culture converge in a region that cast off zipper in common with neighboring regions.This causes local regions to have culture lap, but in the bigger country, the difference between cultures remain inactive, thus increasing polarization or cultural divergence. Axelrod (1997) also argues that polarization aim gets higher if there argon a fewer dimensions of the culture, many alternative traits on each dimensions, and if the sizing of the region is large enough to allow for many cultures, but small enough for the careen b order of magnitude to finish before all cultural boundaries are dissolved by the spread of cultural traits. Further, Klemm et al. (2003) argued that the level of intervention to a culture influences how the culture drifts.They argued that perturbation, up to a level, will bring a culture to converge together, but when the perturbation or influence is high enough, the culture will split into several(prenominal) sub-culture, meaning the culture has been polarized or diverged. This phenomenon can be attributed to several reasons, such(prenominal) as preference for more extreme views, geographical isolation, social oppositeiation (tendency for groups to specialise themselves compared to other groups), drift, the in and out of fads and fashions, specialization and changing environment or technology (Axelrod, 1997).There are close to examples of this phenomenon in the sure life. For one, Turnbull & Sheehan(2012) argued that due to historic and cultural differences, the chain fast food companionship McDonald have to alter their strategy and brand imaginativeness in Canada and Japan. This happens even though they are a company that is trying to build a similar image in ein truth country they are established in. Furthermore, they also comprise that some of Australias in the public eye(predicate) relations policy clearly rejects that their culture has been assimilated to the US culture.A nonher example is given by Darling-Wolf (2004) interview with Japanese women about outsideers, in which he install that Japanese women are still viewing Western women as shallow, vain and selfish. Martin (2010) also found that Japanese people found irrelevant actors and actresses to be more benevolent if they exhibit some Japanese characteristics. This indicates that Japanese women still hold their cultural value highly, and not influenced by the Westernization that may happen as a forget of the strong ties between Japan and America. Finally, Anderson et al. 2000) found that there are significant differences between Indian and American aerospace scientists and engineers, especially in the power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance dimension, indicating cultures still at the very least maintain their differences, if not diverging from each other. ethnic overlap The conjecture behind cultural intersection notion is that a nations culture is viewed as a sub outline of a global culture, and that culture is an open system that can exchange input and outputs wit h other cultures.Given this, to avoid entropy a system needs to bother an equilibrium, which is the state where all cultures are assimilated, and hence forming a culture intersection point. This theory proposes that if two cultures move frequently, they will most likely be converged together(Bergiel, 2011). One example that comes to mind when discussing convergence is Westernization, which is the phenomena where non-Western (typically Asian) culture are often changed and influenced with Western cultures by dint of the exposure by media such as TV and Internet, as nearly as from various other interaction between the two cultures.The ever increasing global marketing, as well as the increasing number of businesses that expands their business to foreign countries, only serve as a fomite for cultural assimilation to happen, as the two cultures will mesh together and form a stable equilibrium according to this notion. This notion of cultural convergence also gain some support from re searchers.As an example, Bergiel (2011) found in his news report about Japanese and US culture that in regards of individualism, masculinity and power distance the trend of convergence has been found to be very extreme, as the role of the two country reverses in between the two decades since Hofstede released his study in 1980. In 1980, the US society were said to be keeping up the value of individualism, have low power distance and masculinity, plot in this study it was found that now Japan culture has now go from collectivism to individualism, surpassing the US score in the dimension, have lower power distance compared to the US, and is more masculine.However, this may be also influenced by the politic-economic circumstanceors in the two country, and not solely by the fact that the two culture interacted with each other. Also, in the long-term orientation it has been found that the two cultures converge, sporting similar score in that dimension. Further, Nieves et al. (2006) also found from their study that Mexican and American engineers has converged their culture in the individualism dimension, compared to when Hofstede did his research in 1980.Convergence Vs. Divergence Hence, piece of music cultural convergence theory contends that over time and contrasting cultures that interacts with each other will form a stable equilibrium eventually, the cultural divergence theory contends that cultures will maintain its own unique identity, as culture needs big enough perturbation to have a lasting change, and they typically maintain their difference despite the influence from foreign cultures/countries.Some researchers argue that globalization will seduce cultures to converge, as globalization means that information is very easily accessible, and cultures are exposed to other cultures constantly, so that in cultural convergence theory this will cause those cultures to form an equilibrium, and that the world is converging into a ‘global village. (Ingl ehart & Welzel, 2005). However, some researchers also argue that globalization may not necessarily cause convergence. Inglehart & Norris (2009) argued that the globalization may even cause polarization of the cultures.They argued that the set that the rich countrys public hold usually changes rapidly, art object shorter countries generally are slower in adapting change in culture. This opens up a gap in culture difference between rich societies and poor societies. Further, they also found that richer countries also differ in culture in religiosity to poor societies. Richer countries are becoming more and more secular in these days, while poorer countries are typically more tralatitious and religious.Similarly, richer countries are also moving towards gender equality, while many poorer societies still hold patriarchal values highly (Inglehart ; Norris, 2009). Further, this can also apply not to nations cultures, but also its subcultures. Typically, the richer societies i n the urban area adopt new values more rapidly, and clownish society sticks with their conventional culture and adopt changes slowly. Finally, convergence theory is argued to be exaggerating the level of consensus of core value between US and other countries, thereby cut the actual level of assimilation barrier that exists in the real world.Hence, it is most likely that cultural divergence and polarization is what genuinely happens in the world. Organizations should take bank line of this divergence phenomenon in order to successfully take in a global or multi interior(a) operation. Some researchers argue that the national cultural difference may bring problems in an organization in the desegregation process and consequently knowledge pitch (Vaara, 2003). The reason this happens is cultural difference is often thought to stymy cooperation between the members.Further, Hogg & Terry (2000) argued that likeness are often a factor in deciding attractiveness and trustworthin ess, and having different culture makes an individual automatically less attractive and trustworthy compared to somebody from the same culture. However, Sarala & Vaara (2009) argued that with different culture, organization may benefit from having different knowledge and repertoire that could be shared around. Hence, with cultural difference, knowledge transfer can potentially be more effective as there are more knowledge to go around.Although the knowledge potential is great, what is more grievous is to actually manage to spread it around the organization and make sure that individuals from different cultures are comfortable with each other. Sarala & Vaara (2009) argued that the way for organization to do this is through comfortd confabulation, in order to reduce uncertainty and increase trust between the members of the organization. Also equally important is that the organization focussing practice must be aligned with the nations culture that they are in, in order to o perate smoothly in the face of cultural difference (Nieves et al, 2006).Hence, to be successful, an organization must proactively try to make the members of the organization increase their trust with each other, as well as changing their managing practices, depending on the culture that they are currently residing in. Conclusion In conclusion, cultural convergence is the theory that different cultures that interact in a regular basis will influence each other and form a stable equilibrium, thus converging the two cultures, while cultural divergence is the theory that states that cultural differences will be maintained, and even grow apart from each other even though they interact in a regular basis.The basis of cultural convergence theory is that the member of society will try to imitate and assimilate the new foreign culture, while the cultural divergence theory contends that group tends to stay within themselves and differentiate themselves from other groups. In real life, it seem s likely that the cultural divergence theory is correct, as even if a culture is experiencing change from foreign culture, the rate of change in the different part of society may be different, thus creating a gap as well.For example, richer societies tend to adopt new values quickly, while poorer societies might hold to their traditional value, hence creating a cultural divergence overall. To get across this issue, organization needs to actively try to facilitate communication between the members of their organization if they have different cultures, as well as altering their focus practice to fit the culture of the society that they are currently residing in. Reference Anderson, C. J. , Glassman, M. , ; Pinelli, T. (2000).A Comparison of Communications Practices Among Indian and US Scientists and Engineers. journal of East-West duty, 6(1), 81-108. Axelrod, R. (1997). 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